Wikivoyage:Travellers' pub

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FYI: One of the site's co-founders has a new venture

User:Evan co-founded Wikitravel and launched the Social Web Foundation yesterday. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:36, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

He has also written a book on the open social networking software w:ActivityPub. Pashley (talk) 14:07, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Which (for those of you who aren't going to follow thru the link) is the foundation of the Fediverse (e.g.) Mastodon (social network), etc.). Real Internet Hall of Fame stuff. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 14:21, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

The size of the images with thumb and no px is wrong

Tracked in Phabricator ^(?)
Task T375981

I noticed that the images in an article generated with [[file:filename.jpg|thumb|caption]] (no px value) results in a much bigger result than my 120px preference. However, when I'm viewing the result (Using the "Show preview" button) while editing, the size is correct. FredTC (talk) 07:24, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I have no experience with Phabricator, so I don't recognize what is done to the problem now. Could someone explain? --FredTC (talk) 01:45, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Well, on the 3rd of October someone put the ticket in the "Phase 5: Later" category. You can look at the current Parsoid workboard and see what tasks Phases 0-5 contain, and how many of them are resolved... Let's hope they are not working on them in strict phase order. Daggerstab (talk) 07:03, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

@FredTC, in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering, what's your skin setting in the first section? And you have 120px set in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering-files? Do you have anything set in Special:GlobalPreferences#mw-prefsection-rendering-files ? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:43, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing, My skin is "Vector legacy (2010)", but for this problem I also tried it with "Vector (2022)". The problem occurred with both skins. I have 120px at "Thumbnail size". The problem also occurred at nl:Wikivoyage, but not at Wikipedia. I have nothing set at "Global preferences". FredTC (talk) 06:56, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

What's the "correct" size? I think it is better that when editing, you see images at the size people with default settings will see. Your personal preferences should not affect what image size you choose when editing. –LPfi (talk) 09:28, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

@LPfi: I think the idea of having image sizes as for users with default settings and not logged-in users (when editing), would be a good idea. So, that is exactly the opposite of the situation now. --FredTC (talk) 04:02, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

When I have this [[file:filename.jpg|thumb|caption]] image, it displays incorrect like a [[file:filename.jpg|thumb|220px|caption]] when I read pages, having "Thumbnail size" set at 120px. When I edit such a page and use the "Show preview" button, [[file:filename.jpg|thumb|caption]], displays correct like a [[file:filename.jpg|thumb|120px|caption]]. Correct displaying also happens when I compare versions using "View history". I think 220px is the size that is used for not logged-in users. The problem started happening just 1 or 2 days ago. --FredTC (talk) 10:12, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

It was probably Wednesday's update. Ladsgroup, do you know what team this would be? (Your work account hasn't been here, so I'm pinging your volunteer one.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:39, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

That Wednesday is now 3 weeks ago. It is still not working correct. Using the "Switch to legacy parser" link makes it OK. So, the new Parsoid parser must be the problem. FredTC (talk) 12:03, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

And another 2 weeks later, nothing happened. This cannot be such a great problem that it takes so much time!? FredTC (talk) 01:31, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing and @LPfi This is very very likely because of Parsoid for read project. I'd say create a ticket and tag "content transformers" team and Parsoid. Ladsgroup (talk) 11:28, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Done Thanks for the advice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:25, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Recall that we agreed to change the default to 300px. This Phabricator request T357943 has stalled. Grahamsands (talk) 20:42, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Linking phab:T357943 for recordkeeping. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 22:36, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Topics chosen and being edited by my students

The list should be mostly complete (not all students have chosen the topic, despite the deadline for the choice having passed over a week ago...). Feel free to watchlist those (as they will likely see some newbie mistakes). If you make changes/fixes, it is good to explain them in an edit summary so that the student can learn (I encourage my students to review the history of those pages and read edit summaries).

• Aletai
• Andong
• Burqin
• Dangjin
• Danyang
• Dazu
• dongying
• Emeishan
• Fuding
• Garzê
• Gonjiam District of Gwangju (Gyeonggi) and merged and redirected to that article.
• Hanzhong
• Hongseong
• Jincheng
• Jining_(Shandong)
• Jishou
• Libo County
• Luzhou
• Menghai
• Mohe
• Nonsan
• Pocheon
• Pu'er
• Putian
• Pyeongtaek
• Ruili
• Sanmenxia
• Seoul/East
• Seoul/North
• Shangrao
• Siheung
• Suqian
• wuhai
• Yanbian
• Yancheng
• Yangjiang
• Yangju
• Yecheon
• Yuzhou
• Zibo

Hanyangprofessor2 (talk) 07:48, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

謝謝 for the heads up. For those who don't know, you can temporarily add pages to your watchlist, so the watching expires after x days. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 11:21, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

@Piotrus: If only we could have timed your students' writing to coincide with the Wikipedia Asian Month - Wikivoyage Special Edition! OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:54, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited If I read that page correctly, it starts in November and continues for a month? The class will still be active during that period. Hanyangprofessor2 (talk) 07:26, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

It's actually two months, from November 20, 2024 and January 20, 2025. So your class will have ample amount of time to participate, if you and they wish. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 18:46, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

@Hanyangprofessor2: I am getting really fed up with your students making the same mistakes over and over again. I am doing my best to coach them on their talk pages, but many of them just ignore what I write. I support using Wikivoyage as a learning tool, but your students must respect other members if the community. It is time for you to have a talk with them, or start paying us to be your teaching assistants. Ground Zero (talk) 03:17, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

@Ground Zero Students will be students; some will not listen (read...); others simply won't understand the instructions. I appreciate you providing feedback to many, but if you find it troublesome, feel free to ignore them - you are not required to be my teaching assistant, as much as, again, I appreciate your efforts. If a student keeps ignoring advice despite being repeatedly asked to fix an error and repeats it, being disruptive, feel free to block them (after, preferably, giving them a last warning and pinging me regarding this). Hanyangprofessor2 (talk) 07:25, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

@Hanyangprofessor2: your goal is to use Wikivoyage as a teaching tool for your students. Our goal is to build a useful travel guide. How can we work together to achieve both goals?

Wikivoyage isn't a playground where they just just do whatever they want and walk away. It is a community project. Ignoring your students' errors doesn't achieve either of the goals we have. I don't understand why you would suggest that. And it isn't going to happen.

We want to use your students' contributions to improve Wikivoyage -- and most of them do -- and that is why other editors and I coach them. You can see our coaching on their talk pages and on article talk pages.

But when they ignore the advice and assistance they are being given and continue to make the same errors, they are being disruptive and creating ill-will. This is true of any community project, or any job they may have in the future.

Following your advice, we will revert your students' edits and block them from editing rather than let them mess up our travel guide. This isn't constructive activity, though, for us or for your students: it takes up our time while not improving Wikivoyage. But where the time we spend coaching is also being wasted, it is the better option.

Where you can help avoid this wasted effort for both parties is by making it clear to them that if they are going to use Wikivoyage as a learning tool, they have a responsibility to the other members of the community. And the same is true for you, professor. Ground Zero (talk) 13:48, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

GZ, I think the point is that you don't have to be the one to fix the students' (or any other newbies') problems. If you don't want to do it, then leave it alone and let someone else do it. What's not so helpful is for us to clean it up before he has a chance to do it himself, and then complain that he didn't do the work ...because we didn't wait long enough for him do it.

