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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

In Malay, there are two words for "please" that have different meanings and are used in different contexts. There are also two words for "we" that have different meanings. Etc. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:34, 30 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would expect all the foreign phrases to be reproduced exactly as they were in the existing phrasebook(s) that they were taken from. Ideally the left side phrases would also be exact reproductions, unless they were used to create a phrasebook to be part of a WV that doesn't currently have any phrasebooks; but it is less of an issue if the left side doesn't read perfectly. I am assuming that an Abstract Wikivoyage would have some mechanism for handling quoted text, as this is essential for reproducing the exact words used in famous speeches etc, and will be required for abstract Wikipedia and Wikiquote etc. AlasdairW (talk) 14:06, 30 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

Question for all involved: The new banner uses some icons to depict the category that the article is featured in (i.e., DotM, OtBP and FTT). I assume that we wish to keep these instead of the placeholder icons I have used? I'll be working on adapting those into simple white icons, which should be pretty straight-forward. If we wish to change them in future, then that can always be done afterwards. Having the icons consistent between {{Banner}} and {{Pagebanner}} would be for the better, I reckon :)

I am currently aiming to roll these updates out this weekend (June 7/8), just in time for the next featured article change. ― Wauteurz (talk) 23:55, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Update: Making and updating the icons was pretty straight-forward indeed: Diff/5071035 ― Wauteurz (talk) 00:20, 2 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Support. Lots of good improvements! Just make sure to fix the "Off the Beaten Path" link to point to a real page. Gerode (talk) 15:10, 2 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Done. Thanks for spotting that one! ― Wauteurz (talk) 15:19, 2 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Done! Thank you everyone for your support! I've gone ahead and pushed these changes just now. I've naturally updated the usages of {{banner}} on the Main Page and DOTM-Candidates as well. If there's any issues arising from this roll-out, please let me know. ― Wauteurz (talk) 11:34, 7 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Awesome! That looks great to me. //shb (t | c | m) 11:46, 7 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

https://www.carryology.com/travel/10-travel-tips-from-experts-whove-been-everywhere/ —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:05, 30 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I tried to ask a question in the Wikivoyage:Tourist office, and I replied to it with another question, but I can't see any of it except in edit mode and don't understand why. I used the form on that page to ask the first question. What I want to know is which side of the train to sit on for Amtrak trips between Montreal and Plattsburgh, NY and between Plattsburgh and Saratoga Springs, even if the answers come too late for me to use them. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:24, 30 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

When you click "Ready? Ask a new question!", should the form on the next page require the "Subject:" field to not be empty? Or at least have a placeholder subject text?

I also see someone else's question about Cancun that got ignored, because it's tacked on the end of the previous section. Gerode (talk) 20:42, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I guess the problem is that I didn't see the subject field in my mobile phone interface. Is there a way to improve that? Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:58, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

It looks like you can set a default subject value with the InputBox 'default=' parameter. Maybe give it something like "Question from ~~~"? I'm not sure how to change the "Subject:" label styling.

Should the Tourist Office behave more like a Talk page, with an Add Topic button leading to a visual editor? Gerode (talk) 23:44, 2 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'd support that. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:48, 2 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

It looks like adding a "NEWSECTIONLINK" line is the magic to enable the visual editor on a page. There's also a usedt=true parameter to InputBox to make it use the visual editor by default.

It seems to work in this sandbox I set up: User:Gerode/Tourist_office_sandbox Gerode (talk) 17:48, 5 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I went ahead and applied these two changes. Let me know if I broke anything, or if there's anything else odd about the Tourist office. Gerode (talk) 16:22, 9 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

You are invited to participate at Talk:Bangalore#Bangalore to Bengaluru, which can affect the articles Bangalore and Bangalore Rural, and the category Category:Bangalore. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 08:19, 31 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi everyone! 👋

My name is Alvin Ategyeka from Uganda, and I’ve just launched a new project called AfriVoyage. It’s a WikiVoyage-focused initiative to document African travel destinations using local perspectives. Our pilot is starting in Uganda, with the goal of improving content and training youth contributors.

You can follow the project on Meta-Wiki here: meta:AfriVoyage

I would love your thoughts, guidance, and support.

Thanks in advance! unsigned comment by User:Alvinategyeka

Welcome, Alvin. Wikivoyage really needs more African content, especially if provided by people with local knowledge. Your project will be supported from regular contributors like me. Please let us know how we can help. Ground Zero (talk) 13:41, 31 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Alvinategyeka, I think you will be a more successful leader if you improve some articles yourself, before you invite anyone else to join you. We'd be happy to help you.

For example, one mistake that we see people making is copying Wikipedia articles here. A Wikipedia article will sound something like "Semuliki National Park is a national park in Bwamba County, a remote part of the Bundibugyo District in the Western Region of Uganda that was established in October 1993". This is the wrong approach here. A Wikivoyage article should have a lively tone. The beginning of a good Wikivoyage article might sound something like this:

• Semuliki National Park in Western Uganda is the only place you can visit a true lowland tropical forest in all of East Africa. This beautiful national park is a birdwatcher's delight, and more than 400 species of butterflies can be found inside the park's borders.

