Wikivoyage talk:Informative articles

In use already?
I'm sorry to have missed the latest discussion on this, but is there consent on starting to use it? It is included on Park article status, which means people might use it without realising it being experimental. I see the status is used on 16 parks, 2 topic pages, over 140 dive guides and over 600 districts already. Experimental says it "should not be added to more than one low-visibility article (as an example of usage)." –LPfi (talk) 08:12, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Where are the suggested district and dive guide article criteria? And where is the discussion for articles other than about parks? –LPfi (talk) 08:24, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * 600 districts? The only informative articles are on Category:Informative articles and per Category:Informative districts, there's only 16. There's six people in favour of this, and it has been proposed twice and it got rolled out to prevent the discussion being fading out. I'm confused on where you're getting your numbers on dive guides and districts though. I don't usually touch dive guides and the only districts that have this status are a bunch of Sydney and Vancouver districts (plus a few others too). SHB2000 (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta.wikimedia) 08:44, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't remember where I got my figures. Anyway, discussion needs to continue if the status is to be taken into official use.

For parks, on which there was discussion (somewhere) the criteria as of now are:


 * Get in: all the typical ways → all the typical ways → multiple ways
 * See and Do: a couple → most → multiple
 * Eat: nothing required → a pointer to alternatives if there are no dining options → nothing required
 * Sleep: information → information, if no options, then a link → nothing

I cannot see these as well thought-out. I assume that "information on accommodation" already includes giving pointers to alternatives if you cannot sleep in the park, so the addition is just confusing, not a stricter requirement.

Ah! The previous discussion was at Wikivoyage talk:Park article status, where these comments were already included, a bit expanded. I think I'll make a try at a new version at User:LPfi/Park status and start a new section at Wikivoyage talk:Park article status when I get stuck or feel I have something usable to present.

–LPfi (talk) 10:33, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Informative status
I see a that "informative status" has been created as an article category at Article status. A discussion took place Wikivoyage talk:Article status which seemed to find support for the idea two years ago, but Informative articles still refers to the concept as "experimental". I personally support the proposal, but we do need to decide whether we should implement this concept more broadly or withdraw it. If we do approve it, many articles would need to be recategorized over time. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 19:01, 12 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I like the idea of a status in between usable and guide, but I think the criteria for making an article "informative" should be better described. It would be nice if it were at least a little bit more demanding than simply a usable article with at least 3-4 listings. Crikey! All of my "usable" articles meet that low threshold. I think that in order to be considered "informative" there should be a well-written lede and a good "Understand" section that explains what's special about a place (maybe with Infoboxes for cultural traditions, etc.) Just a thought... Mrkstvns (talk) 20:01, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
 * As the proposer, I think it's time to withdraw it. It's a great idea in theory but the logistical challenges of implementing this on a mass-scale has become near-impossible. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 20:30, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
 * There is no need to have all eligible articles updated to the new status. That can be done as article status is otherwise checked, given that the status is widely known. The problem is in defining the criteria. In trying to do that, I saw quite some oddness in the present criteria. Can we adjust the criteria at all, making some usable articles revert to outline and some guides to usable (or informative)? If we can, we can do the same with a new status. However, the discussion stalled, it seems with not too much interest from the community. –LPfi (talk) 11:56, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Which is partially why I'm on the side of abolishing this status. Without much community input (I presume the numbers post-COVID will remain like this for a while), it's hard to make bold changes like an entirely new status. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 12:01, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't know if I'm being a bit too pessimistic or if I'm biased as the one who initially proposed it. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 12:05, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I think if we create a new status, it will be adopted over time. However, we would need to form a new consensus on the qualifications of this article status, IMO. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 14:12, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, we have and it's existed for over two years, but very little has been done on it for cases where the criteria is evident. SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 09:41, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't think we get much value from increasing the number of possible ratings. The fewer categories we have, the less time we'll spend on bureaucracy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:03, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I guess it's less so the bureaucracy and more so just the time spent to make the status mainstream. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 20:46, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I just don't think there's such a drastic difference between usable, informative and guide for town and small village pages. Take Kuujjuarapik that I created last month while I travelled there. I added practically everything there is about the town. Right now I'm already hung up on whether changing it from usable to guide (because the only thing missing for guide is "go next" one-liners). If we introduce informative and I added the "go next" one-liners, I honestly don't know whether my article is considered to be informative or guide. And I think many editors will also be confused by this somewhat blurred distinction between the two. OhanaUnitedTalk page 06:24, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Wikivoyage talk:Park article status has some discussion on the issues. If people are interested in getting this forward, I think it is worth skimming through (at least for those working with parks). One should do some analysis about what differs between a just barely usable and a good usable article (of some category), and what holds articles from becoming guide, as I suggest on that talk page. We could make a comment on forgetting about informative in the case of small towns ("just make them guide instead"); for real cities I think there is a huge difference between barely usable and near guide. –LPfi (talk) 07:10, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The status I aim for on any page where I do substantial work is PDG. That means it's Pretty Damn Good, and is a near complete self-sufficient guide to the place. But I almost never upstage beyond "usable" precisely because I don't want the quagmire of definitions and hair-splitting. Another day gone, another town PDG, and tomorrow onto the next. Grahamsands (talk) 22:01, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Due to the lack of interest in continuing this, would there by any objections to changing all the informative articles to usable? -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 12:50, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I have redirected all the informative article statuses to usable, since there is no consensus for keeping it (status quo bias would favor the pre-2022 situation since this was still an experiment). -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 07:34, 25 April 2024 (UTC)