Wikivoyage talk:India Expedition

India expedition?
Hi, everyone. Should we have an Expedition to fix the articles about places in India? I don't mean adding content, though that's great if you've got it. The problem is that even when articles about India have content, they're often incorrectly formatted, and the English (spelling, punctuation, spacing, usage, capitalization, even comprehensibility) is often really substandard, and touting is also a problem in some articles.

Lately, a user has been adding a lot of information (arguably too much) to the articles on Southern India and Karnataka, and that's great, but there are way too many destinations listed for a state-level article for a state that has linked region articles. One of the city articles linked from Karnataka, Hubli, has no "Understand" section but encyclopedic information in "Get in." Another linked city article, Belgaum, has all kinds of issues, but one that comes up in many India articles is the random bunch of bulleted entries, such as are in this case in "Eat."

I would propose that we start by making sure the articles linked from India are in proper format and an acceptable standard of English, and then proceed to look through articles for each state, but somewhere along the line, we should also make a list of the most important local destinations (cities, parks, etc.) and check on their quality, too.

So what do you all think? India is a country where much English is spoken, and it's an important country in terms of history, culture, wildlife, economics, and politics. If we can get together a group of several people who are willing to devote even a few minutes a week to doing some good editing, we have a fighting chance to whip these articles into shape. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:48, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Great idea IK. I would had loved to be part of this expedition but until late October, I'll be busy on Wikimedia Commons due to Wiki Loves Monuments Pakistan. Right now patrolling hundreds of uploaded files daily and later I've to start shortlisting and do categorisations thus I'll be on a distant from my home-wiki however I do daily come over here to see how things are moving. --Saqib (talk) 02:36, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * There will still be plenty of work to do after late October, I'm sure! Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:37, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Right but when I'll be back, I'll focus on Pakistani articles. BTW, we need to look here how the response was in already ongoing geographic expeditions especially Brazil Expedition. If I recall properly, I see no one other than User:Texugo actively working on the that expedition and that one is actually is more important as it was started to make articles ready for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics. --Saqib (talk) 03:01, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * There were at least 2 other users systematically helping on the Brazil Expedition, though it was most me that actually updated the statuses on the expedition page, but anyway, even when it falls inactive for a while, I'm glad we have it, because there's no better place to keep track and organize so we can analyze where coverage is weak, etc. I would totally support an India Expedition as well. I've done some work recently on India articles, especially trying to ensure we don't over-subdivide everything, and I know they are quite a mess. And yes, India articles have always been a frequent target of non-MoS edits, contributions with poor English, superfluous info, etc. It would be great to have a place to organize our efforts to get that mess under control. Texugo (talk) 04:05, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Greeting IK. I currently reside in Karnataka. I will try and help where I can. (I am also working on a few wikipedia pursuits in parallel). regards Arunram (talk) 02:20, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Much appreciated! The Karnataka article itself needs a lot of work. Feel free to add your signature on the India Expedition page. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:45, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Would a more general "subcontinent expedition" be a better alternative, or too broad to make sense? Certainly Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh articles could all use work & I think what problems there are with English usage are similar across the region. —The preceding comment was added by Pashley (talk • contribs)


 * Might be too broad, as India is already a vast country, but we could discuss this further. I'll create the Expedition later today. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:55, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Well I think Pashley's suggestion not bad. Though my English is not good but I can cleanup Pakistani article and after that, I can look into Sri Lankan as well Indian articles. --Saqib (talk) 16:28, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * It's definitely a good suggestion. I've created the India Expedition. We could discuss enlarging it on its talk page, but I think working on the Indian destinations is already a really daunting task, and perhaps each country should have its own Expedition. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:48, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Article status tables are up for the India guide and the multi-state regional guides, with specific remarks about things that can be done to improve them, and I already did some copy editing and editing for structure. Anyone who's interested: Please come and help. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:15, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * A milestone has been achieved: Status charts for all the Indian states have been filled in. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:50, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Most important city and park articles
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the India Expedition's talk page! While there's already a lot to do in whipping the multi-state region articles into shape and working on the state articles, we should also make a list of the most important cities and other destinations, so that we can create a chart similar to the one in the Brazil Expedition. I may get a start on this later, but if any of you feel inspired to plunge forward, that would be fantastic! Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:42, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

