User talk:AndreCarrotflower/2011 and 2012

It begins...
Hello, AndreCarrotflower! Welcome to Wikivoyage.

To help get you started contributing, we've created a tips for new contributors page, full of helpful links about policies and guidelines and style, as well as some important information on copyleft and basic stuff like how to edit a page. If you need help, check out Project:Help, or post a message in the travellers' pub. LtPowers 19:59, 11 December 2011 (EST)


 * You've done such marvelous work on the Buffalo guide. I've been following your progress admiringly. Ikan Kekek 04:11, 8 January 2012 (EST)


 * Thank you. I'm happy to hear I've done a good job. Being a local ambassador of sorts is something that I'm passionate about. I've got much more to add, so keep watching :) AndreCarrotflower 04:21, 8 January 2012 (EST)


 * Indeed, it's good to see it growing, though I would caution you to keep listings that are outside of the city to a minimum. The "Get out" listings are getting a bit long (and individual attractions should be merely mentioned and not given full listings), and some listings in the main body of the article are for things well outside the city.  Everything you've written is good, but some of it should probably be reserved for articles on the outlying areas.  =)  LtPowers 15:24, 8 January 2012 (EST)


 * Thank you for your suggestions and for your continued help as I learn the finer points of Wikivoyage. As for the "Get Out" section, all of the attractions I've listed are popular day trips for locals and I feel the article would be lacking without giving them at least a passing mention. However, I do agree with you that the listings are a bit wordy - a bad habit of mine. I will work on that. I do plan on setting to work at a later point on articles on outlying areas (East Aurora, in particular) and will transfer some of the listings in the Buffalo article for attractions in outlying areas to the others at that time. AndreCarrotflower 16:00, 8 January 2012 (EST)


 * I've merged and condensed many of the outlying attractions, but I don't know that I can eliminate all the individual attraction listings in the Get Out section (Old Fort Niagara in particular), as this is a popular and worthwhile day trip from Buffalo that it would be difficult to place in any context other than stand-alone. As the Falls is a major attraction, I'd like to leave the descriptions for Niagara Falls, New York and Niagara Falls, Ontario a bit longer than the others in their section. Any further advice would be appreciated. AndreCarrotflower 16:28, 8 January 2012 (EST)


 * Looks like a big improvement, though it could still probably be pared down a bit. At this point I wouldn't quibble, but if I were writing it anew, I'd include somewhat less detail on each destination.  It's all good info, I'm just afraid it might be a bit overwhelming.  We want people to click through to the linked articles and read what we have there.  (By the way, Genesee Country Village & Museum is in Monroe County, the southwestern corner of it, not Genesee County).  LtPowers 21:46, 8 January 2012 (EST)

Price range templates
As you're quickly moving Buffalo towards star status, you might want to take a look at Template:Eatpricerange and Template:Sleeppricerange as they are useful in articles when sections have been split into price ranges. See Singapore for a sample implementation. Also - nice work! -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:59, 30 January 2012 (EST)


 * Doh! Never mind, I see you found them already.  I need to refresh my browser more often... -- Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 17:00, 30 January 2012 (EST)


 * Thank you! "Star status" sounds great. I hope to get it up to that level soon. Any further suggestions you may have would be most appreciated. I plan on submitting a proposal for district-ifying the article soon. Would I place that on the talk page? If not, where? AndreCarrotflower 01:10, 1 February 2012 (EST)


 * Yes, that should go on the talk page. And fantastic work! --Peter Talk 13:04, 4 February 2012 (EST)


 * Thank you, Peter. I will be submitting that in the next few days. AndreCarrotflower 20:19, 10 February 2012 (EST)

Districting
Since unsolicited advice is my forte, I thought I would make a recommendation for when you start the districting process for Buffalo: focus on two things: first and most importantly, refilling the main article's see, do, buy, eat, drink, and sleep sections with overview information and pointers to the appropriate district articles, and second, creating an understand section for each new article. I can certainly pitch in with moving content around, but it takes an expert to do the two aforementioned tasks well, and they are really crucial for making a districted guide work. --Peter Talk 23:23, 15 February 2012 (EST)


 * Thank you for your continued assistance. I have some ideas in that vein already, but I am (of course) open to further guidance as well. :) AndreCarrotflower 03:13, 16 February 2012 (EST)

DotM nomination
Hi, Andre. Just wanted to let you know I've nominated Buffalo for Destination of the Month. If you feel it's not ready to be featured on the front page yet, please do comment on the nomination! LtPowers 22:41, 2 June 2012 (EDT)