If you feel at the English Wikipedia that you have to suppress your natural style to be as dull as possible, then you'll like Wikivoyage because it allows your enthusiasm to shine in between the facts. We need the facts ("best restaurant" isn't nearly as helpful as saying how it's the best, like "good menu for vegetarians" or "artisan-quality bushera"), but we don't want a boring style. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:14, 31 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you very much and thanks for the guidance. Alvinategyeka (talk) 13:27, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank You very much. I have 6 years experience contributing to Wikimedia projects but I feel I need a new challenge and the only project that I had not explored yet always wanted to contribute to is Wiki Voyage. Am a tourism lover and i have travelled extensively in Uganda and East Africa. I hope this project will encourage more African Communities to contribute to Wiki Voyage. I will appreciate all guidance rendered. Thank You. Alvinategyeka (talk) 13:32, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you very much, hoping to connect with you for more guidance. Alvinategyeka (talk) 13:35, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sure, and thank you for taking on this opportunity and challenge! In addition to the great advice you've been given above, I think you'll find Welcome, Wikipedians very useful. For anyone who participates in this project, some additional pages that I'd consider to provide the most important guidelines and explanatory pages on this site include Wikivoyage:What is an article, Wikivoyage:The traveller comes first, Wikivoyage:Article skeleton templates, Wikivoyage:Copyleft, Wikivoyage:Don't tout, and Wikivoyage:Breadcrumb navigation.

It is absolutely not a prerequisite for anyone to read any of these before contributing here! However, you, as organizer, should read these pages, because you will then be able to distill the most important characteristics of the site for others who are enthusiastic about contributing but not yet familiar with the site, and another important thing is that once you've read or at least skipped through these pages, you can ask us questions.

I love the fact that you contacted us before the official launch of the project. In the past, projects that were begun on a large scale without any notice to us presented huge issues relating to the policies laid out in the pages I linked for you.

Thanks again, and we very much look forward to working with you and your colleagues! Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:36, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the resources and guidance. I have been reading and researching about Wiki Voyage and what you have added will guide me more. I will contact you for further guidance in order to move the project forward. Alvinategyeka (talk) 15:52, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks a lot. i look forward to working with you and seeking guidance to move the project forward. Alvinategyeka (talk) 15:54, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I noticed Evora's page banner does not exist in wikidata. I was unable to add it there. Would someone show me how to proceed, please? Claude van der Grift (talk) 18:31, 31 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Évora's banner is already defined on Wikidata since 2013, so moving it over isn't necessary. Regardless, you'd add a banner to a Wikidata item by adding a statement using P948 (page banner). Simply add the file name without the "File:" prefix but with the file extension as its value, and clicking publish. ― Wauteurz (talk) 20:28, 31 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Evora's Wikidata page is semi-protected, so you can't edit if you have made less than 50 edits on Wikidata. As already said, there is no need to edit it, as it is already using the banner from Wikidata. AlasdairW (talk) 21:47, 31 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank for your explanations AlasdairW. Unfortunately I mistook Evora for Elvas. The latter has no page banner. Sure I have more than 50 edits on wikidata. I forgot to say that I'm editing only by my smartphone. Claude van der Grift (talk) 15:00, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/ai-travel-apps —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:04, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I wonder whether we can design an AI tool that can fetch info from Wikivoyage and make a summary for you. That can replace the burden of manual summary writing by Wikivoyagers. Of course, Wikivoyage articles should be curated by humans, with AI summarizing them. I want to suggest this to Wikipedians as well, but I have been blocked there since 2021, and I mostly work on the Bengali Wikipedia. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 07:11, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I am looking into making it easier to walk Stockholm Archipelago Trail and have found the w:en:OsmAnd app useful my question is there any good examples when those to domains works good together? - –––– Salgo60 (talk) 07:43, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

As a regular OsmAnd user, I don't believe so to the best of my knowledge. :( //shb (t | c | m) 05:25, 4 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I started using OsmAnd several months ago, and I have been playing around with the Wikivoyage integration since. I spend a lot of time in a major city with a Guide-level article and I find the integration useful there. I haven't tried it with an itinerary. My first thought is to pull up a Guide or Star itinerary for a place you've been before and see what the OsmAnd experience is like. Gerode (talk) 16:08, 4 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

It's been a while since I've posted anything major on the pub, but one of the things I'm quite pleased with the way we do things here is the fact that we are very open and accommodating to users who can't speak or speak English with a large length of difficulty. We don't have any policies forcing the use of English in discussions and if someone has shown a genuine interest in the project, it isn't unorthodox for someone to go out of their way and respond in another language they know on this site.

It comes back to when @Andyrom75: told me on itwikivoyage (around when itwikivoyage hit 10k articles, iirc) that it's possible to contribute to Wikivoyage without really knowing the language – and it's true. Most of my activity on itwikivoyage has since been doing minor fixes, adding listings with no description (since you don't need to know the language to add listings, opening hours, urls, address and such), removing closed businesses/out of date info, fixing dead links and the like. Since many of our articles also follow a similar structured format, it's very easy to contribute to the site so long as you're aware of your limitations.