National and multi-state regional article status charts up
The next step will be to put up status charts for every state, which will take a while and would work a lot better with collaboration. After that, major cities and other very important destinations for each state should be charted, but we can discuss which to chart on this page. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:38, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Good work IK. I can help you with charts. I'll be back soon! --Saqib (talk) 16:28, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Excellent! If you start Expeditions for other countries in the Subcontinent, I'll participate as time allows in those, too, to the extent I can help through copy editing and working toward a format that is coherent and standard. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:59, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Since I was working on Uttarakhand Region, I created a test Article Status Chart for that region. Matroc (talk) 23:32, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I noticed that. Your work is great and always appreciated! Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:53, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Charts of state articles finished
A milestone has been reached: The state article charts are all filled in!

In addition to these 29 states, there are also 7 union territories (and I give the names from here): Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Lakshadweep, National Capital Territory of Delhi, and Puducherry (Pondicherry). The Andamans and Lakshadweep are interesting off-the-beaten-track archipelagos with Usable articles. Chandigarh is a very significant city with an extensive Usable article that could definitely use some work to turn it into a Guide. If it is improved to Guide, it could be an interesting Destination of the Month because of its unusual modernist architecture. Dadra and Nagar Haveli are not very significant, though the very poor-quality article about them should eventually be edited. Daman and Diu are two tiny islands. The regional Daman and Diu article is quite sparse; the Daman city guide is a bit more filled-out; Diu is better and could be made Usable without too much trouble, and though I don't think it's a high priority, if you're interested, please go ahead. If turned into a Guide, it could be an interesting Off the Beaten Path feature. Delhi is obviously one of the most visible and important articles about India, but not because it's a union territory. Fortunately, it's a Guide, but the article deserves detailed commentary on a chart, due to its great importance. Pondicherry is an interesting place with a Usable article.

If any of you would like to create a chart on the union territories and make more detailed remarks about the articles, please do. Ignoring them is probably not a good idea.

We should also discuss which of the state articles are particularly important and which are less important. For one thing, I'd say articles on some of the small and seldom-visited states in the Northeast, though they're about interesting places, are lower-priority. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:19, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Districts
User:Matroc brought up the topic of listing the official districts for Uttarakhand. I also brought up the topic of red-linked districts and one useless district article for Meghalaya in Talk:Meghalaya. What do you all think about district articles? It seems to me that we should be pragmatic about it, always considering the interests of the traveller. In the cases of very populous states with a lot of fascinating points of interest and a large number of article-worthy cities, it makes sense to cover them broadly in state-level articles and also have filled-out articles for each official district, but for less populous and less visited states like Meghalaya, I don't think it makes sense. And then there are intermediate cases in which a few multi-district regional articles (Northern X, Central X, Southern X, etc., or X Valley and X Highlands) might serve the traveller.

Perhaps the next thing we should tackle is districting and regionalization for each state - yes or no, how good the district or regional articles are, and whether it would be a good or bad idea to dispense with this intermediate level of article in that particular state. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:47, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Districts/regions, cities/other destinations
I finished looking through "Regions"/"Districts" sections of state-level articles and commenting about the linked articles' statuses in the discussions of the state articles. However, in reviewing the requirements for Usable and Guide status for Region articles (which would include state-level articles), I see that there is no mention of the status of linked region articles (perhaps an oversight):

Usable


 * Has links to the region's major cities and other destinations (the most important of which must be at usable status or better), and a Get in section describing all of the typical ways to get there. The most prominent attractions are identified with directions.

Guide


 * Gives you different choices for which linked destinations (i.e., the 5 to 9 item cities, subregions, and other destinations lists) to visit (all usable status or better), and information on multiple attractions and things to do. Listings and layout closely match the manual of style, and all the standard sections have well-developed prose. All important ways to get in are detailed, along with some suggestions for where to go next, with one-liner descriptions, and thorough information on getting around. At least 2–3 good-quality photos accompany the article; preferably showing famous or important attractions.