 * Thanks! I'm working on getting the article broken down into districts, but other obligations have consumed most of my time lately. Still, I'm really pleased with the work I've done on the article thus far and IMO it would certainly work well as a DotM. AndreCarrotflower 18:36, 4 June 2012 (EDT)


 * Out of curiosity, LtPowers: who makes the final decision as to which nominees for DotM make the cut? Is it a consensus thing, is it up to one or more senior-level admins, or something else? —The preceding comment was added by AndreCarrotflower (talk • contribs)


 * In theory, the decision is made by consensus, as with everything around here. In practice, when a new DotM is needed, whoever gets around to it first chooses from among the most promising options (those with the most support relative to opposition).  If anyone objects to that selection, then a discussion would result on the talk page, but that rarely happens.  Right now, we're short on promising candidates so anything that looks remotely ready is likely to be featured sooner rather than later.  LtPowers 10:24, 13 June 2012 (EDT)


 * I know you're excited about Buffalo as DOTM (understandably!). I've bumped it from July to September based on discussions about the London Olympics and potentially featuring London for two months rather than one, so hopefully it's not too disappointing to have to wait a bit longer to see your city featured. -- Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 14:18, 18 June 2012 (EDT)


 * Frankly, I was hoping for it NOT to be featured in July, because at last check it would have been shorted for a few days given that London as DOTM would have kicked in on July 27th. No worries at all - this will give me some time to tweak the article as needed. AndreCarrotflower 14:29, 18 June 2012 (EDT)

Nevyansk
Hi, Andre. Many thanks for your meticulous work on the Nevyansk article. I took the liberty of making a couple of small changes in places where the intended meaning was distorted. But in general your style changes are great! I wish I could master it myself =) Atsirlin 06:10, 26 July 2012 (EDT)


 * Hi there! It was my pleasure to help with the article. I've been more and more of an active participant in the monthly DotM and OTBP nominations recently, and I took a great liking to Nevyansk based on your article. I wanted your nomination of it for OTBP to go through successfully, and I thought it would be good to spruce it up a little bit to make it really shine. I placed it in the OTBP schedule and barring any changes, it should be on the front page in mid-August.


 * I reviewed the changes you made to the article. Most of your points are well taken; however, there are a few minor grammatical issues in your changes that I'm going to adjust. I hope you're not offended because my intent is for Nevyansk to really make a splash as OTBP. I will make sure and explain these changes in the Summary section.


 * Congratulations on a well-written article!


 * -- AndreCarrotflower 02:45, 27 July 2012 (EDT)


 * No problem! Your comments are very instructive, as always. I hope that we could continue at some point, as soon as I find inspiration to translate another Russian article into English. Atsirlin 04:47, 27 July 2012 (EDT)

From Wikitravel... to Wikivoyage
Hello AndreCarrotflower and welcome to Wikivoyage!

At the risk of being accused of "trying to teach my Grandmother to suck eggs" (grin):

Wikivoyage is a project with the aim to create a free, up-to-date, and reliable world-wide travel guide, and it is based on an association with the same name: Wikivoyage e.V.

To get a clearer idea about Wikivoyage and how it works, have a look at the community policies and the FAQ section. It may also be useful to read the Copyleft page where you can find more information about our license. The part of Wikivoyage called Wikivoyage General helps Wikivoyagers to organize and discuss language independent topics. If you want to find more information related to potential language versions, have a look at the language version discussions page. "How to start a new language version" will help you plunge forward.

If you understand their languages, it might be interesting to have a look at the German or the Italian language versions of Wikivoyage, as those are the long established language versions and there you will have an opportunity to discover what the project and its articles look like. The launch of the English Language version is imminent. The images that are used within our articles are at Wikivoyage Shared.

Our policies, guidelines and Manual of style may be a bit different to other Wiki's you've worked on.

If you need more information or you have questions that have not been answered in the help pages, please do not hesitate to write a post in the Travellers' Pub or to ask me directly.

--W. Franke-mailtalk 19:43, 23 September 2012 (CEST)


 * Thank you, and extra bonus points for the Ren & Stimpy ref.