Some ideas I had in mind to perhaps make this wiki even more inviting to those who might not have the English skills necessary to contribute text but still want to help:

• A community written guide on this, similar to Wikivoyage:Welcome, business owners, Wikivoyage:Welcome, locals or Wikivoyage:Welcome, Wikipedians
• Finish User:SHB2000/admins table, move to the Wikivoyage namespace, add the table to Wikivoyage:Administrators, and add any advanced perms from other WMF projects.
  • Perhaps also make a similar table for non-admins who are reasonably active on this site.

More thoughts and ideas would be appreciated – even better if we can facilitate this on other language Wikivoyages.

//shb (t | c | m) 10:11, 4 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Contribute in another language version of Wikvoyage it's just a matter of willingness and time. For a certain amount of time. For few years I've supported sv:voy without knowing any word in Swedish :-D Nowadays unfortunately I don't have enough time, so I can only concentrate it on it:voy :-(

PS your support on it:voy @SHB2000 is always extremely appreciated! :-) Andyrom75 (talk) 17:14, 4 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I occasionally do the same kind of thing at the Haitian Creole Wikipedia. I can't write in the language, but I can check a maintenance category and fix the wikitext errors there.

Based on my experience, I'd say that there are two main opportunities for contribution:

• 'technical' contributions, such as fixing wikitext or broken URLs
• language-agnostic contributions, such as adding phone numbers, websites, and lat/long coordinates to listings; adding images that require no caption or only a simple/obvious one (e.g., "Disneyland" or "Town Name Church"); removing listings for closed restaurants, etc.

@Piotrus might have some ideas about which tasks are easiest for his English-language learners to do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:48, 4 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yeah this very much explains it in a nutshell. :) //shb (t | c | m) 23:13, 4 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

@WhatamIdoing Indeed, some of my ESL students have effectively only a beginner level of English at best. These days, machine translation is getting good enough to understand a lot, and contribute text that's "mostly ok". It will only get better as AI tools and student use of them improve. Anyway, you can see my activities for students at User:Hanyangprofessor2 Piotrus (talk) 01:12, 5 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I have added images that I have taken to many different language variants of Wikipedia. I use Google translate for the text and and hope that a native user if that language will make any corrections. Martinvl (talk) 11:22, 5 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I recently added a listing about Japan in ja.voy despite not knowing Japanese. The listing editor really makes it simple to improve an article. Last week I presented a Wikidata talk about Listing Editor and mentioned that it's a really good gateway to get more contributors. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 15:58, 5 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I am documenting the Stockholm Archipelago Trail and have uploaded more than 3,000 pictures / Wikimap from the trail to Wikimedia Commons. For example, the section Nåttarö will be documented on Wikivoyage here: Stockholm_Archipelago_Trail#SAT_Nåttarö and is on Wikicommons WIkimap

1) What is the policy regarding linking to a trail on Wikicommons? I believe such links add significant value by helping readers better understand the trail conditions. Additionally, I see 360-degree images as a step forward in enhancing navigation and exploration, making it easier for users to visualize the terrain.

Additionally,

2) I have used Mapillary for one section. Is there a specific policy on linking Mapillary content? For instance, Stockholm Archipelago Trail’s Landsort section is partially represented on Mapillary pKey=1060410682654434

Would appreciate any guidance on this. Thanks! Salgo60 (talk) 14:26, 4 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

The use of a limited number of thumbnails from Commons is normal. See Wikivoyage:Image policy. Otherwise, links are normally through Wikidata: please read Wikivoyage:Sister project links. For guidelines on third-party links outside Wikimedia, see Wikivoyage:External links, but the answer to your 2nd question is that such links are normally not allowed except to primary sources (for example, the website of a listed restaurant, hotel, museum, etc.) and are subject to deletion. However, Wikivoyage policies and guidelines are always open to discussion, so start a thread at the most relevant guideline article's talk page if you'd like to argue for a change. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:40, 4 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

thanks but dont the community see the added value? especially when documenting a walking trail it can be good to better understand how steep steep is....- Salgo60 (talk) 14:54, 4 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

If you don't like my suggestion of starting a discussion thread on the appropriate policy page's talk page, where you can document the indispensability of Mapillary as your argument for a policy change, you can argue for an exception to policy on Talk:Stockholm Archipelago Trail, but you can't get either a policy change or an exception by arguing in the Pub. But if you're asking for my opinion on why there has been no specific consideration of Mapillary, I'd speculate it's because most of us have never heard of it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:15, 4 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I've heard of Mapillary – I appreciate they're open source and licensed under CC-BY SA, but they're indirectly a competitor to Commons – if you can upload a photo to Mapillary, you can upload it to Commons. //shb (t | c | m) 07:28, 5 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

The difference is that you traverse a route on Mapillary its connected 360 pictures I am not an expert but click on forward on this its from me walking SAT_Landsort

• they support 360 pictures much better than Wikicommons
• OsmAnd and Open Street Map use them

Salgo60 (talk) 19:08, 7 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

One issue is that of privacy. I might trust the WMF, but I don't want to research the privacy policy and trustworthiness of a third party. Checking the website of a hotel where I intend to sleep is one thing, a Wikivoyage page being dependent on a third party is very different. –LPfi (talk) 21:58, 7 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

For Wikimedia Commons (that's their name), you can link a category or gallery via Wikidata. On a gallery page you can show all the most relevant images, with explanatory text and a layout of your liking. The rest of the images would be easily found in the category. Is that what you are looking for in your first question? –LPfi (talk) 22:04, 7 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I was trying to remove information related to crossing the border into Azerbaijan from the Baku page (it's been closed since 2020 and the only way in is via air), but trying to delete a lot of content on a new account flagged me as a vandal.

