Wikivoyage talk:Article status/Archive 2019-2022

Article status overhaul
The current article status requirements seems to have a lot of "gaps", which means that many sections are not covered. Lets take a look at the city guide status:

For the Usable requirements, it means that the Understand, Get Around, Buy, Drink, Connect and Go Next sections can be left blank, and even if there's only 1 listing for the remaining sections, an article will still be at Usable. An example of the bare minimum is this article.

For the Guide requirements, (assuming that this is based on the Usable requirements) it means that the Buy and Connect sections can be left blank. "Different choices" is not clear which means that 2 or 3 listings can be considered as "different choices", same thing with "multiple attractions". And it means that most parameters of the listing templates can be left blank. An example of the bare minimum is this article.

I didn't do a Star article one, but yeah, you get the idea.

The requirements that I propose is cut into sections, like this:

City Guide Status
All requirements are if possible. If there are not much listings for a certain section, list all the listings. If at least 10 (out of 13 or 14 for huge cities, counting each section and General) of the requirements of a status for an article is met, then that article can be leveled up.

I only did my City Guide Status proposal because it takes a long time, and I'll add the rest later on if you guys don't oppose. By the way, Vallant in the test articles is a cat city. SmileKat40 (talk) 13:54, 11 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I find the new table hard to read, it would be better in a different layout before we look at it in detail - I am only going to talk about Usable at this point. I think the new criteria is going too far - we have Star articles with less then 5 sleep listings because the city only has one hotel. I think that your example is a good illustration of what is usable for a small town or village - it is all the information I need if I am going to stop briefly, maybe have lunch then climb the clock tower before moving on to somewhere else. AlasdairW (talk) 21:42, 11 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I'd prefer creating another status in between Usable and Guide instead of raising the standard of Usable in order to bridge the big gap between them. To me "Usable" means something which can be used by the reader, not an article which is good or complete by any means. Gizza ( roam ) 22:20, 11 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I already said that I'm no good at Wikimarkup, so I don't know how to make it in a different layout. But for the Usable status, it seems like it is the same for a small town with 2 hotels and a big city with more than 100. And I already stated that all the requirements are "if possible", that is, if there are not enough hotels/restaurants/bars etc. then a list of all of them would be fine. As you can see in the examples, Vallant seems like a big city - it have a train station, an urban area, a subway system and such, but would a big city only have these attractions and restaurants and hotels etc? There's barely any information in each listing! The SmileKat40! (*Meow* chat with me! | What did I do?) 01:24, 12 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Now to reply DaGizza. I like that idea, but what would it be called? Maybe the new 6-level rating system will be Stub, Outline, Basic, Informative, Guide and Star? The SmileKat40! (*Meow* chat with me! | What did I do?) 02:16, 12 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I believe that it would be a good idea to shift focus in our criteria for usable status. In particular, I think that we are over-emphasizing the sleep section, which is probably among the least useful to our readers. It is of no use to those making day-trips, and I'm convinced that those who do book accommodation are more inclined to use some aggregator or Airbnb. Perhaps it is sufficient for a usable article to have one sleep listing, just to show that you can sleep there. Rather, the first sections I tend to look for in a thin article is Understand (what makes this place interesting?) and See/Do (if there is one thing I shouldn't miss here, then what is it?). Eat is somewhere in-between. It is essential to most travelers, but usually they probably go for tripadvisor anyways. Some time ago I also suggested a check-list for star-nominations which might be of interest in this discussion. MartinJacobson (talk) 21:44, 13 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Well, I came up with these statuses by looking at the average Usable article, not by thinking what Usables should have. The average Usable article have around 5 to 6 Sleep listings, so I don't think the status is over-emphasizing this. If anything, I think it is that editors are over-emphasizing the Sleep section by adding more and more listings. I also think that Wikivoyage should not list any random accommodation place, but only list the bigger, more famous ones. That way travellers can see that the hotels listed on Wikivoyage should be nice and the Sleep part would be useful to travellers. The SmileKat40! (*Meow* chat with me! | What did I do?) 03:18, 15 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I agree that too many listings in the "Sleep" section - or the "Eat", "Buy" or "Drink" sections - is unhelpful. However, I don't want us to bias listings toward what's merely bigger. Small, independent hotels can be the nicest and/or best value. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:41, 15 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I think that See and Do are the most important sections - these are what gives a reason for visiting a place. I would emphasise the small less well known hotels - travellers will easily find big chain hotels elsewhere, but not the five rooms in a small inn. I don't like "if possible" criteria, as somebody reviewing an edit then has to look elsewhere to see what is possible, also if a town has 5 hotels, there may be good reasons for only listing 2 of them. It is good when Sleep and Eat sections have an introduction giving the rough number of total possibilities. AlasdairW (talk) 10:31, 15 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Yeah, See and Do are the most useful sections, but all of the Usable articles that I looked at (about 30) doesn't have much See and Do listings. Should I change the criteria? The SmileKat40! (*Meow* chat with me! | What did I do?) 14:16, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
 * If anything extra is needed is an extra status between usable and guide, I would not touch current requirements of existing at this point. However the whole discussion is mute if people do not make an effort to upgrade or downgrade the status of articles, which only a few active authors are doing.

