User talk:Xsobev

Hello, Xsobev! 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 Help, or post a message in the travellers' pub. If you are familiar with Wikipedia, take a look over some of the differences here. Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:35, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

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Thank you! --EGalvez (WMF) (talk) 21:27, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Saltcoats
sorry, the danger of having rollback on the watchlist, must have hit by mistake. --Traveler100 (talk) 19:18, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
 * No problem, I had the impression that it was most likely done by mistake. Thanks for your comment. Xsobev (talk) 19:23, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Sorry about that
I couldn't figure out what edits I had overwritten by mistake. I'll stay out of the article for a while to let you finish. Thanks. Ground Zero (talk) 13:52, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * No problem and not your fault. I guess the wiki software should have somehow warned about overwriting previous edits. The edits that got overwritten were only some minor formatting edits, so not that important, but annoying if you have to do it again. Xsobev (talk) 13:59, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Venice
Great work on the Venice article! It is nominated for Destination of the month candidates. You are welcome to go on with your work. /Yvwv (talk) 13:51, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

"Such a behavior"
In light of this edit; which behavior and why not? Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:56, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I think the statement that "discounters suffer no stigma among the general population" is not correct. Even about the statement that "wealthy professionals who make six figures or more are often seen shopping at them" I'm not very sure. With "behavior" I was referring to the actions described in both statements. The reason for removing them is that we should not convey an image in a travel guide that it's "totally ok" to shop at discouters (irrespective of what is or is not common practice). Does this explanation help? Xsobev (talk) 08:06, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * why should it not be okay to shop at discounters? There are stores that experience stigma but they are the likes of Kik or Woolworth, not food discounters. And there are absolutely rich people shopping at Aldi Lidl and so on. Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:16, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * "why should it not be okay to shop at discounters?" For many reasons: discounters cause underpaid, overworked, unhappy staff (we even point that out in the guide), they most likely don't care about animal welfare, nor care about how agriculture influences our environment, they put pressure on their suppliers to lower prices, quantity over quality (to name only a few). And why should food discounters be any different from Kik or Woolworth? "there are absolutely rich people shopping at Aldi Lidl and so on": Maybe there are, but if you can afford it you shouldn't do it, and more importantly - not matter what is done or not - we should not encourage this behaviour in a travel guide. I hope this convinces you at least a bit ... Xsobev (talk) 08:56, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Aldi famously pays above market rates to achieve higher worker retention rates. When they put out announcements for entry level jobs nearly all of them prominently display the hourly wage - almost certainly as an advertisement. The 11€ they advertise at the local Norma are certainly more than 8.85€ minimum wage and also more than what many Leiharbeiter are getting. And I know Rewe uses Leiharbeiter. Does Aldi? As for animal welfare, they sell all types of eggs from bio to Bodenhaltung as do most stores of any kind these days. And some of the major scandals around that happened to major brand name producers like Wiesenhof. Aldi and Lidl are of course famously anti union but so are Ikea and arguably lots of companies. Even Deutsche Bahn tried underhanded tactics to get rid of GDL which thankfully didn't work. Do we have to give advise for people to avoid Ikea because of GDR era forced labor? To avoid nearly all companies that were around before 1945 because of the undoubtedly bad things close to all of them did - some not even with the (made up) excuse of being "forced" as nobody in 1931 was forced to donate to Hitler and nobody forced Lufthansa in 1932 to fly Adolf around. This is a travel guide so please, despite all justified criticism of capitalism, do we really need a discussion of surplus value in every paragraph on shopping? Hobbitschuster (talk) 10:08, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I think there is a difference between mentioning that food discounters exist - so that people can make up their mind whether they want or have to buy there - and telling them "don't worry, everyone buys there, even rich people, so it must be ok". Only because this is a travel guide doesn't release us from thinking about the problems that exist in real live, and in fact I hoped that WV would endorse responsible travelling. Regarding discussions, first, I made this one edit where you asked for clarification, and I don't understand why you generalize to "every paragraph on shopping" from that? That being said, if there is disagreement then discussion is the only constructive way of handling this disagreement. Or did I misunderstand your comment?
 * Regarding your arguments and irrespective of the edit that triggered the discussion I don't think minimum wage solves all the problems of employment, nor does one "bio" certification solve all animal welfare and environmental issues. Xsobev (talk) 08:55, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * No I mean that we shouldn't write paragraphs about our opinion which stores are and are not "halal" in these days in the "buy" section. All I wanted to express is that - other than similar stores in other countries - Lidl Aldi and so on do not suffer from any sort of stigma and the perceived quality is on par with more expensive stores. I also think it is not right to (implicitly) assume more expensive stores are better. Should we mention that Germania does "pay to fly" in every article that mentions that the airline serves the airport? Should we mention Lufthansa hypocrisy about the Nazi era and playing fast and lose with company history? Should we mention in the guide on the USA that Walmart does suffer from a certain stigma and there is a perception of vastly lower quality? And that they do underpay compared to industry averages? Hobbitschuster (talk) 19:16, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I never wrote anything in this regard, on the contrary you inserted your opinion (that "Lidl Aldi and so on do not suffer from any sort of stigma and the perceived quality is on par with more expensive stores") that promoted shopping at food discounters, which I then removed. Regarding the questions you raise - generally I would say that if there is an obvious and serious wrongdoing then yes it should be mentioned (exactly how, in what detail and where to draw a line is then up for discussion). Mentioning it in every article would most likely make no sense, but in the current case we're discussing the Germany page (as an introduction for things to know when travelling in Germany).  Finally, I agree with you that the assumption that more expensive stores are better is not without counterexamples, but certainly there is at least a higher chance that they are more responsible. With discounters this chance is much lower, because they have less money to spend on being responsible. Yet a higher chance of buying responsibly is to go to farmers markets, which we also mention further down. Xsobev (talk) 07:36, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Brussels and districts
I'd like to give you a big thumbs up for the substantial work you've done to improve the Brussels article and its districts! The article urgently needs a summary of attractions for its See and Do sections though, so if you know the city, would you mind helping out with these? Keep up the great work! ArticCynda (talk) 12:37, 26 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I agree that summaries are needed for the mentioned sections, unfortunately I don't know the city well enough to do that - sorry. I hope other people will be able to help. Xsobev (talk) 13:01, 26 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Well for one the description for the "International District" may or may not need a change... Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:53, 26 July 2018 (UTC)


 * ... and so does Brussels/Schaarbeek. Also, I encountered many districts with many empty sections. This hints at a sub-optimal districtification, and merging some might be a good idea. Also having an "Industrial District" without a district page seems odd. I wasn't involved in the districtification discussions and don't know if there are plans like this, but there is definitely room for improvement. Xsobev (talk) 08:42, 27 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I concur that it appears as if certain districts could be merged. I also read that what we think of as "Brussels" has 19 mayors, so likely there are 19 different territorial units on which to base districts. I do not know to which extent this was done, but it might make drawing boundaries easier... Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:14, 28 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I collected the available boundaries from Openstreetmap. This is the result: User:Xsobev/Brussels-map. Three boundaries don't have a wikidata value, which can easily be fixed. One small and two bigger parts are not covered by any boundary other than the large Ville de Bruxelles - Stad Brussel (58274). Maybe that helps. Sticking to official boundaries, while taking the distribution of existing (and likely to be added) listings into account might make the current districts of Brussels on WV a bit more useful. Xsobev (talk) 09:41, 28 July 2018 (UTC)