If someone has permissions to view the changes, and would be willing to check on those changes, thank you very much :) MagnumDahng (talk) 09:32, 9 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

@MagnumDahng: Can you try removing the outdated content once again? I've temporarily disabled the filters; let me know once you've removed everything that you intended to. Sorry for the extra inconvenience. //shb (t | c | m) 10:04, 9 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

It worked.

No worries. I understand why it's there :) MagnumDahng (talk) 10:15, 9 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Perfect, I've re-enabled the filters; thanks again for the updates! :) //shb (t | c | m) 10:36, 9 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Wikivoyage is a travel guide and not intended to be a collection of biographies. Still, travel topics and itineraries might mention important individuals, such as explorers, artists, monarchs, and politicians. Wikivoyage:What is an article? discourages from creating an article for a living celebrity, as these are more difficult to finish than articles for Christopher Columbus, Frank Lloyd Wright or Astrid Lindgren. Articles such as Presidents of the United States and Monarchy of the United Kingdom describe living individuals who have not concluded their careers, and they are certainly controversial. When writing Jewish Stockholm tour, Stockholm environmentalist tour and Nordic monarchies, a couple of famous living people came to mind, but I found it advisable to mention them as briefly as possible. Which general principles should we follow? /Yvwv (talk) 12:58, 9 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

It looks like foundation:BLP encourages us to have a formal policy, even if there isn't much to say. Project:Don't be evil, maybe?

We already have Wikivoyage:Photographs of identifiable people and Wikivoyage:Image policy#People in photos, which discourage photos of people. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:36, 9 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'd support a policy for the same reason. //shb (t | c | m) 11:40, 11 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think this is largely not that relevant to a travel guide, but it is actually common to have "Maps of the Stars" or tours of celebrity homes in the Los Angeles region, which to me is completely crazy and behavior that should not be encouraged. Considering Whatamidoing's point about the WMF encouraging this kind of documentation, I think having a guideline/policy is wise. Good thinking. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:00, 9 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, I would absolutely oppose any article for a tour that takes people to the homes of celebrities who would rather be private in their own homes. If this kind of tour existed in New York, New Yorkers would be up in arms about it and pressing the City Council to pass a law about it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:35, 9 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

The page and section about photos say very little, mostly discouraging photos of yourself, which isn't what this is about. says a lot more and should probably be followed also regarding locally uploaded pictures. None of those three says anything about text about people (other than that captions shouldn't be defamatory).

I think we probably shouldn't write a policy unless there are real issues. We have no reason to write about most people, and it seems common sense, like what Yvwv showed above, works reasonably well. Writing a policy opens up for loopholes and wikilawyering.

–LPfi (talk) 21:50, 9 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I wonder if our "BLP policy" could be a section in our existing Wikivoyage:Be fair policy. Basically, a few principles about avoiding mentioning individuals, and especially avoiding saying anything contentious or unfairly invading their privacy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:40, 10 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

That sounds reasonable. In the past I have opposed a suggestion to create an itinerary based on the travels of a living individual.

A more common situation is where a listing mentions something about the people that work in the hotel or restaurant. "Friendly owners" or "poor service from the waiters" is ok, but referring to staff by name needs more care. AlasdairW (talk) 23:04, 10 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

It's surely OK when the name of the Chef de Cuisine or Pastry Chef are printed on menus or are well-known chefs the restaurant promotes. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:40, 10 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Can an artist's personal life be separated from their work? At least, death is useful to conclude a life story. As Georg Riedel past away one year ago, he deserves to be described in the Jewish Stockholm tour. Aleksander Wolodarski is another person appropriate to mention, but as he is well and alive (and to some degree a divisive character in Swedish architecture) the description of him in the same article is very brief. The Harry Potter tourism barely mentions the author, and that might be good as it is. /Yvwv (talk) 10:16, 11 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think it would be fine to note the name of a celebrity chef ("Thomas Keller's restaurant, The French Laundry"), or even a relatively public non-celebrity ("The restaurant owner, Mary Smith, is also the long-time mayor of this small town" or "Olly Owner is happy to pack a picnic upon request").

However, as an extension of Wikivoyage:Avoid negative reviews, we don't really want "Chris Celebrity is pretentious and their restaurant is overpriced" or "Wendy Waitress is unfriendly and slow". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:26, 11 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think we should avoid "Wendy Waitress is unfriendly", but "Some staff are unfriendly" is ok. It is important to report negative aspects of a place if either it is balanced by "excellent cooking and wonderful bread" or it is the only place in town. It becomes more difficult with one person businesses. AlasdairW (talk) 20:24, 11 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Wikivoyage should not be interested in people: that is the province of Wikipedia. Wikivoyage is however interested in places associated with people and to this end should be cautious about their privacy. If however the individual concerned invites members of the public to their homes or businesses (for example Donald Trump has a website for Mar-a-Lago) then it is no longer Wikivoyage's role to protect his privacy: if he publicises his home, then it is incumbent on him to look after his own privacy. In contrast, Joe Biden does not appear to advertise his home, so neither should Wikivoyage (even if a search on the internet will reveal Joe Biden's properties).Martinvl (talk) 15:18, 12 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Does something like this feel about right?