On presentation of what needs doing at each status I have created a different format of status table below. Suggest expanding on the text in done templates. --Traveler100 (talk) 14:38, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Status table
Seems like a good, descriptive alternative to the current version. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 15:47, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

I'd say we change it to this:

Status table 2
The SmileKat40! (*Meow* chat with me! | What did I do?) 06:12, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Hello? The SmileKat40! (*Meow* chat with me! | What did I do?) 06:28, 26 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I have not yet contributed to the discussion because seeing what really is being suggested requires a lot of work - I prefer to put in that effort when the ideas have matured somewhat and the description is more easily read. I suppose it now is time to say something. I am not sure this format is better than the old one, but it should at least be compact enough to be readable without much effort.


 * I think usable status should require the article to be usable, not much more. For that there should be something also in Sleep (somebody thought it was unnecessary). Whether that is one listing or a description ("several B&Bs, check signs at the road toward Xtown" or whatever) is less important, but we should not require people to use other travel sites. "Some pictures" are not necessary (and sometimes hard to find). "One mode" of transport in Get in should perhaps be "one typical mode", in Get around "some information" may be enough (typically that would anyway be about at least one mode). Geo coords should be in "General" (it is technically in Go next, but just because it comes last), "map" is redundant with the coords unless we say something about the map.


 * In informative "good background" is a better wording than "good lead" and "subsections". The information may not be in the lead and subsections may not be important if it is the history, the landscape or some other one aspect that is important, while mostly empty subsections are quite worthless. The same goes for other subsections, it is enough that they are implicit in the MoS criteria for guide. We should not just have "several modes" of transport, but "the typical modes" (which may not be much more than one). Eat hours are not that important if you have a phone number to call if you are arriving outside typical hours (oddly short hours should of course be mentioned). Sleep prices are very useful, but nowadays often hard to get at – we should not force a bad guess.


 * For guide I think the climate chart often is unnecessary. If the climate is similar to what is described in the region article it may just be clutter (should we require enough climate info to be either in the city article or in a linked region article section?). The public transport map is probably needed only when public transport is good and complex. "All important" attractions may be too much in a city with plenty, what about "several attractions, including the most important"?


 * --LPfi (talk) 10:48, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Park guide status
All requirements are if possible. If there are not much listings for a certain section, list all the listings. If at least 10 (out of 14, counting each section and General) of the requirements of a status for an article is met, then that article can be leveled up. The SmileKat40! (*Meow* chat with me! | What did I do?) 09:08, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Status table
The SmileKat40! (*Meow* chat with me! | What did I do?) 07:00, 26 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I think several of the additions are valuable, but others are perhaps not suitable for all parks. Comments:


 * For usable, "some pictures" are not necessary. They are nice to have, but a "could be anywhere" picture should not be required. For Get in I would require "some typical" as for city. There should not be "some information" on fees and permits, but "information", i.e. including the most important. I would not require listings for the attractions (which may be something to be seen in many areas), and not all the most prominent at usable. For stay safe I'd require warnings for any non-obvious severe dangers, not just "some information". Go next is unimportant at this status.


 * For informative, I would also here leave the subsections for Guide, except perhaps those in Understand. Fees and permits should be more or less complete. Get in and Get around should cover the typical modes – and the typically visited parts of the park. All the most prominent attractions could be included here. Perhaps we could require an image that gives a good view of some important aspect of the park.


 * I would not require "several shops" (and I would not require them for guide city either, a general description is much more valuable). Here the important is how to get souvenirs, food, stove fuel, equipment etc., not having listings or several options. It is typical to have a visitor centre with some services and what you do not get there or in its surroundings you should bring (why do we not require contact info for the visitor centre?).


 * --LPfi (talk) 11:23, 26 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I'll wait until we get more comments. The SmileKat40! (*Meow* chat with me! | What did I do?) 12:19, 26 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I don't get the differences between "have some information" and "have information". Doesn't "have some information" means having some information, it doesn't need to be a lot of info, but there shouldn't be none?