 * -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 22:16, 23 September 2012 (CEST)


 * "Ren & Stimpy ref." - what the heck is that in Glaswegian, André / Andy?!? --W. Franke-mailtalk 22:41, 23 September 2012 (CEST)


 * cf. wikipedia:The Ren & Stimpy Show, a television program that made extensive use of that particular idiom, though perhaps Andre isn't aware that Mssr. Kricfaluski didn't originate the phrase. LtPowers (talk) 00:59, 24 September 2012 (CEST)


 * Indeed, I was not. Thank you, LtPowers.
 * -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 02:17, 24 September 2012 (CEST)


 * "Isn't Wikivoyage wonderful!&#8482;" --W. Franke-mailtalk 02:44, 24 September 2012 (CEST)

Abbreviations policy
Hi Andre, have you read Abbreviations? Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 11:13, 24 September 2012 (CEST)


 * I had not, in fact. My informal policy in my own writing has been to abbreviate "street", "road", "avenue" etc. in listing street addresses, but to write out the word completely when talking about the street or road itself. If this is against convention, please let me know.


 * -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 11:15, 24 September 2012 (CEST)


 * I do the same as you do; I've always interpreted the Abbreviations policy to apply primarily to listings. LtPowers (talk) 14:14, 24 September 2012 (CEST)

Re: Your honest opinion
Keep in mind that this is just my opinion, and may not reflect general sitewide preferences. =)


 * Too many Eat/Buy/Drink/etc. listings?
 * I shouldn't think so.
 * Listings too wordy?
 * On the long side, perhaps, but within reason. You've gotta give people reasons to go there.
 * Too many photos?
 * They're a bit larger than our usual standard, and File:Corner of Clarence Center Rd. and Salt Rd.jpg strikes me as superfluous, but other than that I think they're good. Some folks prefer to minimize the number of images we use, out of sympathy for those on slow connections in out-of-the-way locations... but that opinion is falling by the wayside these days.
 * Does it seem like I'm leaving anything out (other than the sections I obviously haven't gotten around to yet, i.e. "Do", "Drink")?
 * I sure hope not!
 * Is referring readers back to the Buffalo article a bad idea (i.e. "Get In", "Climate", "Go Next")?
 * We have not yet come to a good consensus on how much duplication is desirable. (Climate being one of the most obvious cases of overlap.)  If I had to guess, I'd say there's a not-insignificant bias toward self-contained articles.  But that doesn't mean rote duplication, either; even Clarence has differences from Buffalo in climate, as you note in the article.  Plus, it's not unreasonable to assume in prose that the traveler will also be interested in the Buffalo article; providing a summary in the Clarence article and linking to Buffalo for expanded information makes sense.  I would tend to suggest that such references read as naturally as possible, rather than explicitly saying "Go Here for the full deal", however.

A couple of other notes:
 * County Route numbers are not very useful in Erie County because they're largely unsigned.
 * Referring to state routes as, e.g., "NY 5" implies that that's how they're known to locals. "Route 5" would better represent the local parlance.  (Do Buffalonians use "The" for non-expressway routes, or just "The 400" and "The 290" and "The Scajacwada"?)
 * Bus route information may be a bit excessive, given its lack of importance in traveling around Clarence.
 * "Do" should at least reference the bike trails, and perhaps even become their home location in the article (not sure if Get Around or Do is better).

Overall, an amazing piece of work.

-- LtPowers (talk) 20:04, 19 October 2012 (CEST)

Long pages
Hey, just saw that you blanked the Buffalo page to see its size. There's actually a page in the Toolbox > Special pages called "Long pages" that makes this a bit easier. It lists the largest pages (by bytes) on the site. Buffalo is #1 (318,000 bytes). Clarence is on the list, too (around 190th). Cheers. -Shaund (talk) 02:25, 28 October 2012 (CET)


 * Thanks for the heads-up—wow, I had no idea I was the author of Wikivoyage's longest article! Buffalo is DEFINITELY ripe to be districted. I can't wait for its DotM month to be over so I can get cracking on that. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 02:30, 28 October 2012 (CET)


 * If that's what you're waiting for, I wouldn't. Looks like it won't be 'til spring, so we've got six months to districtify it.  I'll help.  LtPowers (talk) 02:52, 28 October 2012 (CET)


 * I'd like to finish up Clarence first - I suspect that will take, at most, a few weeks - but after that, I'd definitely be game to start on the districting. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 04:51, 28 October 2012 (CET)


 * I'll gladly help with a districts map, if you need me. --Peter Talk 15:47, 28 October 2012 (CET);


 * I'm still planning on using the district map that I posted on Buffalo's Talk page a long time ago. The advantage to that is that I plan of adapting a lot of text for the district articles from a non-Wikivoyage project of mine (yes - written by me, fully CC-compatible, etc.) In particular, the "Understand" and "History" sections are already largely complete. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:38, 28 October 2012 (CET)


 * I mean that I could spruce it up (using the same divisions), to look a little more shiny (something like this one). --Peter Talk 23:49, 28 October 2012 (CET)


 * I see what you mean now. Any help would, of course, be appreciated. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 02:45, 29 October 2012 (CET)


 * FYI, pending your review, File:Buffalo districts map.png should be good to go! Let me know if there's anything else you'd like on the map. --Peter Talk 00:18, 27 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Looks excellent. There's a few things that probably should be added, but I can take care of them.