The page views for most of these articles is a couple of readers per day. That means that most of the time, we have an average of 8 to 24 hours to fix any problems before anyone will see them. We don't need everything to be perfect instantly. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:53, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

@User:WhatamIdoing, I don't think your criticism is fair. If I clean up an article to demonstrate to a new editor how things are done, I don't complain about them not doing it. There are students whom I have asked to fix their errors and who have done so. That is a success. And then there are students who ignore the requests by experienced editors to fix their mistakes. I usually wait a week or two (which is a lot more than 24 hours), and watch to see if they are making new edits. Some of them do not fix their mistakes, and continue to make the same mistakes in new edits. I think it is fair to address the problem of these students with their professor. Ground Zero (talk) 00:27, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

@Ground Zero I am afraid I don't understand your point. I tell my students to follow best practices, which are linked to, explained and demonstrated in class on many occasions, and I provide them with feedback. Some of them, however, will not listen, nor learn, and will try to cheat (newsflash: some students use AI generators for content or even discussion... welcome to ChatGPT era, sigh), etc. They are students, and not all students are good. A minority will fail the class, and unfortunately cause trouble for us - just like a minority of non-student editors will. What do you expect me to do? I cannot force the (bad) students to fix things if they don't want to. If the edits of the worst students are net negative, they should be reverted and the students who refuse to heed up repeated warnings should be blocked, just like disruptive regular users. I expect the students to get no special treatment outside (I think it is not too much to ask for) a courtesy ping to me, their instructor, in relevant discussions, so I can be aware of what is going on, and I can reinforce your message (but please don't block them without waiting a week or two to see if the issues are resolved, and note that while I try to watchlist various user and article talk pages, I can occasionally miss something, so pinging me is very useful for ensuring I am aware of the issue and can step in). Anyway, at the end of the day, I think the students create net positive value for Wikivoyage, so the assignment is welcome here? PS. As some of you know, the text of my Wikivoyage assignments is available at my userpage (User:Hanyangprofessor2; to be moved to a subpage in the near future). Feel free to suggest any rewordings, revisions, new activities, etc. Hanyangprofessor2 (talk) 02:13, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

@Hanyangprofessor2: unlike regular disruptive editors, your students create a problem for Wikivoyage because there are so many of them, and there is a significant proportion who ignore requests to fix their errors and keep making the same errors. Here are some of them: User talk:Guoying1, User talk:Parksungeun, User talk:Ysrfield, User:CHEN HEBING and User:LJY2455 (see Talk:Suqian), User talk:Dbinni, User talk:SHENZIHE, User talk:SongHyeonmin2020007129. We put a lot of effort into coaching your students, because they are students who are working in a second language, but we have no way to reach them outside of talk pages. You do have another way to reach them, and that is why we are asking for your help. If your approach is to say, "I do what I can, but it's not my problem", then I guess our response should be to spend less time coaching, and just revert and block. One request for changes, and then I'll block. Ground Zero (talk) 13:56, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Yet another merge/redirect needed

This one is straightforward, but I really can't handle all this work by myself: Gonjiam is part of Gwangju (Gyeonggi) city and needs to be moved and redirected there. I just merged and redirected Munseom to Seogwipo. A stub about an island that may be misnamed might need deletion, rather than anything else. See User talk:Xisuux#Moon Island for that one. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:10, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Looking at Special:LonelyPages, which lists pages with no links from other articles, I find several more that likely need merging & redirecting. Pashley (talk) 21:21, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Worth looking at. In the meantime, I started Wikivoyage:Votes for deletion#Moon Island. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:16, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Meanwhile, I did make the merge from Gonjiam to Gwangju (Gyeonggi). Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:39, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Seeking volunteers to join several of the movement’s committees

Each year, typically from October through December, several of the movement’s committees seek new volunteers.

Read more about the committees on their Meta-wiki pages:

• Affiliations Committee (AffCom)
• Ombuds commission (OC)
• Case Review Committee (CRC)

Applications for the committees open on 16 October 2024. Applications for the Affiliations Committee close on 18 November 2024, and applications for the Ombuds commission and the Case Review Committee close on 2 December 2024. Learn how to apply by visiting the appointment page on Meta-wiki. Post to the talk page or email [email protected] with any questions you may have.

For the Committee Support team,

-- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 23:08, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Click for a full screen dynamic map... with the Parsoid parser

Clicking the pictogram at the upper right corner of the article, displays a map wit lat=0 and long=0. When switching to the legacy parser, the correct map is shown. FredTC (talk) 10:24, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Pinging @CAnanian (WMF). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:09, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I didn't see any actions taken by the pinged CAnanian (WMF), but maybe I didn't know well enough where to look. --FredTC (talk) 05:00, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator ^(?)
Task T348722

The task is under investigation.--RolandUnger (talk) 10:06, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

I think that the full-screen map is now working again. --RolandUnger (talk) 10:21, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes. It worked for me for pages I haven't visited recently. For those that I have visited [since the bug was discovered?], reloading or pruning doesn't help, editing seems to. –LPfi (talk) 12:06, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Maybe, the pages are stored in the browser cache. Emptying the cache or the one-time addition of ?action=purge at the url should help. --RolandUnger (talk) 17:54, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

For me it is back to normal now. FredTC (talk) 01:39, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I tried those two, as I told; they didn't help [oops: I see I didn't write "purge" above, maybe I did the same error in the URL]. Both actions should refresh the browser cache, at least for the page itself (the former explicitly, the latter already by the URL being different). Editing the page helped. I don't know why the purging and editing have different effects on caching server-side – purging doesn't always help. –LPfi (talk) 07:25, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Anyway: reloading the page does seem to be enough now. –LPfi (talk) 07:27, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Back as normal for me as well. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 01:41, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Destinations not updating

I posted a question couple days ago but not hearing anything because presumably it's a low-traffic page. I have created new city/town pages since December 2023 but none of them appears in the dynamic map of the Destinations page. How often does the Destinations dynamic map get updated? And does it require manual update? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 15:40, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

It looks like any article since the end of 2021 or the start of 2022 isn't on that map, from what I gather. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 00:38, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Pinging Atsirlin and Andyrom75 from the list of tool maintainers for that page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:11, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I think that poimap2 is deprecated and replaced by the Kartographer based maps. -- Alexander (talk) 19:51, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Last time I took a look at it, I've noticed that the script fail to elaborate the en:voy database, due to its size, while it keep on working on it:voy. Due to lack of time I'm not able to fix it, and also for Listing Editor fix, after it has been rewritten by @Jdlrobson, I rely on his spare time for the support. Andyrom75 (talk) 11:08, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

The places shown on this map are taken from en-articles.js at toolforge.org. For the last time it was updated on 2022/3/1. I do not know if an update of this file would be possible in any future. It means that newer articles will never been shown on this map.

Of course, poimap2 should be replaced by Kartographer. But the feature of showing all places on a world map was removed last year. I think the main reason was to reduce the dependencies on third-party tools. This was the cause that this service is not provided at the German Wikivoyage any longer. --RolandUnger (talk) 06:47, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Since it's not likely to be resolved any time soon, I suggest replacing the last portion of the Destinations page with @Brycehughes's Explore195 map. Bryce, is it ok for us to direct more traffic to your site? And is it possible for you to add a "Destinations last updated" date to your site? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:26, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

I have checked and Explore195 also does not have destinations I have added a few months ago. Krystian55 (talk) 19:20, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

That's correct – it does not. As it stands now, I have to manually add new wv destinations to Explore195, and I generally only add those that catch my eye, when I have time. Explore195 highly correlates with Wikivoyage, but it is not a mirror of it. In fact, for countries that I considered far too visually crowded I algorithmically pruned a huge number of destinations. Explore195 uses Wikivoyage data as a base but then the challenge was presenting that data in a visually appealing and accessible way, and that required sacrifices in terms of content coverage (I don't need every county in the USA, for example – it's boring). I'm really happy that people are enjoying Explore195 (thanks OhanaUnited!) but it is a free website and I currently pay the server/CDN costs out of pocket. More traffic would be great thing in theory (I'd love to be able to help as many people as possible explore the world) but I would have to start thinking about commercialisation or at least integrating a way for people to buy me a beer/coffee. New features along with required maintenance (I'm dreading a database upgrade on my todo list) are all a lot of work. Brycehughes (talk) 22:26, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikivoyage 12 planning

Hey everyone! Wikimedia Small Projects and the Wikipedia Asian Month User Group are teaming up again to throw a contest to celebrate Wikivoyage's 12th anniversary with the Wikimedia family. As part of Wikipedia Asian Month, we’re excited to kick off something special called Wikivoyage Asian Month from November 20 to January 20, where we’ll focus on improving or creating content about Asian destinations.

