User talk:Martinvl

Hello, Martinvl! Welcome to Wikivoyage.

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I'm glad to have you here. I'm sorry I reverted your first edit. My opinion (though I could be wrong) is that Previous Destinations of the month is really an archive page, and that the photos in it shouldn't be substituted unless they no longer exist and turn into red links. If you would like to argue the point, you are welcome to start a new thread at Wikivoyage talk:Previous Destinations of the month. But there are ample active pages where new photos could be a great help. And I liked that photo of Cape Town's City Hall, too!

All the best,

Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:46, 20 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi Ikan, Thanks for your message. I fully understand the revocation of my post.  No ill-feeling. Martinvl (talk) 09:03, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Links to Wikipedia
Hi, Martinvl. Wikipedia with very few exceptions cannot be linked to in prose on this site. Please have a look at Links to Wikipedia. Sorry, I know it can be useful, but if we allowed it, we'd have almost every word linked; believe me, we've seen examples of that.

All the best,

Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:34, 19 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks Ikan. I will sort things out. Martinvl (talk) 11:32, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I have changed the link - it is now identical to the link in Driving in Europe. Martinvl (talk) 11:41, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Battlefields (KwaZulu-Natal)
Hi Martinvl, thanks for your additions to this article. We try not to list individual sites in region articles, but instead put them in the articles of the nearest costumes. The region article should provide a more general introduction to what you see in the region, in prose. See Region article template for more information. I have moved the battlefield site listings to the Ladysmith, Dundee and Newcastle articles. Ground Zero (talk) 13:37, 3 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi GroundZero,
 * thank you for explaining your changes.
 * I spent most of my childhood in the area (Colenso) so I know it fairly well. This was during the Apartheid era. After reading your posting, I found and read the article American Civil War. Given that the title of the article was "Battlefields", I was trying to get the same flavour as the American Civil War article. For the record, the name "Battlefields" is a tourist marketing name rather than a regional name. During the Apartheid era, most of the area would have been known as "North Natal", though in the post-Natal era, this name might be politically incorrect.
 * Would there be any objection if I were to create a new article "Battles of KwaZulu-Natal" (mirroring the article "American Civil War)" and to move most of what I wrote into that new article with links to the relevant towns. I suggest further that the current article "Battlefields" be renamed "KwaZulu-Natal North" so that ithe name properly reflects a region. Martinvl (talk) 17:58, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I will defer to your local knowledge. There is definitely a difference between region articles like Battlefields (KwaZulu-Natal), and topic articles like American Civil War. Neither should have details like times, phone numbers, ticket prices (and the America Civil War article doesn't now). Practical details should always be in the city or town articles so that we don't have to update them in both places when the change, or worse, have conflicting information if someone updates one article but not the other. A topic article could gave a map of all of the battlefields, and more detail on the history of the wars, though, so that would make sense for this subject. It would have links to the city articles where readers would find the practical information on the individual sites.
 * If you think that the Battlefields article should be renamed, you can propose doing dso on talk:Battlefields (KwaZulu-Natal). It makes sense to me, but let's see what others think. Regards, Ground Zero (talk) 18:42, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
 * If you think that the Battlefields article should be renamed, you can propose doing dso on talk:Battlefields (KwaZulu-Natal). It makes sense to me, but let's see what others think. Regards, Ground Zero (talk) 18:42, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Units for medical solutions
I am a bit surprised about your "addition of metric units". What traveller has access to a scale for measuring a few grams? The mL measures are also metric, and at least I have a few measuring cups for medical use at home (which came with cough syrup or similar), suitable for such quantities. Also, if you measure a tea spoon at home and take that with you, you will have an exact enough measure. –LPfi (talk) 10:41, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Sachets of sugar such as you find at restaurants often have a weight on them. Martinvl (talk) 11:28, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Ah! True. That could make the weights important. –LPfi (talk) 13:00, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Ceremonial counties and unitary authorities
Hello Martinvl. I don't think these are helpful terms in the context of a travel guide. People from outside the UK (and many inside) won't know exactly what they mean, and the vast majority of travellers are unlikely to have any interaction with local government. The administrative makeup of Dorset has basically no practical effect on a visitor's experience. If any reference is needed to local councils - say if such-and-such park or library is run by BCP/DCC, that can be included in the body of a town article like Bournemouth, but I don't think this is a great way to open a travel guide to Dorset.

It seems to be that "unitary authority" and the like are on the same level as "de facto" and "de jure": vital to Wikipedia or to a legal document, but distracting in a travel guide.

Best wishes, ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:18, 15 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Sorry to bombard you. I just wanted to note that I liked your inclusion of some of Hardy's pseudonyms (if that's the right word). ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:23, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
 * . I have taken on board what you said and reworded the openign paragraph to exlicitly mention the BCP area without using the words "ceremonial" or "unitary". I trust that what I wrote is OK! Martinvl. For the record, about 59% of the ceremonial county's population live in the BCP ara and 41% in the DCC area. (talk) 12:56, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Cheers! I'm a bit fascinated by administrative/cultural borders and divisions, and still think Bournemouth and Christchurch belong in Hampshire so their being severed from Dorset is no bad thing (😉), but what you've written now is much better for a general audience. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 14:32, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
 * My in-laws used to live in Ferndown and we often went to the Bournemouth prom. For many years there was a 10 metre gap between the Bournemouth prom and the Poole prom. This picture shows the stupidity of the border. The wheelie bins on the left are Bournemouth wheelie bins whiel the green bin on the right in the mid-distance os a Poole wheelie-bin.
 * Ha, great! There's somewhere like that in our neck of the woods. Do you know that Pinewood Park development by junction 4a next to Hawley Woods? It's split between Hart and Rushmoor, with different bins and all. The Hart addresses actually have Camberley post and phone codes too, just to complicate matters.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:59, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, I know it - it used to be a business park owned by Sun Microcomputers, but was then sold off for housing. Post codes BTW mean nothing - Postal Areas and postal districts straddle local authority boundaries all the time. Martinvl (talk) 19:53, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Travel records
Hey, I'm impressed by your travel records. How did you end up sailing to South Africa from Southampton? And were you working as a gold miner, or just visiting? -- ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 22:36, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
 * User:ThunderingTyphoons!: Before the mid-1960's only the wealthy (and those for whom time meant money) travelled by air. My family emigrated with me as a babe in arms so we went by sea from Southampton to Cape Town. When I was five, my mother returned to the UK to visit her family and took me with her. The return trip a few months later ended in Durban which is why I rounded the Cape. My father spent a few years on the gold mines and while I was a student I had a holiday job in the assay office of the West Driefontein Goldmine. If you have ever read Wilbur Smith's book "Goldmine" or seen the film by the same name, his story is set at the fictitious Tweefontein Goldmine was based on an nderground flood that actually occured at the West Driefontein mine.  ("Twee" is the Afrikaans word for "Two" and "Drie" is the Afrikaans word for "Three"). Martinvl (talk) 14:29, 29 March 2024 (UTC)