So while I think it is important not to have skeletal regional articles, it's arguably more important to work on the status of all the linked cities and other destinations. I don't know how we're supposed to determine which are among the "most important" destinations, so I'd suggest that we work on bringing all linked cities and other destinations up to at least Usable status. Another task is to make sure all the most prominent attractions are described in the "See" sections of state-level articles, but I'd interpret "directions" as simply meaning links to the cities they're in or closest to, and the descriptions need to be prose and not full templated listings. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:49, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Chamba
Chamba lists two Indian cities with that name: Chamba, Himachal Pradesh, a city in Himachal Pradesh and Chamba, Uttarakhand, a small town in Tehri-Garhwal district, Uttarakhand.

Additionally, there are articles for the Chamba district in Himachal Pradesh, India and Chamba State, a princely state. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:37, 6 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks, WhatamIdoing. Do you suggest that we create a disambiguation page, or do you think we can hold off on that until someone wants to create articles about the other places with this name? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:20, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm thinking that since the one is a "small town", and the other two aren't municipalities, that we can postpone the need for a disambiguation page. However, I'm not very familiar with India's geography, so I will happily defer to other people. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:03, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Next steps
A lot of good editing has been done. Thanks to those who are helping!

Charts of city statuses
As I see it, a logical next step would be to look at the lists of cities in the article for each state and union territory and make charts showing their current status and what type of work is needed to improve it, much as has been done for the country, regional, state and union territory articles already.

I'll try to take the time to start making the tables within the next few days, but if anyone would like to start, please go ahead!

Charts of "Other destinations" statuses
Either consecutively or concurrently, the "Other destinations" lists in state- and territory-level articles could get the same treatment, but I think we can deal with cities first, based on both their usually greater visibility and the possibility that there are still some out-of-control "Other destinations" lists that have a lot of red links and may include temples and other attractions that won't get their own Wikivoyage articles. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:15, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Our first "Cities" status chart
I've started a India Expedition/Jammu and Kashmir article, with city charts. Please feel free to expand it with info about other cities or any other relevant info.

Eventually, I plan to start similar charts for other states, but first, this one needs to be filled out (so far, I've covered only Jammu and Srinagar). Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:09, 16 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Chart for Jammu and Kashmir finished, at least as far as listed cities are concerned. Feel free to add to it as appropriate. Himachal Pradesh would be next if we follow the order on the project page, but any state would be fine if you'd like to start another chart. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:44, 17 November 2014 (UTC)


 * India Expedition/Himachal Pradesh is filled in now, and I started a new discussion at Talk:Himachal Pradesh. I solicit your input there. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:51, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

National Highway Numbering
India's national highways are going through a confusing process of being renumbered. Most road signs randomly use either the old numbering or the new one with no indication of whether it is new or old. So NH-65 could mean either the old NH-9 now renumbered or it could mean the old NH-65 without the updated signage. This confusion is reflected in Wikivoyage, Wikipedia and OSM. Wikipedia has articles on highways named according to the old system, while OSM seems to use the new one. Wikivoyage is all over the place. I want to propose a standard style to refer to our highways where we include both the new and the old number and clarify which is which. Something like NH-66(ONH-9), where ONH stands for Old National Highway number. Thoughts? &mdash; Ravikiran (talk) 12:50, 4 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Sounds good, although rather than introduce another unknown acronym, how about simply NH-66 (former NH-9)? Of course it's more characters, but makes the point clear for those who are unfamiliar. I'm no expert though so will defer to your and others' judgements. James A ▪ talk 13:03, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Makes sense. I also wanted to propose a template like that will display NH-66 (former NH-9) and link to an article explaining India's NH route numbering. (Sadly, the wikipedia article is a mess.) &mdash; Ravikiran (talk) 13:27, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the good work!
I've been updating this article and the linked city status charts and have gotten through Goa so far. There's been a lot of improvement in the months since I last updated the remarks on the condition of the various city guides. Keep up the good work! And if any of the rest of you would like to take over, starting with India Expedition/Andhra Pradesh and the Andhra Pradesh section of India Expedition, please go ahead, though I'll warn you it could be a big job. Or better yet, just continue working on the city articles - a more important task. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:09, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

I can contribute for Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry
Hello People, this is wonderfull initiative. i am jaes, journalist, backpacker and social worker from south india. i can contribute whatever i know, even in the language Tamil. but i need what have to be done, guidence etc. Cheers (talk) --Jayreborn (talk) 20:56, 27 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Welcome aboard! Probably the simplest thing to do is look at articles about cities you know and see whether there's more content a traveller might be interested in.