----

As a general rule, Wikivoyage is interested in places, not people. Occasionally, providing a fair description will involve mentioning a specific person. In such cases, these principles apply to protect living people:

• Avoid contentious matter about living people to the maximum extent possible, to show respect for human dignity and personal privacy. Publishing personal information that is tangential to the needs of the article, trivial, ephemeral, or constitutes a negative review is unfair. For example, if a restaurant owner promotes dubious beliefs to customers, then omit the listing completely rather than writing about the owner's beliefs.
• Avoid whole articles focused on living people, such as an itinerary to see the private homes of celebrities. It is fair to have an itinerary focused on Taylor Swift's concert tours; it is not fair to have an article focused on her homes.
• Individual listings that name a living public figure are acceptable so long as the content is not contentious. However, you should avoid naming living people when a general description is adequate. For example, write "The owner is happy to talk about local history" instead of "Harry Historian, the owner, is happy to talk about local history", even though you would name the celebrity chef Thomas Keller as the owner of the restaurant The French Laundry.

----

What should be changed, added, omitted? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:39, 12 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for offering a rough draft! The one part that sticks out to me as problematic is the part about "dubious beliefs," which gives an opening to intolerant atheists to complain about a bismillah or cross in a restaurant. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:12, 12 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I was thinking about political beliefs, and specifically about an anti-masking restaurant I read about during the pandemic, but you're right: That needs to be re-worded. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:30, 12 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Still a good start, I'd say. //shb (t | c | m) 12:15, 13 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't think that businesses should be removed because of beliefs of the owner or personnel; that the owner touts antivacc or flat-earth theories might be entertaining rather than a reason to avoid them. One might tell that they might raise controversial topics. For dangerous practices, such as not using masks when needed, that would be treated like them using contaminated water or whatever. Yes, sometimes that warrants removing the listing in line with no bad reviews, but that has little to do with privacy.

For a Finnish business, it was suggested that the listings be removed because of bigotry, in effect a boycott by Wikivoyage. I am not sure about to what extent to do that, but I assume we might tell something about the owner in that case, if we leave the choice whether to use their services to our readers. I would oppose individual editors removing listings because of views that don't conform with their own, but they may of course choose not to add them.

–LPfi (talk) 12:28, 13 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think there might be a spectrum of issues, but some types of (e.g.,) bigotry are not compatible with Wikivoyage:The traveller comes first. Inclusion constitutes a recommendation, at least when there are other alternatives. If we list a restaurant, it should be because travellers are welcome. If the restaurant's listing would need to have a disclaimer along the lines of "BTW, only white people are allowed to eat here" or "People whom the owner thinks look Jewish/Muslim/Black/gay/trans will be refused service", then that restaurant shouldn't be included in Wikivoyage at all. Listed restaurants should normally be open to all of the general public.

On the other end of the spectrum, if the owner cheerfully accepts all customers, but he privately belongs to a racist organization, then that's not really relevant to the travellers' experience, so we needn't mention that. Travellers who want to patronize only businesses owned by people who share the same politics/religion/race/sexual orientation should look elsewhere for that information.

Somewhere in the middle is factual information that travellers may interpret in opposite ways. For example, if a given deli in New York City is kosher, it'd be worth noting that in the description. Most travellers won't care. Some travellers will prefer it (either for religious reasons or because kosher meat is considered more ethical than conventional meat). Some travellers will reject it. But knowing that it might appeal (or not) to different travellers is not the same as different travellers not being allowed to eat at the deli. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:02, 13 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I see no problem in describing a restaurant in terms of the religious beliefs that it portrays provided that it is done in a neutral manner - for example , "The XYZ resaurant is a kosher/halal/vegetarian establishment". The reader can then make up their ow mind about patronising the establishment - after all Wikivoyage has many articles about various places of worship. Martinvl (talk) 21:05, 13 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think the general point is that we want "XYZ is a kosher/halal/vegetarian restaurant" but not "The owner of XYZ is a Jew/Muslim/vegetarian person". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:10, 14 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree here. //shb (t | c | m) 06:56, 18 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

• Suggested rewrite of the first point (Changes in bold):

"Avoid contentious matter about living people to the maximum extent possible, to show respect for human dignity and personal privacy. Publishing personal information that is tangential to the needs of the article, trivial, ephemeral, or constitutes a negative review is unfair. For example, if a restaurant owner promotes particular beliefs to customers, then omit the listing completely rather than writing about the owner's beliefs. If however the establishment itself caters for certain beliefs and/or ethics, it is reasonable, or maybe even desireable, to add those beliefs/ethics to the description in a neutral manner - such as including the words "kosher/halal/vegetarian" to the establishment's description." Martinvl (talk) 21:14, 13 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

• I suggest that the second point be extended as follows (additions in bold):

Avoid whole articles focused on living people, such as an itinerary to see the private homes of celebrities. It is fair to have an itinerary focused on Taylor Swift's concert tours; it is not fair to have an article focused on her homes. However, if the celebrity concerend advertises their home to the general public (for example Mar-a-Lago, home of Donald Trump or Blenheim Palace, home of the Duke of Marlborough) , then it is perfectly in order to mention the home in an article and ideally to include a web address the description or article.