You can find all the contest details on this page. Just like with the Wikivoyage 10 contest, each community needs to have at least three judges and can decide if they want to stick to the global scoring criteria or come up with their own (just keep in mind that local criteria can’t be lower than the global ones). It’d be great to whip up a list of top places to create or enhance.

This year, we also want to include other communities, like frwikivoyage, itwikivoyage, ruwikivoyage, dewikivoyage, jawikivoyage, and zhwikivoyage. If anyone who speaks those languages could help promote this initiative, that would be awesome!

Feel free to hit me up with any questions you have about it. Let’s use this discussion space to figure out what method to go with (WAM usually uses Fontaine, so we might want to stick with that).

Best, Galahad (sasageyo!)^(esvoy) 05:39, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I'll be available this summer (southern) and am more than happy to volunteer as a judge if it's needed. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 05:40, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

@Galahad, do you have someone lined up to create a CentralNotice banner? As I recall, that was the biggest hurdle last time.

Based on prior experience, especially the amount of time involved for judges, I think that we need to have very few categories, and only automated criteria (e.g., the tools automatically count up the number of edits, and judges manually subtract out any identified bad edits). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:14, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Past experience suggests that purely automatic criteria is a bad idea. It is Ok to use automatic qualifying criteria, but prizes should only be given at the judges discretion. We have had contests in past where the same 1000 bytes (eg detailing the mobile phone operators) have been added to tens of articles. We don't want "1 point for each 2000 bytes added to an existing article" to result in loads of articles getting the same boilerplate text. AlasdairW (talk) 22:02, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I strongly agree with AlasdairW on this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:06, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

+2 – most of our problem expeditions stem from a broad automatic criteria. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 00:19, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I also don't want to see "1 point for each 2000 bytes added". I would like to see automatic (or nearly automatic) criteria like "Most number of unreverted edits" or "Most number of days edited" or "Most listings updated" (the latter being detectable through the "Updated listing for..." edit summary, though it'd be nice to have the Special:Tags system tag the use of the listing editor).

And I would like the list of criteria to be short, so the judges don't have to check 20 different things. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:36, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Merely updating a listing is not necessarily good, if it's done in order to tout, involves adding default address info, makes it more encyclopedic, etc., etc. I oppose any automatic criteria. The judges need to take the time to personally review everything. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:23, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I can assist with zhwikivoyage and judge. I think we can use the same criteria as the edit-a-thon in 2018. You can only get 1 point per article, not the "1 point per 2000 bytes added". And disqualify copying & pasting the same content across different pages. These rules should eliminate the boilerplate text problem. Recognizing that some of the contents can be out-of-date, removing inaccurate information should also count (but I am not sure if any tools can be used to count "subtraction" as improvement automatically). OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 22:15, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I like the rules for the edit-a-thon 2018. But if it is to be held globally, the byte count should be changed (or removed) for different languages because of both an issue of byte count per character (ex. each Japanese characters have three bytes) and an enrichment issue for existing articles.

Also, I think it would be difficult to count minor corrections and subtractions; it would be easier to judge to focus only on the addition and creation of articles.

BTW: I can help judge on jawikivoyage though it is a small community if the contest is held there as well. It would be exciting if we could attract users from jawiki, where many users participate... Tmv (talk) 13:01, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: I can ping some admins to prioritize the banner request.

@OhanaUnited & @Tmv thanks! Please can you translate the message I posted and preferably ping me so I can provide assistance.

When it comes to global criteria, each community has the freedom to establish local criteria that suit their unique needs—this flexibility is what makes the contest so great! Ideally, we want to keep the criteria consistent, simply adjusting the requirements as necessary. It’s also crucial to leverage the content gap criterion to help prioritize our efforts; for instance, in eswikivoyage, we’re focusing on boosting our coverage of Japan destinations. Best, Galahad (sasageyo!)^(esvoy) 01:00, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

You need someone with translation rights to mark the page eligible for translation. Otherwise we can't translate the message on Meta. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:06, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

No harm in asking a TA to mark it for translation (even us ordinary Meta admins cannot do this). --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 02:19, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

@Tmv Thanks for translating the Japanese page. Is there a local page on jawikivoyage like this? We want to add ja to the participating communities table. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 06:12, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

@OhanaUnited (and other members) Hello, I'm afraid to have no reaction by Japanese community. I am not comfortable to proceed on my own, so we will pass this time. Please feel free to call Japanese community if you hold the next one! We will be supposed to be ready. --Tmv (talk) 10:54, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

No problem. Please encourage anyone to participate in English, Chinese or Spanish competition. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:34, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I think there isn't any major technical problem with the byte count for Japanese: Japanese characters use more bytes but also convey more meaning (Russian would have the problem). Anyway, isn't the competition language specific? The more severe problem of encouraging fluff remains. –LPfi (talk) 10:05, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Creation of stub articles has been a problem. If article creation is to be counted, then I think there should be a requirement of the article reaching usable status. Adding listings (appropriate ones with sufficient information) to articles seems to be among the most important tasks; although perhaps only those in bottom-level destination articles with a lack of them in the section concerned should be counted. –LPfi (talk) 10:12, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

You're obliquely making an important point: templated listings in non-bottom-level articles are usually problematic and should not be rewarded. That said, I think that any useful listings put in the right place should be appreciated and credited, not only those on otherwise blank pages. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:16, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Maybe I could suggest the removal of points for incorrectly formatted articles such as the example you brought up? (e.g., -5 points for each templated listing in a region article where it is not supposed to belong) It would have definitely helped for the Nigeria and Africa Expeditions were this a thing. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 11:14, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I think there shouldn't be punishments for good-faith edits; not giving points for possibly problematic edits, good or not, instead directs participants toward those that are easy to judge. By counting only the first listings in a section, we'd avoid long lists in big cities.

If there already are 3, 5 or 9 eat listings, adding another grill kiosk helps little; better add the first or third listing to some badly underdeveloped city article. Whether that grill kiosk is worth listing is a matter of judgement, which takes judges' time and can create frustration for the participant who added it in good faith.