 * For me, having "some information" means what to write is more or less arbitrary, while having "information" on fees and permits means fees and permits are handled to some reasonable level. If the former case a "Fishing requires a permit." would qualify even if you need an advance permit also to enter, while in the latter it wouldn't. "Information on fees and permits" could arguably be satisfied with "You will need some permits from the park administration and only backcountry camping is free", which is not very helpful, but at least you know you need to figure things out. --LPfi (talk) 10:58, 27 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Perhaps "Essential info" would be a better wording. --LPfi (talk) 11:00, 27 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I have changed all instances of "some information" to "essential information". The SmileKat40! (*Meow* chat with me! | What did I do?) 11:39, 27 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I meant that wording specifically about fees and permits in parks. In many other places "some information" is perfectly reasonable. --LPfi (talk) 12:38, 27 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Well, there was some problems with the undoing, but I've changed all "essential information"s except for those in Fees and permits back. The SmileKat40! (*Meow* chat with me! | What did I do?) 13:27, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Guide status
This might not be the best place to post this question, but it's an important issue I noticed with the description of our article status. Recently Freyr Brown upgraded Durham (England) to guide status. However, the article is at usable status due to Durham (England), where some listings do not contain descriptions (or coordinates or phone numbers). But after a quick search I couldn't find anywhere in Wikivoyage policy that states article listings must contain this information before being upgraded to guide status. This ought to be updated to help new users better understand the article status templates we apply to articles and why they are at their current status. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 14:36, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I support this idea. City guide status reads "The article has different choices for accommodation and eating/drinking (if applicable)"; unless there's some objection within the next short period of time, I'm just going to go ahead and change the word "has" to "describes". That's a change that's minor enough that it shouldn't need a huge contentious debate to implement, it retains the spirit of the old policy, and it addresses the concerns SelfieCity brought up (i.e. if you're adding a bare listing with no attached contact information or blurb, are you really "describing" anything?) -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 16:08, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with this. I also think we should consider changing "Listings and layout closely match the manual of style" to "Listings are complete and layout closely match the manual of style". To me -- and I might be a stickler here -- the key thing about being Guide status is captured in the first paragraph of Guide articles (emphasis added by me): A guide article is a status rating for any article in Wikivoyage that is essentially complete. This is what a Wikivoyage article is intended to be. Not only would you not need to consult another guide, you'd really have no reason to want to: it's all here. -- listings that don't have phone numbers, addresses/coordinates, hours and descriptions aren't complete. -Shaundd (talk) 18:17, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm good with "essentially complete", not with "complete" with no qualifier, because that's not even desirable, as we don't want our articles to list everything. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:43, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree. I was in Durham 2 years ago and the restaurants I've been to (British, Italian cuisine) are not on the list. So this list already very comprehensive. OhanaUnitedTalk page 23:35, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of changing "has" to "describes". I'm not so sure about "complete", for the reason Ikan Kekek said. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:58, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I support "describes" but I am opposed to anything approaching a requirement for "completeness" for those descriptions. Yes, IMO most of the descriptions should be complete enough (e.g., the location identified, even if that's done without either an address or coordinates).  No, guide status should not be withheld over the presence of some incomplete listings, and it certainly should not be revoked if someone inserts a new incomplete description.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:14, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I likewise support including "describes" in the guide status but not "complete". If an article was as complete in its content and prose as is humanly possible, it would be upgraded to a "Star". Gizza ( roam ) 09:52, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
 * [edit conflict] I also support "describes". There is of course still a judgement call, but better than "mentions", which the current criterion seemingly might be interpreted as. On the other hand usable requires "with contact information", and I wouldn't update to guide unless also the usable criteria are met. --LPfi (talk) 10:02, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
 * There are two ways to read the phrase "listings are complete". One is the way most of the participants in this discussion have read it, i.e. that the article contains all the listings that would be requisite for complete coverage of the destination. I agree with the consensus that that sounds more like a Star than a Guide. But the other way to read it - the way I originally read it, and the way I suspect Shaundd meant it - is that each individual listing is complete, with none of the important information (address, phone number, hours of operation, geo coordinates, descriptive blurb, other arguments as appropriate) left blank. That's something I would support as a requirement for Guide status. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 15:07, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The general requirement of guide guides :-) is "helpful for the average voyager", which sounds reasonable. For it to be helpful and enough "for at least a few days there", there is no need for the listings to be complete. If you have a street address and the approximate location you get there without coordinates, if you have a phone number and the host speaks decent English you do not necessarily need an email address, and so on. Complete information is good, but we are not talking about stars. And foremost: adding an incomplete listing should not lower the status, if we want to rise the requirements, those should be for the few different choices we require. --LPfi (talk) 16:06, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks Andre, you're right, what I meant was individual listings should have all or nearly all of the key information like directions (address/coordinates), some form of contact info (phone/website), hours of operation, prices (if applicable) and a brief description. To LPfi's comment, I don't think every listing needs to be that complete, but if someone scanned the page, I think the majority of listings should have the key info a visitor would need, particularly the most important attractions and activities. Anyway, I think there's consensus to use "describes", so let's move forward with that. -Shaundd (talk) 22:45, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree: Most of them should be mostly complete.  I hope that we will interpret the word describes as meaning more than merely having a description in the content field.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:12, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I had brought up something similar to this in the Article Status talk page, but that thread died. The requirements for usable, guide, and star are very incomplete, and it's hard to see what's keeping an article from reaching the next status. In that thread, a new status called "informative" was proposed between usable and guide, and the following is the requirements that I proposed for a City article (with a few changes):

SmileKat40 (talk) 12:28, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure. I like the idea, but I think it might be easier to more clearly define our existing outline/usable/guide article status. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 00:46, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Having an article status assessor?
This came to my mind right now, but I was thinking whether we could have an article status assessor for some new users who are reluctant to ask a single person. I'm not suggesting that it to be made mandatory (unless it's usable to guide), but to also explain how an article can be improved, introduce a user to star and guide articles of that kind (e.g. let's say park, then we'd point out some of our best park articles). This way, we have a formal process, unlike just upgrading it to see when it fits. It's similar to Wikipedia's good article nomination process, except on a much lower scale. Any opinions about this? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 02:54, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Also just to clarify further, this only applies to new users (who have less than 1 month and 200 contributions), excluding new accounts that previously edited under an IP address. (like Ikan or myself). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 02:55, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't really fully understand what you're suggesting, but whatever it is, I think you just volunteered yourself for it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:05, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * What he said ^^ 😄
 * What problem is this aiming to solve? It seems like extra bureaucracy for the same outcome.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 07:50, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I think key is "reluctant to ask a single person". If you think "your" article might be usable, but do not dare to change the status yourself, you might want to ask. But whom? The traveller's pub might feel scary (though it shouldn't be). Do our patrolling work well enough that a new section on the article talk page will be enough? Otherwise we might need a template putting the talk page into a maintenance category. Or perhaps a new parameter in the outline templates would be a good solution (something I proposed to replace the Needsimprovement template). –LPfi (talk) 08:05, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, a new section on the article's talk page is enough when there's doubt. But there's no rush to change article statuses, anyway. What's the big deal? Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:08, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I think a new user having written an article would like to get usable status confirmed – having made just a fleshed out outline does not give the same satisfaction. Changing the status is a good way to encourage the user, and giving a user a means to get that support is beneficial to the project. –LPfi (talk) 08:29, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's what I was thinking about. Let me use the example of Edriiic here, who was one of the contributors to the Nigeria Expedition. So when he asked whether it would be an outline or usable, I gave him some feedback, and he was happy, and he was motivated. I feel like that works and is a good way to get motivated.


