Talk:Travel advisories

No understand section
Why is there no "understand" section? Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:46, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

What to do with travel advisories
I'm considering vfd-ing it, but considering the reaction this usually draws, I am instead raising it here. Any idea what to do with the article? In its current form it is little more than an awkward connection of links... Hobbitschuster (talk) 19:27, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I think it is useful to have these links assembled, but it is an awkward article - maybe it could become a section of the Stay safe article. Ground Zero (talk) 19:41, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, having those links somewhere is certainly of value (though the connection of links is by no means complete, and if we were to list 194 travel advisories, the article might never be anything but an incredibly long list and there are no good objective criteria to not list any existing travel advisory), but I am not sure the way the article currently is is the best way to do so. We usually link to some of them anyway if there are extant travel warnings. Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:10, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Pagebanner
Why is there a pagebanner showing part of Africa? This is not a destination article, and associating Africa and only Africa with travel advisories, as the use of this pagebanner would imply, is offensive. I'd rather have no pagebanner than the existing one. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:21, 3 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree. It's hard for me to think of what a good banner for this article would look like, but I think a default pagebanner would be better than this one. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:50, 3 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Maybe some general symbol signifying caution or danger or knowledge or advice or text? Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:06, 4 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree, something along that line. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:09, 4 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Perhaps this could somehow be made into a banner? [[File:Minefield road sign - Falkland Islands.jpg]].


 * Or is it too alarmist / niche / overdramatic? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:04, 4 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Seems appropriate to me. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:45, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
 * That image looks too small for a banner, but I think something in that spirit could work. —Granger (talk · contribs) 12:53, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm claiming this suggestion to somehow become mine. All mine. Don't tread on me. :) https://www.flickr.com/photos/wgauthier/36160568171/ K7L (talk) 18:19, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Problematic insofar as the sign specifically shows a Slavic language written with the Latin alphabet (which is evident even to non-language-nerds) and thus might have similar issues as the "clearly Africa" pagebanner we now have. Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:49, 6 December 2017 (UTC)


 * How about this? —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:01, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Smashing. It's grounded, but it has a statement to make. I tried it out in the banner space, and the page really blows up with that picture. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 23:31, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, excellent, though it could also work for an article on unexploded ordnance or some such. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:13, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
 * It could, but since we don't have one of those yet, we might as well put it to good use here. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:02, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

we do have war zone safety, though. Hobbitschuster (talk) 19:32, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Should we give an appraisal of travel advisories
Given edits like this and a probably real tendency of certain travel advisories to be more alarmist, should the aforementioned article include a value judgment about any or all of the advisories (e.g. "The United States will overstate the dangers in countries it is not allied with but generally treat the same dangers less alarmistically in allied countries")? Or is this a potential point where we would spend more digital ink debating minutiae than currently at Talk:USA? Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:55, 3 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I think that remarks about the general nature or (in)consistency of various nations' travel advisories would be well placed in the Travel advisories article, which needs a new banner (but I'll post about that in that article's talk page). Otherwise, any needed remarks about specific travel advisories are best placed in the "Stay safe" sections of destination articles or, if the travel advisory is truly egregiously off, perhaps in "Understand" or even the lede. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:19, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I think we have to let readers make their own judgments about these warnings. While I agree that some travel warnings are alarmist (I did just get back from travelling in Iran with my same-sex partner), I don't think we should think that we have better info than a government. It would be awful if someone ignored a warning on our advice and got into trouble. Ground Zero (talk) 23:21, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I strongly agree with that last sentence. Even if we acknowledge they're corruptible, it should be clear that countries with a large diplomatic presence across the world and fingers in lots of military and intelligence pies will have a better idea about where's safe and where isn't than we do. I'm not certain we should ever give advice that is contrary to what multiple countries' foreign offices say, other than to remind travellers that they have the right to ignore official advice, and that they are ultimately responsible for their own safety. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:56, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Right. But I think it's still possible to give a comparative analysis of different governments' tendencies in terms of travel advice. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:47, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I think that will lead to a lot more debates of the sort to which Hobbitschuster referred. Ground Zero (talk) 02:19, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Who is International SOS?
On the "about us" page of internationalsos.com only tell about "our approach", not a word that I can find about what kind of institution or company it is. I don't like that kind of sites. Does somebody have experience of them, knowing they are indeed valuable enough to be listed? Otherwise an unknown members-only site does not warrant a link, much less a section, in a page of ours. –LPfi (talk) 20:48, 7 November 2020 (UTC)


 * I agree.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 13:06, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Pagebanner contents bar
is it just me, or does the banner of this article not show the section headings / contents bar? I'm editing in desktop mode on Chrome, and wonder if it's just a quirk of my situation or if it's a problem for others too. Banners on other articles are displaying normally.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 13:10, 8 November 2020 (UTC)


 * I think it's because there are only two headings. It seems the pagebanner only shows the contents bar if there are at least four headings. —Granger (talk · contribs) 13:23, 8 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Oh. Perhaps there's an assumption an article with few headings is automatically going to be too short to justify a contents bar. That's a bit odd.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:12, 8 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Yes. I now that from Wikipedia, where I have never seen it as a problem (sometime it is the other way round, a short article can have a TOC because of trivial subheadings). There one can use magic words to get it as one likes, but I don't know how it works with the page banner – but is there a need for the TOC? I suppose those reading the article for the first time can skim through it easily, and those who just want a certain link can push [end] to get to the table. –LPfi (talk) 08:26, 9 November 2020 (UTC)


 * I have added noctoc=true to the pagebanner parameters. This removed a dark line at the bottom of the banner, which looked like the contents bar was hiding. AlasdairW (talk) 22:17, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Languages
You said that the "advisories are written in the official language(s) of the country". Is there some reason for that to be universally true? After I reverted your edit, I found that the Finnish version in English was a bare-bones one, with just COVID-19 related recommendations. I would think that many countries would like to help also residents with other native languages (such as Spanish in the USA), but perhaps I am just a dreamer. In the countries I know proficiency in a national language is a prerequisite for naturalisation, so citizens can be supposed to know an official language, but I suppose that comes from the nationalistic ideas forming most European countries. No idea about citizenship requirements elsewhere. –LPfi (talk) 07:44, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
 * The US does not have an official language ad several of the states that do have a non-English language co-official. Often, but not always, Spanish. Hobbitschuster (talk) 09:22, 19 May 2021 (UTC)