Martinvl (talk) 21:27, 13 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think all this discussion of beliefs and politics is bad and not something about which we want policies. Also, bad reviews are by no means inherently unfair, and I'm mystified by how anyone could think that's the case; it's just that Wikivoyage chooses with some exceptions to simply refrain from listing businesses, rather than stating that they are bad. I also don't see why we would need to add a policy that establishments that discriminate against people based for example on their ethnicity, appearance or national origin, such as a historic restaurant in Düsseldorf that refused admission to East Asians early in the pandemic, be delisted, because we already do that based on preexisting policies. Right now, I think that based on the drafts circulated in this thread, we risk approving a new policy that is worse than none. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:40, 13 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

It might be best to try the smallest possible addition. After all, it's usually easier to get a policy expanded later if we really need it, than to get it shortened later. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:08, 14 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Here's a shorter version:

----

As a general rule, Wikivoyage is interested in places, not people. Occasionally, providing a fair description will involve mentioning a specific person. In such cases, these principles apply to protect living people:

• Avoid contentious matter about living people to the maximum extent possible, to show respect for human dignity and personal privacy. Individual listings that name a living public figure are acceptable so long as the content is not contentious.
• Avoid whole articles focused on living people, such as an itinerary to see the private homes of celebrities.

----

We could also soften "the maximum extent possible". It's always "possible" to avoid mentioning anyone's name, but it's not always "reasonable" to do so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:14, 14 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

What about the article on U.S. presidents? We don't avoid contentious facts about living current and former presidents; we just agree on what should be in the blurbs about them based on the existing Wikivoyage:Be fair guidelines. I still fail to see how adding at least your first proposed guideline will improve anything. Also, are we creating a solution for a nonexistent problem? Can you cite a previous example of an article that had unnecessarily contentious facts about living people that we were not able to deal with by using existing guidelines? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:33, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Presidents of the United States is not a "whole article focused on living people"; it is a whole article focused on mostly long-dead people with just five living US Presidents being mentioned (and mostly in a "public museum" way, not a "current private home" way). This would therefore be acceptable as a case of "Individual listings that name a living public figure" that "show respect for human dignity and personal privacy".

The existing problem to be solved is: The Board of Directors for the WIkimedia Foundation said that every project needs to have an official, written BLP policy. They said this about 16 years ago, so we're running a bit behind schedule, but we should have something. Their resolution encourages "special attention to the principles of neutrality", so I think putting a few sentences inside our version of the "NPOV" policy would be appropriate. We could even create a WV:BLP shortcut to it, so the Wikipedia folks can find it easier. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:16, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

My problem is not with your second proposed provision, which is fine, but your first, and that's what my last reply addressed. If it stated that when living people have to be mentioned, we must be fair and come to a consensus about anything contentious, I'd be happy. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:33, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Can you think of any contentious or derogatory information a travel guide – especially one that does not cite external sources – needs to include? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:37, 18 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I already gave you an example! And what about when we fairly describe countries as dictatorships? We've sometimes had users object and try to whitewash articles, and in such cases, we are armed with Wikivoyage:Be fair, not some ridiculous claim that anything "contentious" is bad and must be avoided, which would have played into their hands. Wikivoyage is a travel guide, not a site that tries to be neutral. We expressly don't have an NPOV policy, but instead a policy that requires fairness. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:10, 18 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Since yesterday (and possibly earlier), the images in listings can be viewed in the dynamic map but trying to click on it to go to the full description page will lead to a broken link if they are in a city district page. This raises the issue on image attribution. You can test it on any listings with images at Queens/Flushing-Northeast and Toronto/Etobicoke. Anyone have insight on what recent changes broke this functionality? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 15:46, 12 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, needs to be fixed. For some reason, the File: prefix is prefixed by the district name. I try to check Module:Listing for the bug. –LPfi (talk) 11:52, 13 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Oops, the city name, not the district. Seemingly the article name is included in the image argument, and removed, but not properly so for subarticles. Module:Marker is possibly more relevant than Listing, but it is some underlying functionality that is the culprit. My understanding of how modules work is too weak for me to find it. –LPfi (talk) 12:10, 13 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

The images embedded within listings are often not the best currently available. They don't display unless you click and faff about, so they don't enhance the page appearance encountered by the general reader. Wouldn't it be neat if there was some repository of images that were the best available copyfree, that could be simply incorporated into the page layout? We'd be sure to use those instead, right? Grahamsands (talk) 20:20, 15 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