 * I'll also bring up on what I think why myself and (not certain, but here's my predictions) have chose to stay here. We were both starters in February. But we got help from some admins. Now we both have a star article.


 * Later, LPfi also started to assist me with technical things as well. Now, after enough mentoring, I was able to become a sysop. It's this sort of mentoring that often helps people stay.


 * Now if I bring up an example of why I retired on Wikipedia (en, not simple or na) and Wiktionary (en, not na), for Wikipedia, I was editing articles but no one knew me well (although editing articles about politicians don't get much attention). It was only in April where the first other Wikipedia user knew me well, and that was Antandrus. For Wiktionary, the first word I added was deleted. That is what drives people off WMF projects. (harassers driving people away from WMF projects is another story).


 * Enough of my personal experiences, but it is this which makes sort of why Wikivoyage is one of my favourite WMF projects (Wikibooks being the next). If the experienced editors give the new users some support, and say "yes" the article has passed a certain standard, it gives a good feeling, and like an editor matters. It also gives them a peace of mind, and not "did I upgrade it. is one of the admins going to punish me. oh no!" feeling.


 * --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 09:19, 15 July 2021 (UTC)


 * It's great to know the perspective of someone who's started Wikivoyaging recently and has become such a valued member of the community in a short space of time. But doesn't your experience here (and Edriiic's) suggest that new users can already get the help they need when upgrading articles without us creating a formal role or help page? The only criticisms you've made apply to Wikipedia and Wiktionary, not Wikivoyage. I don't really understand what problem you're trying to address, and also I'm not clear on what exactly your proposal is.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:54, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * The fact that he had to actually go up to someone's talk page, (this is not just with Edriiic btw), and ask them to individually review the article. If there were just a page where people who lave less than 100 contributions and 1 month of contributions could go up to, a) anyone would be reviewing it, and it's not just the pinged user. b) that user may be less nervous and feel less guilty. Just in the last month alone, I upgraded about 200 articles from outline to usable. Now, I only comfortably did that since I was well aware of the policy. But if I had did that in Feb, I'd have been somewhat hesitant to even upgrade one article. You'd have probably noticed that I was asking whether my article can be upgraded in random places all over that reflecting on it, makes no sense to me. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:12, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I also feel like sometimes having to end up doing all the work that would ideally be split up evenly. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:34, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Personally, I'm always pretty nervous to upgrade one of my own articles. I'm not sure if this proposal is necessary, the status quo has worked for me, but it's always good to have a second set of eyes have a look. -- Lively Ratification  (talk)  09:59, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * , btw I'm sure you're quite experienced now that no one will judge or criticize you for upgrading articles. Just as long as it fits policy SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:12, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think we need any extra bureaucracy. Heavy processes don't work here.
 * However, there is a problem with people (a) thinking their improvements have changed the status of the article, (b) caring about that, and (c) not feeling like they can/should plunge forward with changing the status themselves.
 * I think the way to address that is to expand Article status to make the key points in a clearly labeled section:
 * For stub/outline/usable, you are strongly encouraged to update the article status yourself.
 * If you're not sure, or if you don't feel comfortable judging your own work, then you can ask on the article's talk page and/or at the pub.
 * Don't ever edit war over borderline cases. Someone might rate the page a little generously or a little stingily, and the borderline cases are just not important.
 * I think that's all we need to say? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:59, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think that a community the size of Wikivoyage—small but dedicated—needs the level of bureaucracy found at Wikipedia. However, perhaps we can find a way to better leverage and advertise Requests for comment. Would welcome and similar templates become too overwhelming if we mention RFC in addition to the pub? Nelson Ricardo (talk) 21:58, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

So, I just did a mock up draft which can be found at User:SHB2000/Upgrading articles. Anyone who's autoconfirmed can edit it. And to all those who think it's bureaucracy. No, this is not governing or forcing new users. This page is just there for those who would want to get a second eye to look at their article before upgrading it. It may be particularly designed for new users, but that doesn't mean a new user must use it. It's just, what said, those who want a piece of mind.

People who are quite new are sometimes, sadly, reluctant or nervous to come to the pub, although it shouldn't be, and I'm hoping that this is a better way to reduce that nervousness or hesitancy when it comes to upgrading articles. This is also not a place to criticize articles as well, just to improve. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 06:44, 16 July 2021 (UTC)


 * I think writing a note on the talk page of the article is easy, and if creation of talk pages is always noticed by enough people, that's the easiest way. A bonus is that using article talk pages is our standard scheme for any questions, and thus there is no need to learn one more procedure, to have one more procedure described on help pages, and to have one more page or category to watch for us who can help.