 * Awaiting your two cents on the other issue I asked your advice on. :)


 * -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:06, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Buffalo district boundaries
I'm having a little trouble deciphering exactly where to draw the boundaries (and I like to be exact). Could you maybe draw them in on File:Buffalo districts map.png, using Paint or whatever? If any boundaries coincide with these, you could just tell me which neighborhoods are being amalgamated into a district, and I can work from that too. --Peter Talk 02:39, 2 November 2012 (CET)


 * I'll get on that. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 03:13, 2 November 2012 (CET)

Buffalo images
Hi, Andy. I noticed that some of the Buffalo images (in wts:Category:Buffalo) that you uploaded are credited to "Winston Richardson", and they do not have any copyright license listed. Can you clarify the status of these images? LtPowers (talk) 01:18, 4 November 2012 (CET)


 * Mr. Richardson is a personal friend of mine, who has given me explicit permission to use the photos in question for the site. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 02:28, 4 November 2012 (CET)


 * You'll also note that the portrait on my user page is credited to Christen Jones - same situation, different friend. Just wanted to head that one off at the pass. :) -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 02:34, 4 November 2012 (CET)


 * 'Tis fine, but it would be nice if an explicit license tag was added. =)  LtPowers (talk) 03:40, 4 November 2012 (CET)


 * Indeed. The reason I did not add the tag was because I wasn't sure which tag would be applicable. Can you help me out with that? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 03:55, 4 November 2012 (CET)


 * Well, the license tag should match whichever license your friend agreed to. LtPowers (talk) 15:07, 4 November 2012 (CET)


 * I see. I read your previous comment as "there's a specific license intended for people who didn't take the photo themselves but received permission to use it for Wikivoyage." -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:22, 4 November 2012 (CET)


 * No, it's just a matter of not knowing what license is being used. LtPowers (talk) 19:38, 4 November 2012 (CET)

Re: A quick question
Well, I'm not sure it's actually a quick question. =) Probably not a quick answer either.

Strictly speaking, all actual listings should be in district articles. The main Buffalo article (once fully districted) would, theoretically, contain only summaries of what's available in the districts. Summaries, of course, can certainly call out the most important items, but the details of address, phone number, and pricing should be reserved for the district articles.

For example, by all means mention the Sabres in the main Buffalo article, but refer readers to Buffalo/Downtown for the full listing: "The Buffalo Sabres play Downtown at the First Niagara Center...".

As with most things, Chicago is an excellent model when it comes to summary style on Wikivoyage. San Francisco is also exemplarily districted.

-- LtPowers (talk) 03:50, 24 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Of course, listings that apply to multiple districts should probably be in the main article. Both Chicago and San Francisco, for instance, make sure to list the visitor centers in the main article, with full listings -- even though they have specific locations, their services apply to the entire city.  Citywide tours would be much the same way.  In this case, it would be a judgement call whether you felt it was more important to put the listing in the main article, or if it could be shunted off to the district article corresponding to where passengers embark.
 * We do strive to avoid copying and pasting information anywhere. Much better to pick one location for the main listing, then provide a summary and a link from anywhere else that needs one.
 * -- LtPowers (talk) 02:49, 25 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I haven't forgotten about your request; I will take a look at the Downtown article when I get a chance. But be aware, I'm no expert on district articles; the only ones I've written are rather special cases.  =)  LtPowers (talk) 21:09, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if editing a user talk subpage lights up your blinking dot, so I'll alert you to my review here.

Regarding listings that apply to multiple districts discussed above, don't do it for business establishments! Notable chain(let)s should get individual listings where worthwhile, and we should try to keep business listings out of huge city and region articles as part of our anti-spam effort. --Peter Talk 21:57, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Come on, really? The traveller comes first, remember?  LtPowers (talk) 00:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you all for the wealth of helpful suggestions. It seems like half of them are here and half are on User talk:AndreCarrotflower/Downtown. I've placed my response there. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 05:51, 2 December 2012 (UTC)