The main problem with that is that somebody needs to pick those best available images. That's done in Commons' galleries, where images uploaded in the last dozen years aren't included. We could use the image on Wikidata, but they might not be chosen according to what they are like as thumbnails. Perhaps a specific wikidata property could be created for thumbnail images or even Wikivoyage thumbnail images (like for our banners). About having to click several times, that could be improved, but we don't want clutter, so some discussion is needed on the trade-off if we want to change the status quo. –LPfi (talk) 18:33, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Picking those best images and considering how best to display them is exactly what editors should do, same as picking the best attractions or accommodations to list in a town, we shouldn't lazily accept what's already on the page. It's hardly an onerous task, and we want the best for our readers. Grahamsands (talk) 19:00, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Maybe we can take assistance from AI tools to ease out the problem, just like we sometimes use AI to pick the best attractions to visit, and choose the appropriate accommodation. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 19:07, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I haven't heard about us letting such decisions to AI, and I'm not sure we should do it with images. But regardless of what way the images get chosen, it would be good if the choice were saved at Wikidata, to be used automatically. As the images aren't shown in the article itself, the less effort we need to use choosing, the better. –LPfi (talk) 19:55, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

How much effort do we need to save here? The first example cited was Queens / Flushing. That page is under-illustrated, with one strong image and two so-so. It took me 10 min to find six more good images on Commons, about the right number for a page of this length. Inserting them might take 3 mins apiece, say 20 min, which I'm not volunteering to do as the entire page needs updating, a solid day's work. Grahamsands (talk) 21:07, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Choosing images sounds like a task that some people would love to do. Maybe we could advertise it better? It's even a task that people who don't speak English well should be able to do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:40, 18 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

It could be a good task, but I have seen a lot of image adding that isn't optimal: ignoring our guideline of Minimal use of images, trying to illustrate individual listings instead of the article as a whole, writing captions to that effect, and placing the images in ways that suite the editor's browser window rather than conform to best practices.

Increased advertising of this activity should thus be done cautiously, to avoid frustration both among those adding images and those patrolling.

The original issue was about images for the dynamic map, which is different from illustrating the article.

–LPfi (talk) 07:00, 19 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

While the Commons bot that alert us to images about to be deleted was revived, images are still being deleted without notification, namely those (I assume), that were nominated before 4 May. The issue was told in the linked announcement, but I did not realise its implications. So, expect some imgages to be removed with no notification on the talk page. If they might be valuable, they should be temporarily restored for local upload, like when the bot wasn't working. –LPfi (talk) 11:51, 13 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Are usurped or dead URLs (e.g. w:en:WP:JUDI) normally archived, or removed? I'm looking at the page Northampton_(Massachusetts)#Eat, where the second link is usurped. Thanks, OutsideNormality (talk) 20:22, 13 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

If a url no longer goes to the home page for the listing in question, please update it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:18, 13 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Actually, looking back, it seems like the URL was never "usurped" and was directly added as a spam link in Special:Diff/4154976/4167772. Thanks anyway for the advice. OutsideNormality (talk) 00:40, 14 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Surprised this was sent very late. I made a guide on all the candidates on Meta at m:User:SHB2000/U4C guide 2025, for those interested. //shb (t | c | m) 03:13, 14 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hello! It is now practically mainstream media (In Wisconsin Dells) that Kalahari's expanding its Indoor Waterpark into what was a mainly unused parking lot (which is currently either getting demolished or already is demolished as of posting) and will add a fully glass dome with a retractable roof (this is not an ad, this is according to many sources including the Kalahari its self, Fox11online.com, Whitewater West, Martin Aquatic, and Maverick Hayes' Social Media). Now the real question is should I add this too my page? Cheers! HistorySports (talk) 15:22, 14 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

To your page meaning what? Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:35, 14 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

@HistorySports, I think it's fair to add information about waterparks to Wisconsin Dells#Do or Wisconsin Dells#Sleep. (You pick which one based on whether people mostly stay there, and happen to use the water park, or mostly go to the water park, and a few people stay there, too – just use your judgement and don't stress about the distinction too much.)

The important thing isn't the news ("they're expanding!") but what is available today ("Wisconsin's biggest indoor waterpark").

In general, when I skim through that article, I wish that there were prices for the activities and longer descriptions. In particular, there seem to be a lot of attractions, but I have no idea which one I'd choose. Is one the lowest cost? The best value? Best for little kids? Best for teens? Best for older adults/multi-generational families? Open year-round? Has the most swimming pool lifts for wheelchair users? If you can, try to add some sort of information about the differences between different attractions that might help travellers decide which things they want to do.

Also, it looks like there are several listings that need to be moved to Baraboo. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:54, 14 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks WhatamIdoing! I will follow your advice and hopefully we can have a great page for the area of Wisconsin Dells! HistorySports (talk) 19:47, 15 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sorry I wasn't clear and that's totally my fault, but I was talking about the Wisconsin Dells page, sorry! HistorySports (talk) 19:47, 15 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. So you know, it's not your page: it's a Wikivoyage article. The only page I'd consider your page is your user page. That said, on the face of it, I would put activities in "Do", not "Sleep". Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:09, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

What is up with Wikistats page views for English Wikivoyage?