 * I think that the only problem with talk pages is that new users might not trust the note to be noticed. Telling it will be is easier than telling about another scheme.


 * (The proposed format requires understanding template syntax. This is a significant barrier – when WMF tells us that even editing basic wikitext is too difficult. Filling in the template may seem easy, but already knowing that the &lt;-- --> should be removed together with the instruction text is non-obvious for those not knowing SGML/HTML).


 * –LPfi (talk) 07:59, 16 July 2021 (UTC)


 * I think the proposal above by WhatamIdoing is the way to go. I think some work should also be done to help find your way between the WV space pages involved, I remember I had problems finding what I needed. Now I remember the names of the pages I need and don't need to find the links, nor understand the scope of each, the two things I remember as confusing. –LPfi (talk) 08:08, 16 July 2021 (UTC)


 * [Edit conflict:] I feel like we should encourage people to plunge forward and upgrade articles themselves, if they meet the Article status guidelines. I fear this page will cause us lots of unnecessary work instead of really encouraging newish users to take on more responsibility. Therefore, if we are to have this kind of page, I feel strongly that instead of potentially discouraging phrasing like "You can upgrade it yourself if you want", I would like to substitute "Everyone is encouraged to plunge forward and upgrade the status of any article themselves, if the article seems to you to meet the guidelines shown at Article status or more specifically at the City article status, Region article status, Country article status, Itinerary status, Travel topic status, Phrasebook status, Park article status or Airport article status pages. However, if you prefer to have a second pair of eyes give look at an article and give you their opinion on whether it is ready to be promoted from a stub to an outline, usable article or guide-level article (etc.), don't hesitate to post below, unless you want to nominate an article to be a star, which you should do at Star nominations." I don't like the idea of "your new completed piece of work" on a Wiki. No article is ever complete and it's problematic for people to feel too much sense of personal ownership over "their article". Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:20, 16 July 2021 (UTC)


 * I plunged forward and expanded Article status, trying to include the proposal above by WhatamIdoing. Do the current wordings seem suitable? Something about notices on talk pages really being noticed by other users should be added somewhere, but probably not on that page. –LPfi (talk) 09:12, 16 July 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm basically in agreement with Ikan Kekek, except that I'm on the side of "this page isn't needed at all", rather than "if we are to have this kind of page, then..." People can upgrade articles themselves up to 'Guide' level and should be encouraged to do so. If they get the status wrong, there's no harm in someone with a bit more experience correcting it when they spot the error; after all an erroneous article status isn't really a big deal outside of site management, unlike e.g. factual errors or poor grammar in the article text which are a problem for travellers on the ground and for Wikivoyage's credibility. Furthermore, I see no evidence of a tendency for new users to have any trouble doing this for themselves. For anyone that does, there are numerous help pages out there that they can already make use of, first among them the article talk page and the Arrivals lounge. User:LPfi's additions are the right idea and will empower to make these decisions for themselves in the vast majority of cases.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:02, 16 July 2021 (UTC)


 * To be clear, "If we are to have this kind of page" is a fallback position for me. I don't favor it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:07, 16 July 2021 (UTC)


 * The change to Article status looks reasonable to me. I oppose adding any extra bureaucracy around these assessments; I agree with those above who say that would be unnecessary. —Granger (talk · contribs) 17:35, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
 * This looks like a good starting point for us.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:58, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Parameter for towns?
I’ve noticed in the past that users get confused by our use of “city” articles. Perhaps we could add an optional parameter for “town” or “village” that changes the word “city” to this other word without changing the actual template. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 11:00, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Not a bad idea at all, although it does require some major changes to stbox. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:01, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
 * There have been discussions on this. I think there are some pitfalls involved, although I don't remember them. –LPfi (talk) 11:45, 25 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Aside from any potential pitfalls, where does it end? If we allow "town" and "village", why not "hamlet", "parish", "municipality", "community", "townland" etc...? Sorry for the slippery slope fallacy, but a multiplicity of different names for the same article type could well be more confusing than the current practice of calling every municipality-type settlement a "city".--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 12:15, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

I made a mock up on User:SHB2000/oc. This solves any pitfalls, and accepts anything. The only downside is that it doesn't use the traditional "stbox". SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:00, 27 August 2021 (UTC)


 * I think the templates should use the same framework (i.e. stbox, unless changed). For a mock up, that is not needed of course, so back to whether to allow other article names.


 * One issue is that we should clearly indicate to other editors what kind of article this is. With free text, somebody will certainly use a label that isn't easy to interpret. Even a plain English one, such as "region" (for a rural area, covering a local región) will be confusing or misleading. Thus, if we change the key word, we need to indicate the template and status criteria used in some other way. I don't think there is any problem for readers to interpret the plaintext, even if it is far down the slippery slope ("This município travel guide to ...") – they don't need to worry about our categorisation.