–LPfi (talk) 11:51, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

If you're suggesting a full hard-cap on points for listings (such as 9 for cities/parks in buy, eat, drink and sleep), I am all for that, as that avoids the listing copypasta we saw in the Africa Expedition. That said I don't think we should have one for see or do which I think is implied. SHB2000 (t | c | m) 11:54, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I did think about eat/drink/sleep, and you are right that there can be many more relevant see/do listings. There can still be a problem of long lists: adding all churches in Helsinki (taking info from the congregation pages, where it is readily available) shouldn't give more points than adding three listings to each of a dozen articles. There could be a cap at three similar listings or some such. –LPfi (talk) 15:31, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, true; I don't remember which expedition (or if it was with a specific editor), but there was one that added loads of boring municipal parks which would have the same intended consequence. Similarly, we also need to have provisions to ensure that listings such as WV:BORING (fast food joints) don't get additional points unless proven otherwise. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 21:40, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm in favor of adding a municipal park to pretty much every article; a free place to get some sunshine and exercise is useful for anyone with jetlag, and a playground is good for anyone traveling with little kids. I have fond memories of stopping at little city parks during family road trips when I was a kid. However, I don't think we need "loads of" them in any article, and probably not even three, unless they're very different (e.g., municipal playground vs municipal swimming pool vs municipal bike path). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:44, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Sure, and more than one if they're particularly nice. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:57, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I am too – they're a great place to unwind at the end of a day; I only have an issue with excessive municipal parks. SHB2000 (t | c | m) 02:31, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Is this possible to be held at Wikimedia Incubator? Veracious (talk) 09:26, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

@Veracious: Absolutely! The Wikivoyage community in the Incubator is more than welcome to join in! Galahad (sasageyo!)^(esvoy) 06:28, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

@Galahad Does the event starts at 15 January 2025? Maybe there's a little chance for idwikivoyage to join the party as a newly-hatched project. Veracious (talk) 04:37, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

That would be really nice to see; hopefully LangCom approves idwikivoyage, it's nearly there and can't see much getting in the way of things. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 04:42, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

@Veracious: The dates are fixed. You can, however, extend the duration of the contest on idwikivoyage. Best, Galahad (sasageyo!)^(esvoy) 22:00, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

The global page is already set for translation. With just 25 days to go, it’d be great to get the local pages ready with the judges and local criteria (or decide if you wanna stick with the global criteria). Best, Galahad (sasageyo!)^(esvoy) 00:15, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

With just 15 days to go, do we need to set up a registration/sign-up page? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 22:08, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Page on eswikivoyage created! Make a page like the one for every local edition of Wikipedia Asian Month (check out the ones on Wikivoyage 10 for both eswikivoyage and enwikivoyage, for example). Also, set up the boards in Fontaine after we figure out if we're going with the global or local criteria. Galahad (sasageyo!)^(esvoy) 05:21, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

enwikivoyage and zhwikivoyage pages are also ready (I relied on your Spanish page as source for translation, so please double check the English version for accuracy). OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 07:02, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Can we get someone to be enwikivoyage judge? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 06:04, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

@SHB2000 wanted to volunteer as a judge for this edition. Galahad (sasageyo!)^(esvoy) 15:54, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Yep, can confirm. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 20:36, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

@Galahad I'm actually in favour to create a local sign up table like this (for English) and this (for those using global criteria) instead of using the Fountain. It's far easier to summarize the result without having to click through every article to figure out which country it is from (and identify any non-Asian countries). OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 06:00, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

While I have no problem with it, each community should have its own way of judging articles (if enwikivoyage and zhwikivoyage think it is optimal to use a table, great). The important thing is that when judging, the global criterion is used (or the local one, if the community discussed it). On eswikivoyage, fontaine will be used for its practicality. Best, Galahad (sasageyo!)^(esvoy) 06:26, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Graffiti wall on Wikivoyage?

I know this may not be important, but when will the Graffiti wall page be reopened for experimenting? RockTransport (talk) 17:03, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Courtesy link: Wikivoyage:Graffiti wall —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:14, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

If I read this correctly, it would be in about 15 hours. --Ypsilon (talk) 18:14, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! RockTransport (talk) 18:55, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@RockTransport: You should now be able to edit the graffiti wall (I've given you confirmed perms for a week). --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 21:20, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Why is the graffiti wall semi-protected? Of all the pages on Wikivoyage, that's probably the one where vandalism matters the least. It's also important for it to be open to edits from new editors, who may want to use it as they're getting the hang of how to edit. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:39, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Spam ≠ vandalism. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 01:06, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

What I can see, there has come spam only from two IP addresses in the last month, and vandalism from a couple more. We should be able to handle that by revert+block. Although the policy doesn't seem to explicitly allow blocking in these cases – I see no evidence that the edits were from bots, and ordinary touts should be handled with {{tout}}, not by blocking – but I think it is consistent with our practice. –LPfi (talk) 06:12, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I really did not think we needed to be having this discussion, but here we go:

• Mx Granger claimed that it was semi-protected because of vandalism – yes, vandalism. Most types of vandalism have no issue, but this was an IP user trying very hard to spam their link into their graffiti wall.
• You claim this could be handled by blocks, but blocking does nothing since they used three (not two as you claimed) IP addresses within a 32-hour period meaning the blocks are useless. The IP then continues under a different address.

And all of this, mind you, was handled by me manually confirming RockTransport for a week meaning they can edit the page while it is still protected. Was this...not an option that came to mind? (even though I brought it up at #c-SHB2000-20241019212000-RockTransport-20241019185500)

I don't think it's worth my time arguing when the two of you bring up deliberately incorrect information because you have an issue with the protections. This seems like you both are looking for a problem in search of a resolved issue. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 06:49, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I followed these incidents, rolled back one of the spam edits, I do believe, and fully vouch for SHB2000's account. Out-of-control spam is a good reason to at least temporarily restrict use of the graffiti wall. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:47, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

[edit conflict] Please! I didn't deliberately bring up false information. I'm sorry if I wasn't careful enough in analysing the history, but I really tried to search for the massive spamming (ah! there were two different .61s!). Still, two or three in 32 hours isn't that big a difference. –LPfi (talk) 08:54, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

If you think this spamming was too intense to be handled by revert-and-block, then I'd expect a discussion on that. Thanks IK for your post. I just have to trust your assessment, it seems. Still, the issue doesn't go away by giving one user the needed rights. Attempts to edit a locked page doesn't show up anywhere that I know, so other newcomers will still be hampered, if any happen to try the Graffiti wall during the locking. –LPfi (talk) 09:00, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for being honest and admitting, LPfi. I'll admit I was somewhat frustrated at the time, but glad we cleared things in the air. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 09:07, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think we need to permanently restrict edits on that page. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:02, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

The only reason to would be some unblockable spambot permanently targeting it for frequent edits that cannot be caught by a filter. I see that scenario as quite far-fetched. The question is about the threshold for semi-protecting pages, and whether half-an-hour protections would suffice. –LPfi (talk) 10:31, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

For sure, which is why it's only protected until today. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 10:46, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I did not "bring up deliberately incorrect information" and would appreciate not being accused of it. Thanks for the answer to my question, but I would prefer if we can keep Wikivoyage fun and tone down the hostility. —Granger (talk · contribs) 22:15, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

It's your responsibility to check what you add is in fact correct in discussion (spam and vandalism are handled very differently); if you can't take responsibility for that, that's frankly your issue, not anyone else's. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 02:45, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Curious (don't kill me) why we don't just have WP's per user sandbox? Brycehughes (talk) 03:21, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

@Brycehughes: Do you mean something where a link to your personalised sandbox appears in the top right corner? That's not actually that bad of an idea for new users. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 03:24, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Do we have a personalised sandbox to link to?? Brycehughes (talk) 03:29, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I mean the WP sandbox is just a link to Special:MyPage/sandbox. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 03:32, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

When I first joined this website years ago from en.wp I thought the weirdest thing was that they don't have a sandbox where I can practice my edits. Yeah I think it'd be really beneficial to have a link to the "sandbox" for new users. I think there is some verbage somewhere however that says we don't have a sandbox – I remember that. Brycehughes (talk) 03:38, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

For sure; for those who don't love a redlink in their header the option to just create it blank always exists. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 03:58, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Adding the link might be beneficial, but is spam in userspace any less problematic than spam on the graffiti wall? Neither should turn up unexpectedly in search results – do they? Whether the link would be beneficial for other reasons should be a separate discussion (and no, personally I wouldn't like that bluelink either). –LPfi (talk) 14:29, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

LPfi I'm reasonably sure non-article space on wikis is tagged with norobots (or whatever it is) or flagged as do not scan with the robots.txt (I can't recall the specific lingo but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about). I don't recall ever being able to search non-article space via Google, etc. Brycehughes (talk) 01:33, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

I cannot find "User:" in robots.txt (however, the equivalent "Käyttäjä:", "Användare:" and "Bruker:" are disallowed). Many projects disallow VFD. I cannot find any Wikivoyage-specific entries in the file. I think external links are marked with "nofollow"/"noindex" in all namespaces, which advises search engines not to give any weight to such links (seemingly '<a rel="mw:ExtLink nofollow"…' in article space; I didn't investigate more than superficially). –LPfi (talk) 08:12, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

'Wikidata item' link is moving, finally.