87 million last month? https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/en.wikivoyage.org/reading/total-page-views/normal%7Cbar%7C2-year%7C~total%7Cmonthly

36 million from Brazil apparently. Bluecoordinationfine (talk) 23:18, 14 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

That is a very interesting anomaly indeed. No idea why, but still very interesting to know why we have so many views from Brazil. //shb (t | c | m) 00:47, 16 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Maybe users on VPN? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 14:25, 16 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/off-the-beaten-path-american-festivals —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:58, 15 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

No-one seems to be paying any attention to the fact that we are likely to lose a photo. We need to decide whether we're OK with that or not. I will not make a unilateral decision. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:07, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Is it just me, or does it seem like too many photos have been getting removed lately? Mrkstvns (talk) 16:00, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Has there been an uptick in deletion requests at Commons? Or are we just noticing them more, now that the notifications bot is working again? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:08, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

As someone who was monitoring c:Commons:Deletion requests until the bot started working again, I think it's the latter. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:38, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I hope this deletion can be resisted. Tirrenia ferries in 2017 made a deal with Warner Bros to plaster their ships' exteriors with cartoon characters such as Batman, to give them a jazzy attractive look. That deal continues and you really cannot take a photo of any T ferry without including the character: it's as integral to the ship as the company logo and the pointy bit at the front. The intention of any such photo is to portray the ship not replicate the character, and IMO it's a misuse of copyright law to claim we can't publish it copyfree. Grahamsands (talk) 18:51, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Such arguments have been presented in the RFD on Commons, and I think that they are legally sound. However, "misuse of copyright law" is not what this is about. There is no word of God saying that utilitarian objects (in this case: the ship) can be freely photographed, and if the law says otherwise, Commons can do little about it. I think the current copyright laws are a disaster, caused by lobbyists and weak politicians, but that means that the copyright laws need to be changed (read: one should spread awareness of the absurdities), not that we can ignore current law. –LPfi (talk) 20:03, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

The Wikimedia Foundation requires that Commons files be available for unimpeded commercial use. They don't have to, and we don't have to, which is why we have a freedom of panorama fair use exception doctrine. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:10, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, true. For Commons, the stringency is because of their mission – they don't want to host content that cannot be used. All kinds of compromises are possible or even necessary, but commercial use, such as in small-budget books, is essential for their mission. In some cases, where copyright law is unclear, they could be a bit braver, but that's a separate issue. –LPfi (talk) 05:05, 18 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

More languages • Please help translate to your language

Hello all,

The call for candidates for the 2025 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees selection is now open from June 17, 2025 – July 2, 2025 at 11:59 UTC [1]. The Board of Trustees oversees the Wikimedia Foundation's work, and each Trustee serves a three-year term [2]. This is a volunteer position.

This year, the Wikimedia community will vote in late August through September 2025 to fill two (2) seats on the Foundation Board. Could you – or someone you know – be a good fit to join the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees? [3]

Learn more about what it takes to stand for these leadership positions and how to submit your candidacy on this Meta-wiki page or encourage someone else to run in this year's election.

Best regards,

Abhishek Suryawanshi
Chair of the Elections Committee

On behalf of the Elections Committee and Governance Committee

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2025/Call_for_candidates

[2] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal:Bylaws#(B)_Term.

[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2025/Resources_for_candidates

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:44, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I haven't had the time to fully look into it and I've been quite busy IRL this month, but it seems we have a new copycat site called https://www.localcityguide.net/. It mirrors Wikivoyage pages word-for-word with "2022 © Local City Guide. All rights reserved." and some pages like Itineraries ([1]) do nothing to even remove mentions of Wikivoyage. What's interesting about this site is that they've listed those behind the site so openly in the About us section – I'm not sure how accurate it is, but it could be something to go off. What are the WMF's protocols when a site copies an entire project and what can we do about it? //shb (t | c | m) 08:59, 18 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

It has a nice presentation, a handful of blog entries posted in June 2022, and it looks like the foundation of the site is our stuff, refreshed regularly. (Changes I made yesterday already appear.) There is no ability to edit articles. Ground Zero (talk) 10:11, 18 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

This is against the terms of service, CC license restrictions, and American copyright law. You should contact the Legal Team via email at legal[little-anarchy-symbol]wikimedia[point]org. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:22, 18 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I picked an arbitrary page of which I have knowledge, but which is not on the average tourist itinerary, Estcourt. It has an outline status. I clicked on "outline" and the first sentence read:

"An outline article is a status rating for any article in Wikivoyage ... " [My emphasis].

This is proof that they are copying the WIkivoyage site. Martinvl (talk) 16:00, 18 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

It seems that the contents are incorporated by a script directly from Wikivoyage similar to the html frame technology that's why the articles are up-to-date. I made a small change in some status ratings of the German Wikivoyage, and immediately you can read that this is a usable Wikivoyage article in the footer. --RolandUnger (talk) 17:24, 18 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Copying Wikivoyage's contents is okay. However, you have to provide "reasonable" attribution. That's usually done with something like a simple link to the original article on Wikivoyage. I don't see Wikivoyage mentioned on their website, so they need to fix that – but remember that the goal is for them to fix it, not to punish them or prevent them from sharing our information.

w:en:WP:BACKWARDSCOPY has some advice on how to contact websites that haven't complied with the license terms. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:27, 18 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Some input at Wikivoyage talk:Naming conventions#Disambiguators for Mexican destinations would be appreciated. //shb (t | c | m) 13:41, 19 June 2025 (UTC)Reply