 * –LPfi (talk) 11:50, 27 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I think we should leave city articles as city articles. The above implementation of the proposal (thanks for the demo) and the possible mitigations outlined by LPfi show this will be significantly more complicated than the current situation. Count me firmly opposed to this idea.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 12:12, 27 August 2021 (UTC)


 * I, on the other hand, would like to see a change as outlined, but it needs to be well thought-out. Don't keep your breath for me to come with a proposal. –LPfi (talk) 12:57, 27 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Alternatively we could use “small city.” This could be added, optionally, to any city articles with a population of less than a hundred thousand. But if there’s an objection (for example, the City proper of London), it’s necessary to gain consensus to label as “small city.” --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 19:16, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Renaming Guide status?
As per wta, the word guide has multiple meanings in the context of travel; it can be a tour leader, a written instruction, or a technical tool such as an audioguide. It is also a status level for our articles. To avoid confusion, we could consider to find another word for this status level. It could either be a noun, such as cicerone, or an adjective such as utile or appropriate. I guess that a native English speaker could find the right word for an article that is not just usable, but not quite a star. Replacement would be an arduous task, but in the end Wikivoyage would be more useful. /Yvwv (talk) 13:02, 4 March 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree with your reasoning for renaming "guide" status. We'd have to find a different word than you suggest, though. It's interesting to look at Content assessment. Wikipedia uses mostly letter grades. We could more or less copy their ratings, though with a bit of simplification, by having stub/start (instead of "outline")/B (instead of "usable")/A or good article (instead of "guide")/star. But short of putting this site through that much change, which isn't really necessary, I think "good" is a totally reasonable and maybe even close to ideal designation for what we currently call "guide" articles. It would produce the following lineup of article statuses:


 * Stub
 * Outline
 * Usable
 * Good
 * Star


 * Does anyone feel like that doesn't work? Consider the following status statement: "This city travel guide to Oxford is a good article. It has a variety of high-quality information including hotels, restaurants, attractions and travel details. Please contribute and help us make it a star!" Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:22, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I still prefer the current "guide" term over "good". Good is a subjective term and that's what Wikipedia uses. To me, a good article would just be something where I don't need to do much external research to use the article. SHB2000 (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta.wikimedia) 22:25, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
 * That's precisely what I understand a guide-level article to mean: you've been provided with enough information not to have to do additional research unless you want to. See Article status: "It provides enough information for at least a few days there", as opposed to the description of a usable article: "An adventurous person could use the article without recourse to other information sources. For most articles, this means they could probably get to the destination, eat, and sleep with just this information. It would probably enable them to find at least the most prominent attraction there." So maybe, possibly you could use it, but you might have to settle for just one attraction, one restaurant, one hotel, and probably getting there. Also, if you don't like "good," how do you address Yvwv's very cogent point about the ambiguity of the word "guide"? After all, all the articles here are guides, right? Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:40, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Very true. I'm now kinda undecided. However, that being said, it takes a lot of work to do the change from a technical perspective, but it can be done. So ultimately, I'm neutral' about the change. SHB2000 (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta.wikimedia) 23:46, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
 * It might not be too hard if some technical-savvy person can set up a bot. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:47, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The issue I'm thinking of is when it comes to categories. From my previous experiments, if we change the category on a template, the category won't work for articles already using the template and I don't think a bot can do this. SHB2000 (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta.wikimedia) 23:50, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm having trouble understanding this concern. Could you please clarify more specifically? What's the change that couldn't be done by bot? —Granger (talk · contribs) 07:58, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
 * SHB2000, you weren't around when every "Get out" section header was changed to "Go next" by bot. There were a few instances in which followup edits had to be made, but things went pretty smoothly. This doesn't seem much different. It seems to me, as a non-techie, like four steps would be needed: Create a bot, run the bot, change the wording of the article status template and change the wordings of the article status pages (maybe those could be changed by bot, too, but I think they will probably have to be changed manually, and there aren't that many of them). Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:15, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
 * re Ikan's message: The change from "get out" to "go next" is easy because all you need to do is get the bot to change section headers that contained "Get out". It gets a bit more complicated here.
 * re both Ikan and Granger's message: cont. previous message, apologies for not being clear enough. I'll try to explain more clearly. So firstly, we're still going to be using guidecity, guidepark, guideregion etc., only those will be renamed to goodcity, goodpark, goodregion etc. However, whatever the situation is, the templates will still use stbox. However, us moving the categories such as Category:Guide cities to Category:Good cities only makes the problem worse – the name of the category will be moved, but the pages within the categories won't. I think Commons has a bot that moves fixes the categories, but that does not work for this example, because the categories are used inside the templates where we run into the second problem.
 * The second problem is that changing the category in stbox does not do anything to pages that already use the template. So if I just changed the category in "Guide cities" to "Good cities", instead no change in category will happen and such would be nearly impossible to do with a box unless we abolished stbox and completely reorganized our stbox structure – and ultimately, it is why I cannot think of a way to get a bot to do this. Then there's also the problem of XTools no longer being able to recognize the new status too. It's pretty much "correcting" something that is perfectly fine with no issues. SHB2000 (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta.wikimedia) 09:03, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
 * "Perfectly fine" except for the ambiguity in the word "guide." Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:21, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe I should've worded my response better. However, this is all based on my personal experience with experimenting with templates, so I don't exactly know the reason why. If someone does manage to create a bot code that maneuvers thru this issue, I'm happy to support it. When I meant "perfectly fine", it is something that does not have any major issues.
 * Also as an another suggestion for good could be quality which I got the idea from Commons. I'm hesitant to use "good" as I feel like it looks like we've copied the encyclopedia. SHB2000 (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta.wikimedia) 11:39, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
 * We've also taken some guidelines from Wikipedia. It's OK to borrow some things from your sister, isn't it? Anyway, "quality" can mean "good" or it can just mean any level of quality, while "good" is less ambiguous. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:54, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Regarding the categorization issue, we should be able to edit Template:Guidecity etc. as well as Template:Stbox to categorize pages appropriately. There may be a lag for pages to catch up to the new categories, but should not be a major problem. I don't know much about how XTools work; it's possible those might be more of a problem, but surely any of these things are fixable if we want to change the name of the status. —Granger (talk · contribs) 17:32, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I would support changing the status of these articles to "good," as even though the name is not perfect, it avoids the confusion of using "guide" and is easily understood by readers. There are good usable articles too, which are close to "good" or "guide" status, but overall the articles ranked "guide" correspond well to our perception of what is a "good" article. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 17:51, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