Hello everyone, I previously wrote on the 27th September to advise that the Wikidata item sitelink will change places in the sidebar menu, moving from the General section into the In Other Projects section. The scheduled rollout date of 04.10.2024 was delayed due to a necessary request for Mobile/MinervaNeue skin. I am happy to inform that the global rollout can now proceed and will occur later today, 22.10.2024 at 15:00 UTC-2. Please let us know if you notice any problems or bugs after this change. There should be no need for null-edits or purging cache for the changes to occur. Kind regards, -Danny Benjafield (WMDE) 11:29, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Wikivoyage at a competition

Hello there. Me and my friends are taking part in a science (STEM) competition and we would like to set up a stand for Wikivoyage (and our other project) as part of our whole project during this event. I was thinking how you could help us (ideas etc.) in doing so. Many thanks. -- RockTransport (talk) 15:54, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Welcome, @RockTransport. I'm not sure what your idea means in practice. Is this an in-person event? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:20, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it is an in-person event, and it is part of outreach, so we can get more contributors. There will be a multitude of well-known people attending this event. RockTransport (talk) 16:22, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

It would be something like this: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_stands. Additionally, there will also be another project as well that we are exhibiting. RockTransport (talk) 16:23, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

We have had travel guides in the past for events like the Olympic Games and the World Cup, and for conferences like Wikimania, so i think what you are propiding woukd be in scope. Here is one example. If you get it started, and put a link here, experienced editors will assist with formatting and making sure it compares with Wikivoyage policies. You would be responsible for content, however. Ground Zero (talk) 16:41, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I think a physical stand at an event is being proposed. Does this need a page? What may be useful is a 2-3 paragraph guide to Wikivoyage that can be printed and displayed on the stand. Do we have a page that could be printed as a WV poster? I assume that the "other project" is another WMF wiki and not another venture that we would need to question whether it is compatible. If there is some idea of the location of this event, some improvements could be made to the local pages. AlasdairW (talk) 18:00, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry Ground Zero, but this is not what I am referring to. What I'm referring to is starting up a stand at that event and talking about why you should edit on Wikivoyage etc. RockTransport (talk) 18:20, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I misunderstood. Sorry for my interruption. Carry on.... Ground Zero (talk) 18:44, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Will you be there the whole time? Will you have wifi access? Can you have more than one computer/display screen? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:52, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

We will be there the whole time and we may have Wi-fi access. I'm not too sure about the display screens though. We are unveiling the technology behind it so it is in line with the technology part. RockTransport (talk) 06:16, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

If you have a display screen (even if it's just a laptop), you can play a slideshow/video that shows how to edit, with occasional messages about why to contribute. (I would suggest making those messages as simple and basic as possible.) The advantage of a slideshow is that it can run even when you're busy with something else.

If you have time to talk to people, you could ask people to suggest changes, and show them how you do it (i.e., in your own account, or in a specially created account for the event that you use). For example, you can ask people "Here's the article for Ourtown. When you have visitors, where do you take them?" or "What have we gotten wrong in this article?"

When is your event? If it's weeks or months from now, we might be able to mail you some stickers to give away. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:45, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

After making a decision, I have decided to change my mind and I will not use Wikivoyage during this event. Thanks though! RockTransport (talk) 18:07, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Okay. Watching two stands was sounding like a lot of work and logistics to me. Maybe keep the idea in mind for another year. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:09, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Stage stations

I'm just putting this out here for a potential travel topic. In the past, when people had to ride horses to travel long distances, there would be places where they could change horses to continue the journey once their horse got tired. With such an article we could cover both the caravanserai of the Middle East and North Africa, and the shukuba of Japan. There are also a few such places in China that have been preserved, and I think the U.S. may have some such sites as well. The dog2 (talk) 02:25, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

The U.S. absolutely had them, and there are some existing stagehouse inns and restaurants at some of the places on stagecoach routes where people and horses got refreshments and rest. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:38, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

King's Road (Finland) mentions a number of inns that have survived in some form. I suppose they served a role similar to the stage stations (by letting passengers rest), although the system I know about here was a farmhand driving horses of the farm to the next farm in the system – I don't know whether the inns represent the same period. w:Coaching inn says those performed the same functions as the American w:stage stations. w:Stagecoach seems to concentrate on England, but mentions several other countries. Also w:Mail coach is probably relevant. I suppose there is a host of Wikipedia articles also on the eastern systems. –LPfi (talk) 14:30, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

For Japan there is a Wikipedia article on Shukuba (宿場), which was the Japanese equivalent during the Edo Period. In Chinese, they are called 驛站 (yìzhàn), and some of the ones in China have been preserved to the present day. There is not much information on them in English, but there are travel articles in Chinese about some of those you can visit. If we create such an article, we need to think about what to call it. "Stage station" is one name, but you may also encounter "relay station" or "post station". The dog2 (talk) 15:11, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Lion and Lamb, a former coaching i in Farnham, Surrey

There are many coaching inns throughout Europe. The give-away is usually a large door which lead to a courtyard. In the picture to the right (which shows a former coaching inn that dates back to the sixteenth century, the doorway is below the gable). The Wikipedia article scarcely does justice to the topic. Since coaching inns were used to change horses, they were seldom more than 10 km apart and many market towns had clusters of coching inns. I found an academic article about English coaching inns which gives more information here. From what I have seen in France and Germany, similar coaching inn networks exsist there as well. Today, some of these coaching inns are still hotels where patrons park their cars in the former coachyard. Others, such as the Lion and Lamb in Farnham (see illustration) have been repurposed - in this case, the courtyard is an open pedestrianised precint with a number of coffee shops. Martinvl (talk) 12:44, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

We already have an article about The Tokaido Road and many more could be made, so I don't see an issue with making more in Japan or the equivalent in other countries. Are you suggesting making a parent article that lists similar places worldwide that we don't have articles for? I don't see an issue with that either. I don't know if we have any articles to put in it at the moment outside of Japan (Magome and Tsumago are articles specifically about individual post towns), but it's a legitimate travel topic. In Japan they seem to be consistently translated as "post towns" or "post stations" in English. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 03:55, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

In the United Kingdom, the word "Post Town" has nothing to do with travelling, but is tied up with the postal service. The United Kingdom has about 1500 post towns. When mail is being delivered, it is first delivered to the main postal sorting office in the post town and from there it is either delivered to the recipient or to a subsidiary sorting office in a neighbouring town or village for futher sorting and delivery.

As regards your initial question, I was thinking in terms of an article that described a typical coaching inn, but with your suggestion, such an article could include a list of roads that have many coaching inns. Martinvl (talk) 18:02, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Final Reminder: Join us in Making Wiki Loves Ramadan Success

Dear all,

We’re thrilled to announce the Wiki Loves Ramadan event, a global initiative to celebrate Ramadan by enhancing Wikipedia and its sister projects with valuable content related to this special time of year. As we organize this event globally, we need your valuable input to make it a memorable experience for the community.

Last Call to Participate in Our Survey: To ensure that Wiki Loves Ramadan is inclusive and impactful, we kindly request you to complete our community engagement survey. Your feedback will shape the event’s focus and guide our organizing strategies to better meet community needs.