 * Or you can look at India Expedtion, have a look at the "Tamil Nadu" section and click the linked articles according to your interest. You also can look at India Expedition/Tamil Nadu for status reports on the status of articles for cities listed in Tamil Nadu. That page hasn't been updated since 25 February 2015, so it's possible some of the information may be outdated. The main point, though, would be to do some of the kinds of edits that are said at these links to be needed.


 * If anything I posted wasn't clear, please let me know. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:55, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Hello Ikan, Thank you so much for the kind reply. how to create a new language for articles ? —The preceding comment was added by Jayreborn (talk • contribs)


 * I wouldn't know what you mean, but I read the discussion at the Travellers' pub. I hope that discussion answered your questions, but if you have more questions about creating a Tamil-language Wikivoyage, please ask there, and good luck. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:50, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Pondicherry or Puducherry?
I am aware that Pondicherry is renamed to Puducherry in 2008. After that, there were some confusions on which name is more common, the former name or the current name. Wikivoyagers had decided to retain the name Pondicherry, plus including Puducherry as alternative name, since the former name is far more common worldwide.

While it is true in International English, the opposite is true in Indian English, at least the case of Puducherry UT. Like Wikipedia, we enforce neither American nor International English in non-American travel guides. Instead, we use national variants of English. The same is true of India, where Indian English is prevalent. If we keep it in mind, we should rename the UT to Puducherry, while we keep the city name unchanged. --Soumya-8974 (talk) 14:10, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, why oh why we should retain the article title Chandernagore while Chandannagar is more common in Indian English. --Soumya-8974 (talk) 14:11, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Soumya-8974, it's awesome to see you posting to a talk page thread! The Wikivoyage standard on nomenclature is which name is used most in English. It doesn't matter whether that's Indian English, U.S. English or whatever. If Puducherry and Chandannagar are currently the most commonly used names in English, we should use those spellings. But let's wait for a bit more response, because two people don't constitute a consensus. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:39, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
 * By the way, the standard procedure would be to start a thread in each city's talk page, giving the argument for why we should use the new spelling. But we can continue here. You might want to post a pointer in the Travellers' pub and Requests for comment, because it looks like so far, I'm the only other user who's seen this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:04, 12 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Hello. I don't know the wikivoyage rules for this, but if it is a topic open for discussion, I am with Ikan Kekek here. Wikivoyage is a service to travellers across the globe, and not a dictionary, let alone an encyclopedia. It is all about what makes sense to travellers. If new spellings have been introduced, it is easy to mention it in the leed to avoid most confusion. RhinoMind (talk) 13:31, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * An example to back it up would also be Copenhagen in Denmark (my country). In Danish it is "København", and neither spelled nor pronounced as Copenhagen. It is the same for many, many other cities. RhinoMind (talk) 13:41, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * And talking about transliterations of words and names in languages with another alphabet than latin, there isn't any standard way of doing it. It is quite unfortunate in many situations, but it is just the way it is: there are no standard way of how to transliterate words and names from languages with another alphabet than latin. RhinoMind (talk) 13:44, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Amaravati
Amaravati (not the historical Amaravathi) is not much visited for leisure, and is mostly visited for being the de facto seat of government of Andhra Pradesh. Therefore, the "See" and "Do" sections are not expected to be expanded. However, the "Eat", "Drink" and "Sleep" sections (also the hypothetical "Learn" section) should be expanded since the Andhras seeking help from the govt. may expect to stay in this city. Any recommendations? --Soumya-8974 (talk) 18:07, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Kolkata-related discussions
I have opened two discussions related to Kolkata at Talk:Kolkata/Central Kolkata and Talk:Barrackpore. You are invited to discuss them. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 13:21, 30 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I have closed the discussion at Talk:Kolkata/Central Kolkata after getting a convincing input. Now I have opened another discussion at Talk:Kolkata/Dakshineswar. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 13:51, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Talk:Darjeeling-Kalimpong
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Darjeeling-Kalimpong. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 09:33, 4 July 2022 (UTC)