(indent) I don't really see an issue with "guide". This site has been around for how many years and what evidence is there that the statuses have been causing confusion? Has this had any known negative impact at all? To me, "good" sounds similar to "usable", a bit of a weak term. All of our articles may be "travel guides", but articles that reach "guide" status really ARE guides. Outlines, Stubs, and Usable articles WANT to be "guides" but by definition are lacking the elements that make them fully usable as guides. Niimi has useful information, but it's not a standalone GUIDE like Tsuyama or Kurashiki. Those are true guides. I think the distinction serves us well. Articles with "guide status" have truly reach the status where they can be used as guides, hence the name. I was also curious about whether it could affect SEO. I searched "(City name) guide" vs "(City name) travel" among Guide Status articles to see if there was a difference, and in the places I searched, I found: "Guide" in the search seemed to boost these guide status articles: These were neutral: These performed worse: I don't know if this is helpful or not. Obviously it is only a small sampling and there may be factors I'm not considering that could affect this aside from status, but there seems to be a POSSIBLE boost in guide status articles when searching with "guide" over "travel" (although the European cities are oddly out-of-step with that). Note that cities that I checked where WV didn't appear in the first 5 pages were dropped. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 06:05, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Tottori: From 3rd page results with "travel" to 2nd page results with "guide"
 * Kurashiki: 2nd to 1st page
 * Dakar: 1st page 5th result to 1st page 3rd result
 * Winnipeg: 4th page to 1st page
 * Guangzhou: 1st page 8th result to 1st page 6th result
 * Jakarta: 3rd page to 2nd page
 * Omaha: 5th page to 1st page
 * Sarajevo: 1st page 6th result to 1st page 4th result
 * Rauma: 4th page to 3rd page
 * Halifax: 4th to 2nd page
 * Havana: 3rd to 2nd
 * Ottawa: 2nd to 1st page
 * Gyeongju: 2nd to 1st page
 * Yaounde: 1st page 1st result for both (can't get higher)
 * Nagoya: 4th page
 * Helsinki: 2nd page
 * Tallinn:2nd page
 * Kanazawa: 3rd page
 * Zurich: 2nd page to 3rd page results
 * Glasgow: 2nd page to 3rd page results
 * Hamburg: 2nd page to 3rd page results
 * Krakow: 4th page to 2nd page
 * Lisbon: 4th to 3rd
 * Thanks for doing that research. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:24, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
 * A SEO counter-argument is that if Guide ceased to be a status, we could use the word "guide" in most articles. This could improve the search ratings of usable and star articles.
 * I don't see changing the term as a high priority, and would prefer that we allow some time to see if a better alternative than "Good" turns up. AlasdairW (talk) 10:49, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
 * What about exemplar? SHB2000 (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta.wikimedia) 10:52, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree that something having "guide status" is internal Wikivoyage-specific jargon, and may be hard for a layperson to understand the first few times they hear or read it. To an extent that's true of all of our status labels but guide is the least intuitive. But I also agree that "good" isn't an ideal replacement.
 * A related issue that has come across my mind is how all of the status templates (e.g. Template:Outlinecity) haven't changed in wording since the fork. With the vast majority of Wikivoyage's articles, that were transferred across and haven't changed in status since, the 20-30 words in the template always get picked up by the copyright checking websites as identical content. Rewriting the descriptions in those templates is low-hanging fruit as far as improving SEO is concerned. Changing "Get out" to "Go next" would have changed around 50,000 words (guessing there were ~25,000 articles with the heading at the time and we changed two words in each article) but rewriting the template descriptions would differentiate Wikivoyage from WT by a much larger order of magnitude. Gizza ( roam ) 12:29, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
 * That's a good idea. —Granger (talk · contribs) 18:11, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Definitely agreed. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:55, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
 * +1. SHB2000 (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta.wikimedia) 20:25, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Great idea. I can't believe how this didn't dawn on any of us (that I'm aware of) by now. Vidimian (talk) 07:19, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
 * In December 2014 I suggested making the wording as different as possible to WT's. See above. Nurg (talk) 22:59, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I stand corrected, thanks. Vidimian (talk) 07:17, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I would appreciate if users native in English would settle on a term to replace guide. /Yvwv (talk) 12:52, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Technical challenge
Have I understood the technical challenge? It needs to be thought through, but I don't think the change would be difficult or cause much disruption. Have I missed something?

As I understand it, what primarily needs to be changed is the wording in stbox, and for consistency we want new category and template names. The categories are in the same stbox template. The categories also need to be created, and that's a reasonably big bot job, but it is simple and can be done in preparation of the template change (if they instead were moved, they'd all need to be moved simultaneously when the template is changed).