• Survey Link: Complete the Survey
• Deadline: November 10, 2024

Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts. Your input will truly make a difference!

Volunteer Opportunity: Join the Wiki Loves Ramadan Team! We’re seeking dedicated volunteers for key team roles essential to the success of this initiative. If you’re interested in volunteer roles, we invite you to apply.

• Application Link: Apply Here
• Application Deadline: October 31, 2024

Explore Open Positions: For a detailed list of roles and their responsibilities, please refer to the position descriptions here: Position Descriptions

Thank you for being part of this journey. We look forward to working together to make Wiki Loves Ramadan a success!

Warm regards,
The Wiki Loves Ramadan Organizing Team 05:11, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Android app for Wikivoyage

Hi, is there an Android app for Wikivoyage? How does it work? I have been advised that there is no infrastructure for push notifications for Android apps for sister wikis and I would be interested to know more. Related: phab:T378545. Thanks! Gryllida (talk) 23:16, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

@Gryllida: AFAIK, no, we don't have either an iOS or an Android app for Wikivoyage. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 23:27, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Any interface admin around?

Could one of you take care of User:Nothing I Can't/common.js – this is a JS page for a username that doesn't exist (never moved when the user was renamed). Thanks. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 00:50, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Same with User:Alexlur/common.css. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 00:51, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't seem to be able to remove those... -- andree 18:37, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

That's interesting – @Andyrom75:, are you able to delete those? I hope it doesn't require a sysadmin. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 03:05, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I was able to delete it. —Granger (talk · contribs) 04:24, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Interesting how I was able to just delete the second one. Must've been some glitch/connection issues on my side earlier. Thanks for deleting the first page. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 05:01, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

PSA: POI Search gadget

We had this conversation in the past few years, that many region articles have empty see/do sections. Behold this tool, which can be enabled in the preferences/gadgets to kickstart these sections:

After setting the language (standard wiki code) + clicking the button, it will search all the articles in the section and gather all see/do listings there (with wikidata/wikipedia reference). Then it retrieves the number of views (of that wikipedia article, in the above language) and finally prints out the 9 most viewed POIs, in the format of WV templates.

You can try it on e.g. North Moravia and Silesia. Some time ago, I filled that area using Wikivoyage:Maptool, and after moving the listings into the cities, this POI search can be used.

Note that if there are too many listings and/or sub-articles, this may fail/trigger some rate-limiting on wikipedia (didn't observe it, but one never knows). Comments are welcome, as usual :-) -- andree 20:40, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

I tried it out. It feels like it would be more useful for articles with little content. I particularly appreciated the tool ranking points of interest according to the number of page views on Wikipedia, as it puts the more obvious sights towards the top. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:42, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, that was the intended use - if the cities are prepared, and the whole area is reasonably covered by wikipedia, it (IMO) works nicely as 'starting content' for the region (esp. if you don't know it personally, what are the most interesting POIs). Thanks for giving it a try! :-) -- andree 06:47, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

I found it useful for Western Iowa, a mostly rural neglected region. I don't know much about that area, and there isn't much there, but by setting the radius to 100 km and looking through its list for things that sounded relevant to tourists (e.g., some lakes, some small airports), I was able to add several things that would be interesting to people outside of individual towns. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:32, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets for reference. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 22:46, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

FYI: All Travelers are Infiltrators: An Introduction to the Study of Travel Writing

https://daily.jstor.org/all-travelers-are-infiltrators-an-introduction-to-the-study-of-travel-writing/ An interesting lens to think of travel writing. Like all lenses, it clarifies some things, distorts others, etc. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:48, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Switching to the Vector 2022 skin: the final date

A two minute-long video about Vector 2022

Hello everyone, I'm reaching out on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Web team responsible for the MediaWiki skins. I'd like to revisit the topic of making Vector 2022 the default here on English Wikivoyage. I did post a message about this two years ago, but we didn't finalize it back then.

What happened in the meantime? We built dark mode and different options for font sizes, and made Vector 2022 the default on most wikis, including all other Wikivoyages. With the not-so-new V22 skin being the default, existing and coming features, like dark mode and temporary accounts respectively, will become available for logged-out users here.

If you're curious about the details on why we need to deploy the skin soon, here's more information

* Due to releases of new features only available in the Vector 2022 skin, our technical ability to support both skins as the default is coming to an end. Keeping more than one skin as the default across different wikis indefinitely is impossible. This is about the architecture of our skins. As the Foundation or the movement in general, we don't have the capability to develop and maintain software working with different skins as default. This means that the longer we keep multiple skins as the default, the higher the likelihood of bugs, regressions, and other things breaking that we do not have the resources to support or fix.   Vector 2022 has been the default on almost all wikis for more than a year. In this time, the skin was proven to provide improvements to readers while also evolving. After we built and deployed on most wikis, we added new features, such as the Appearance menu with the dark mode functionality. We will keep working on this skin, and deployment doesn't mean that existing issues will not be addressed. For example, as part of our work on the Accessibility for Reading project, we built out dark mode, changed the width of the main page back to full (T357706), and solved issues of wide tables overlapping the right-column menus (T330527). Vector legacy's code is not compatible with some of the existing, coming, or future software. Keeping this skin as the default would exclude most users from these improvements. Important examples of features not supported by Vector legacy are: the enriched table of contents on talk pages, dark mode, and also temporary account holder experience which, due to legal reasons, we will have to enable. In other words, the only skin supporting features for temporary account holders (like banners informing "hey, you're using a temp account") is Vector 2022. If you are curious about temporary accounts, read our latest blog post.

So, we will deploy Vector 2022 here in three weeks, in the week of November 25. If you think there are any significant technical issues, let us know. We will talk and may make some changes, most likely after the deployment. Thank you! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 16:22, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

@SGrabarczuk (WMF), click here: https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Grinnell?useskin=vector-2022 and take a look at the missing page title. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:35, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

I see it on desktop, it's in the pagebanner. Do you mean the lack of a "floating" page title bar? Using Template:Pagebanner seems to disable it. The issue is probably fundamentally with Extension:WikidataPageBanner and/or its CSS. There's an open bug report since 2022. Either that, or the floating bar hasn't been enabled for the main namespace. Daggerstab (talk) 09:31, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm primarily concerned about the big empty space that I've marked here. It looks odd.

Additionally, while I don't think we necessarily want "wide width", we might want a wider default, and to have these sidebars start off collapsed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:52, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

That's an inevitable result of the Pagebanner extension suppressing the article title. And apparently it's made bigger by a placeholder box for the site notice? I don't know if the languages menu can be repositioned via CSS or some skin settings. Daggerstab (talk) 22:23, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

@Daggerstab, WhatamIdoing: I was already writing my thoughts in reply to the Pagebanner-Vector2022 compatibility, but I'll do that separately. The part of it that applies here, is that having the text size set as standard blows a lot of elements, and makes many others (like the pagebanner) considerably smaller in comparison, to where some templates are simply unusable. Setting the text to be 'small' instead, results in a version of Vector2022 that more or less everything we know and love from old-Vector, except styled it's like an early-2020s website instead of a late-1990s website.

― Wauteurz (talk) 22:38, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Reading this back, and Christ does it look like my head was turned off. None of what I said is really relevant to this discussion. My apologies for that.

I think I meant to raise the fact that, yes, MW:Extension:WikipediaPageBanner does conflict with Vector2022's floating title, and that a patch (Phab:T306744) is being worked on, seemingly close to being finalised. That said, I think my note of the small text setting making Vector2022 look more familiar to those still used to old-Vector does hold true. It distorts templates and extensions considerably less, but making the point here was a tad irrelevant. :)
― Wauteurz (talk) 22:18, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

That patch was me, BTW. I didn't wait until the weekend. Daggerstab (talk) 06:31, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm still opposed to this change – what exactly has changed for Wikivoyage since. What you seemed to have mentioned in your post doesn't seem to resolve any of the Wikivoyage-specific issues. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 04:18, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I looked at the linked old discussion, and there seem to be no site-breaking issues. Some CSS changes might be necessary to preserve pagebanner height, and perhaps the skin's default page width should be set to "wide". The only major issue is the missing floating title bar, and it's mainly an issue because the button for unhiding the side menu goes there when the menu is hidden. (See my other comment about the pagebanner extension bug report.) Daggerstab (talk) 09:49, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I did some technical investigation of the issue and posted a comment to that bug report. If nobody does anything until the weekend, I can actually go through the whole rigamarole of setting up a MediaWiki development environment and try to submit a fix myself. Daggerstab (talk) 12:18, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

SHB, the question here is what's going to change for Wikivoyage soon. If we don't switch, stuff's going to start breaking, and when we complain, they're going to say "Well, we told you that we weren't going to keep supporting that 15-year-old skin forever. It's your own fault if you decided to use old software after we warned you." WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:54, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Right, I see – doesn't help that we're considered an afterthought here. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 21:04, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

No, we're a "first thought"; that's why they're warning us in advance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:44, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

If we were truly a first thought, the issues brought up would have been fixed 2 years back, not now. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 03:53, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Asking out of curiosity more than anything, but what according to you are the issues that were brought up that haven't yet been fixed? I can't seem to identify ones that haven't yet been mended or at least touched on. The only things that I can see not having been addressed, weren't within Vector2022's scope to begin with.
― Wauteurz (talk) 22:11, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

I do prefer Vector2022 over old-Vector, but only once modified. My main grope with Vector2022 as it stands, is that it breaks all of Wikivoyage's UI and layout balance. This is because of two factors: Scaling, and compatibility. Scaling is an issue since Vector2022 blows up the proportions of UI elements to where there's barely any room left to fit content (as @WhatamIdoing's screenshot above demonstrates). Compatibility is an issue as Wikivoyage articles depend on MW:Extension:WikidataPageBanner, and it is not yet updated to be entirely compatible with Vector2022, although a patch fixing the lack of a floating bar is currently being tested. Floating the pagebanner at the top of the page in place of the floating title bar I don't think is a feature that's being worked on, but the TOC is in the sidebar anyway - so that's not much of an issue.

Also, I would implore anyone still against or on the fence about Vector2022 to use, to enable it, customise that scaling so it doesn't break every template's proportions, and use it for a week or two. Yes, it takes some time to find where things have moved, but you'll also find that having, for example, a TOS on the sidebar is a massive quality of life improvement.

I personally would only support Vector2022 being rolled out here once the floating bar is fixed (which shouldn't take that long), and if Wikivoyage's default appearance uses the 'small' text option so we don't have to rethink our whole layout as a result of Vector2022.

The way I see it, Vector2022 definitely is the way forward, and the skin doesn't need anything additional for us that I am aware of. But despite that, other extensions, modules, &c, that we use, are not yet fully compatible with it, so we're not in a position to make the switch yet. Give it a few more months, and we should be there.

― Wauteurz (talk) 23:20, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Excessive whitespace above the (hidden) title

The issue noticed by @WhatamIdoing above is partially caused by a placeholder that remains after the sitenotice banner is collapsed. On my display, it's 24 px high, either because it has a fixed height in CSS (which doesn't seem the case), or because it has some kind of actual content, a default banner - a div containing a "<!-- CentralNotice -->" comment. Someone with more user rights than me should look into that.--Daggerstab (talk) 09:28, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Would like review of Charlton

I've recently been working on updating the information for my hometown of Charlton and now think it's relatively complete (at least for a first pass at things). I'd appreciate someone experienced in Wikivoyage to take a look to see if I've done enough to graduate it out of "Outline" status, and please provide any further suggestions for improvements. Thank you! -- PeterCooperJr (talk) 19:32, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

@PeterCooperJr, that's a really nice article. Congratulations!

If you were looking for something else to add, then I like to note an outdoor activity or two that is suitable for wheelchairs/walkers/people with mobility issues, and I like to mention the existence of public restrooms in parks. This can literally be as short as typing "Restrooms." at the end of a description, or by adding a description like "flat, paved" to hiking trails (or the opposite sentiments: "loose dirt" or "climbs 300 ft elevation"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:43, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello, PeterCooperJr, I have to echo WhatamIdoing's kind words – great work to the article! Other than what she already mentioned, my only gripe with the article is the "By plane" article – typically we only include airports if they are in that town and more so, information from how to get from the airports to the town needs to be present. I think the two Worcester airports are fine (but you will need to add information on getting from the two airports), but Boston and Bradley seem realistically too far away to be useful for travellers. Otherwise, keep up the great work. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 04:11, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I disagree. Logan Airport is the major airport in the area. If you want to get to Charlton from most other places by plane, you are not going to go to some local Worcester airport, when Worcester is 40 miles from Boston. Note this description (emphasis added): "This regional airport is about 20 minutes away from Charlton, and while it only has a few flights daily it's much more convenient to drive to than the larger airports that are further away." Where we agree is that there shouldn't be listings for the bigger airports farther away; instead, Boston Logan International Airport and [[BDL|Bradley International Airport]] should be merely linked. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:32, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Yep, the listings should merely be linked, not listified (whereas Worcester seems close enough to be listified). I simply happened to phrase that very poorly. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 04:35, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Maybe something on the weather/seasons? Sorry if this sounds a bit British, but isn't this one of those places where T shirts are not warm enough in the winter, and is it one of those places where the leaves get colourful in the autumn? Also are there any local cuisine specialities, such as is this in Maple syrup country? WereSpielChequers (talk) 13:29, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank for the suggestions. I had thought that sort of thing was more handled in the region/state articles, rather than this article on a small town, but I could certainly add a bit on the weather. And yes, we do get some nice fall foliage, though one usually goes a bit further north for maple syrup. (And thanks everyone else here too for the other suggestions and improvements that have been made; I haven't had as much of a chance to get back to this as I thought I would have to touch things up more, but I haven't forgotten!) -- PeterCooperJr (talk) 14:16, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Template:Overseasjobscam

Template:Overseasjobscam Does anybody know if this is still relevant? If no one does, at what time threshold do we call this irrelevant? This is currently displayed on: Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Myawaddy, Northern Myanmar, Sihanoukville, Southeastern Myanmar and Tachileik. At what point do we call this? My plan is that if no one has any further details on this within the next week or two, I'll just mass remove these from the pages, and propose the template for deletion. Brycehughes (talk) 02:33, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Sounds like a good plan to me.