In individual articles, the template name should also be changed, but that is not reader visible and the old templates can be changed to call the new ones, so it doesn't need to be done immediately. The template text should be changed to minimize editor confusion during the transformation; an obvious link should go to a page including a notice about the change. I haven't been happy with the current links, so this could be rethought at the same time.

So creating categories and changing articles to use the new templates would be the big bot jobs, one done before and the other after the change. Perhaps we cold help the template substitutions by having Javascript code change the name when editing the full article or the section containing the template? That might be overkill, though, as there is a manageable number of affected articles.

According to Article status, we have 1,240 guide articles and 3,855 continent, country and region articles. With one change per minute twelve hours a day, the changes would require one week of bot activity. It doesn't seem unwieldy.

–LPfi (talk) 09:18, 8 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I think that seems feasible too. Possibly the more challenging aspect is updating any other tools that use our article statuses. I know that they're used by some Toolforge tools like Pageviews and possibly other WMF systems. Does Wikidata access them too? I don't know, and I don't know how we would update these things. All of this would also be a concern if we implement the proposal below of adding a new status. User:WhatamIdoing might know more, or at least might know who to ask. —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:10, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Wikidata tracks Guide and Star status. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:43, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Proposal
I have been thinking about this for some time, but I never got around to proposing it, but here it is. We have many articles that are usable, but the degree of how usable is it is a question that I've been thinking for some time. We often have to different kinds of usable articles. One type of "usable" is what I call "bare bone usable" – it has just one eat listing, one sleep listing, and the most important attractions. The other type of "usable" is what I call "informative" which contains all the important attractions, multiple eat and sleep listings (at least three) but is missing things like coordinates, a buy section, ways to get around which is needed for guide. I feel they should be differentiated, as there is a clear difference between the quality and usability of both the types. As an example, Auki is an example of what I would call barebone usable, while Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park is what I would call informative but not guide. Similarly, many of the guide articles created during the times of Wikitravel are often missing something today, and they would much better fit in this new category, rather than a very broad category. They don't even need to be from the times of WT tho – Ohio state parks was an article recently downgraded. It is much more informative than our other park topic articles, but it is not quite ready for guide yet.

If we were to create this status, I propose to call it "informative". Some pros and cons of this:

Pros:
 * Differentiate between the quality of usable articles
 * It allows one to improve the range of barebone usables to the proposed informatives. Currently it is hard to do such with the lack of differentiation
 * Some articles downgraded from guide to usable will better fit this informative category as I mentioned earlier

Cons:
 * For at least sometime, the existing usable articles will have to manually be changed. There may not be consistency for sometime, but the end result is worth it
 * XTools issues – I'm not sure how to localize it

Feel free to drop in by my talk if I was unclear about anything. -- SHB2000 (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta.wikimedia) 10:18, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Support

 * 1) Support. Refer to the Wikivoyage_talk:Article_status discussion above. There already was a suggestion to introduce "an informative" status but it later went nowhere due to a lack of responders. Over time, the criteria for guides and stars has risen, which is expected and a good thing. But the gap between what constitutes a usable article (which has a bare basics of what a traveller needs) and a guide (which is pretty much complete) has grown. I agree that an "informative" status will be a good bridge between usable and guide. Gizza ( roam ) 12:38, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) We could think more about the name of the new status, but I support the concept. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:34, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
 * 3) Support, The gap between different quality usable articles if far too wide. Tai123.123 (talk) 19:37, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * 4) Support. We need to think about the name, and also what exactly the criteria would be for being "halfway to guide". I would like this to cover both articles which have a balanced selecton of listings in all sections, and those which have a couple of sections at guide standard and the rest with a only a single short listing. AlasdairW (talk) 22:19, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * 5) Support. We talked in the above thread about “good” articles. Why don’t we make the in-between “good” articles? However, we need to be careful about whether adding a status is an effective and helpful use of a lot of time. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 23:44, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

 * I started a draft here at User:SHB2000/Informative articles. Anyone is free to edit it. -- SHB2000 (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta.wikimedia) 07:55, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I moved it out of my userspace so it's now at Informative articles so it can be edited by anyone. The changes to stbox is around 75% complete. As an experiment I'll be using informativepark to Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park and White Sands National Park as a start. Let's not let this proposal fade out as it did in 2019. SHB2000 (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta.wikimedia) 10:38, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Since there is over six Wikivoyageurs in favour of this proposal, I have adjusted stbox to accommodate this new status and I think I've created a template for all article types, though I may have missed something. It will take time to implement this proposal, but the placeholder name has been used for the timebeing. When we do pick a name, the categorization will not be a huge issue as we're doing it from the start and so far only two pages use this status. SHB2000 (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta.wikimedia) 11:15, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Although there is consensus on having the status, there has been no discussion that I know about on the criteria. After rolling it out on articles, there will be a nightmare checking what marked articles fulfil what version of the criteria. I propose reverting the marking to usable on all but the mentioned two parks (there are now some 800 articles marked with this status). Links to the criteria and the discussions on them should be added to Informative articles. Should the general discussion be continued here or at Wikivoyage talk:Informative articles? –LPfi (talk) 08:31, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I suggest the status should first be used on a category of articles with limited numbers, so that any problems can be noted before too many articles are involved; the problems may apply also to other categories. No criteria should be accepted for use before there have been several users involved, as changing the criteria later will mean much work. –LPfi (talk) 08:35, 27 March 2022 (UTC)