We do have some warnings at Volunteer_travel#Be_wary, Working_abroad#Stay_safe & Teaching_English#Risks. I think those are all we need, though some other articles might need links to those. Pashley (talk) 05:38, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Are you suggesting integrating some of the wording into the articles? I could see adding a sentence or two to the work sections of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. Brycehughes (talk) 06:05, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

The other day I found out that Wikivoyage has mw:Extension:Labeled Section Transclusion enabled, which allows parts of page text to be included into another page without being turned into proper templates. It might be helpful in this case. Daggerstab (talk) 09:34, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

The template is addressing "Chinese speakers", but this is the English Wikivoyage. So, I think the warning should be (and is) given at the Chinese Wikivoyage. FredTC (talk) 11:03, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Could {{seealso|Working_abroad#Stay_safe}} replace all uses of the template? Pashley (talk) 14:48, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

News sites say the scam is still ongoing. Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar 1, Myanmar 2, Myanmar 3, Laos. And it's now targetting new countries for scammers to traffick (e.g. Africa, South America and UK) who are fluent in English that they previously have not recruited from. I recommend keeping this note. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 15:33, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

I think that's reason enough to keep it. I would only include it in the Work sections of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar though – any objections to removing it from the child articles? Brycehughes (talk) 21:08, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Any objections going once... going twice... Brycehughes (talk) 23:26, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

It wouldn't hurt to keep the notice in child articles, but to revise the notice to mention that it's targetting both Chinese and English speakers. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:44, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

So, looking at Myawaddy, Northern Myanmar, Sihanoukville, Southeastern Myanmar and Tachileik... is there any reason that the warning box is on these particular child articles specifically? I'm not opposed to keeping them on the child articles if there's a specific reason to put them there (for example, from my experience perhaps Sihanoukville would deserve it), but I am not comfortable with a simple inheritance-from-parent situation – where does it end? OhanaUnited do you know if there are specific reasons in these child cases or is this just casual inheritance? Brycehughes (talk) 01:16, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

All the child articles seem to be recently and explicitly mentioned as scam centres. Tachileik, Sihanoukville, Myawaddy. The scam area in Myawaddy even has an Wikipedia entry called KK Park. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 06:03, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. As for Northern Myanmar and Southeastern Myanmar? Would you oppose removing the warning from those? Brycehughes (talk) 14:21, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed it from those two regional articles. The rest remain. Feel free to revert. Brycehughes (talk) 22:46, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Protection of User:Red link example

I have created User:Red link example (confirmation) for use in documentation and testing.

The account is already globally locked, so cannot be used for editing.

It is vital that the user and talk pages are not created. Can an admin kindly protect them both, permanently, with an edit summary noting that they are "for use in documentation and testing"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:43, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: Red link example is not registered locally on enwikivoyage. Could you register it locally and then give me a ping? --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 22:19, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Hang on, it is locked. I'll still go ahead and protect it anyway. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 22:23, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Attempting to revert vandalism; keep getting prevented by filters

Hello all, when I attempted to revert vandalism on User talk:Count Count, it was blocked by the filters.This has happened to me on multiple occasions, such as trying to revert cross-wiki vandalism on Wuhan and getting prevented by the filters when reporting someone at WV:VIP. Can something be done about this to where I stop getting prevented by the filters when I do counter-vandalism? Thank you. ChrisWx (talk) 03:03, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Generally most cross-wiki patrollers lack this issue due to the fact that global rollbackers have autopatrol globally, but since I notice your edit matrix x-wiki isn't super extensive (for GR), your best course of action is to just let an admin know for now until we figure out a workaround with the filters. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 03:09, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

I know this isn't the subject of your question, but I want to again object to VIP standing for something other than the obvious Very Important Person. That said, I don't think the filter should have tripped you up, and I'm confident one of our technical people will fix it, but we wouldn't have known there was a problem if you hadn't told us, so thanks for doing that, and sorry. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:11, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Yeah I hate the name of VIP – I'll make a proposal on the talk page. SHB2000 (t | c | m) 03:13, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you both for the responses! I'll remember to take this approach until the filters are fixed. I hope that the filters can be fixed soon, and will let admins like y'all know about the vandalism if you aren't taking care of it already for the time being. :) ChrisWx (talk) 03:15, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Sure thing – and in the meantime I've given you autopatroller perms since your primary work here is cross-wiki patrolling (meaning you shouldn't be caught up in such filters anymore). --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 03:17, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Awesome, thank you very much! ChrisWx (talk) 03:18, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

There were multiple issues, some of which really cannot be resolved other than by giving such rights. I fixed one filter. When disallowing your revert of a talk page edit, the filter was doing exactly what it should do – the filter had no way of knowing it wasn't vandalism. You were also caught by a global filter that seems like very easily causing false positives, with autopatroller no recourse (we cannot edit those filters, just ask for changes, and I couldn't spot the offending expression in it). –LPfi (talk) 10:54, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

See Meta:Talk:Global AbuseFilter#Filter 214. Doing some more edits could help. –LPfi (talk) 11:13, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

The global filter was updated to use the global edit count, so Wikipedians coming here for such edits won't be disallowed by it any more. –LPfi (talk) 21:34, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

That's much better than using local edit count, IMO (and my bad for not noticing and fixing it earlier). --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 21:41, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

We might want to do the same change in some of our own filters, see Special:AbuseFilter/2 for discussion on details. –LPfi (talk) 09:30, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

FYI: Arthur Frommer, travel guide innovator, has died at 95

https://apnews.com/article/arthur-frommer-died-7293814296854079a3a10f05d02faf44 —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:48, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

FYI: Travel with your nose

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/where-to-wander-places-that-smell

This was entirely up my alley. We oftentimes talk about travel in terms of sight and taste, occasionally touch sensations like temperature or comfort, but rarely smell. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 12:11, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Traffic from Russia

Wikivoyage has seen a surge in traffic from Russia. Is this related to [:w:Block of Wikipedia in Russia] (with Wikivoyage as a backup for people who cannot access Wikipedia)? Does the Wikimedia Foundation have any policy to handle countries which censor Wikimedia sites, and their inhabitants' access to information? Can Wikivoyage do anything to prevent censorship? /Yvwv (talk) 19:03, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

How can Russian and Chinese firewalls distinguish between the sites? I asked that in Talk:China#Internet censorship and Wikipedia, but I am still as confused. –LPfi (talk) 21:09, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

[Moved from top section of page, now that I'm on my computer:] I hope this is visible. For some reason, I can't edit any of the threads on this page (when I click the edit icon at the top, the page goes only this far), nor can I reply to the last thread (the "Reply" button is not responding), where I just wanted to say that the idea that Wikimedia could prevent any government from censoring sites is presumptuous. For the record, I'm editing on my iPhone 11 with the latest version of iOS. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:58, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I think they distinguish between the sites by just noticing that "wikipedia.org" is not the same as "wikivoyage.org".

I don't know how or if they differentiate between "wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide" (which I've heard is a subject they care about; suicide is a major public health problem in Russia) and "wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth" (which they probably don't care about), but the https phase happens after DNS, so controlling DNS is enough to differentiate between whole sites. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:32, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Your link shows that traffic from Russia is down by 72%, not up. Using the knowledge I learned while looking up to see if Wikiversity site is blocked in China, the Chinese government is able to distinguish if traffic goes to Wikiversity (which is unblocked) vs. to Wikipedia (which is blocked). They only block access to Wikipedia while leaving Wikiversity and Wikivoyage untouched. I guess it's a "good" thing to be lower profile than Wikipedia? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:46, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Ah! The DNS is cleartext! If you add the IPs to /etc/hosts (or whatever your system uses) and get the address from there (or your local DNS server knows the IPs), then you don't have to send DNS request over the net. The IP is the same for WP and WV, at least over here right now, so what site the request concerns is announced only in the encrypted connection. –LPfi (talk) 08:51, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Sign up for the language community meeting on November 29th, 16:00 UTC

Hello everyone,

The next language community meeting is coming up next week, on November 29th, at 16:00 UTC (Zonestamp! For your timezone <https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1732896000>). If you're interested in joining, you can sign up on this wiki page: <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Language_and_Product_Localization/Community_meetings#29_November_2024>.

This participant-driven meeting will be organized by the Wikimedia Foundation’s Language Product Localization team and the Language Diversity Hub. There will be presentations on topics like developing language keyboards, the creation of the Moore Wikipedia, and the language support track at Wiki Indaba. We will also have members from the Wayuunaiki community joining us to share their experiences with the Incubator and as a new community within our movement. This meeting will have a Spanish interpretation.

Looking forward to seeing you at the language community meeting! Cheers, Srishti 19:55, 21 November 2024 (UTC)