Wikivoyage talk:Nordic countries Expedition

Nordic countries Expedition?
Wikivoyage is fortunate to have a large numer of active and capable contributors writing from and about the Nordic countries. I find editing to be most fun when done together, and not merely in parallel. For example I enjoyed a common effort to promote the Nordic countries to usable status a few months back. I am now wondering whether it is a good idea to create an expedition as a more permanent Nordic countries-cooperation? Is there any interest in joining such an effort? What is the experience from previous geographical expeditions?

By the way, what do you think about creating 'local' cotms within expeditions, as a way of keeping them active and coordinating efforts? Best, MartinJacobson (talk) 11:58, 20 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Getting articles to usable is always a worthwhile and achievable (see Wales) task. I would recommend doing this per country, do not try and do it all in one go. We can set up an expedition page like Germany Expedition, this provides a number of tools to aid in cleaning up pages. But take a look at the dates at the bottom of this and other Geographic Expeditions pages; it takes time. --Traveler100 (talk) 13:56, 20 March 2018 (UTC)


 * I usually take part in such cooperation behind the scenes, not liking to commit, but I think there is a lot to do, which might benefit from an expedition. For the too big a bite thing, I think trying to get Nordic countries to guide status by improving country, region and destination articles can be a working strategy, if one identifies individual bits that are missing and concentrate on one bundle at a time (and yes, the goal is nowhere near). --LPfi (talk) 17:12, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Here is a start Sweden Expedition. Some work to do. Should I create this for the other Nordic countries? --Traveler100 (talk) 17:42, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your responses! I thought of an expedition more as a forum for editors interested in a given topic, rather than a project striving towards one specific goal. Hence I thought that it doesn't matter too much if we bite of a large chunk or even have an expedition going indefinitely. Is there any good reason for not using expeditions in this way? From that perspective I believe that there might be some advantages with having one Nordic countries Expedition, rather than one expedition for every Nordic country. There is just a bit too few editors actively writing about each region for them to have active sub-forums of their own. What's more, editors who are interested in one Nordic country are often able to write about others (If you understand one Continental Scandinavian language you understand them all, and they share a lot of features like history and cuisine.) MartinJacobson (talk) 18:22, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I think a Nordic countries expedition could work. The all have a shared history and culture. The population of the Nordic countries combined, even if you define it broadly and include Greenland is much, much lower than say, Germany. Working on the region as a whole will be a good way to improve the articles instead of potentially 6 or 7 small expeditions. Gizza ( roam ) 05:11, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree with a Nordic expedition making more sense than ones with 0-3 contributors each, or the same team working across five expeditions. There will not be so much activity that some country is buried in the discussions and forgotten. On the contrary: when assessing what to do next the country that would have been forgotten will stand out. (And yes, the Nordic countries have some 25 million inhabitants, the Greenlandic 50,000 not making much of a difference – except if we get somebody there, who knows the local things.) --LPfi (talk) 07:47, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you Traveler100 for creating Nordic countries Expedition! Should Sweden Expedition be merged into Nordic countries Expedition to keep all discussions in one place? MartinJacobson (talk) 16:03, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Aims and ambitions
Sognefjorden is a wide area, but I am not sure if it is useful to have articles for each municipality. The area is generally lightly populated and information organised per municipality does not make much sense for the visitor. Høyanger for instance is not a typical destination, although the nature is grand, and for the overseas visitor it is far from obvious that information about Ortnevik og Bjordal belongs to Høyanger. Perhaps discard and put most useful in the article at higher level? --Erik den yngre (talk) 14:24, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Folgefonna NP
Folgefonna National Park is of course a fascinating place, but not really a destination as one can only visit from villages surrounding the glacier. An article can of course list villages and lodges at the edge of the glacier. Norwegians go to Hardanger, not to Folgefonna. --Erik den yngre (talk) 21:16, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Merging articles
There is some great work going on in this expedition. I want to raise a caution about merging articles.

If, based on the criteria set out there, Bømlo and Sveio don't qualify as articles, then they should be merged with Sunnhordland. The reasons provided in the current merge tags are not valid reasons. Ground Zero (talk) 14:57, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * 1) An article should not be merged because "it is not a typical tourist destination" -- there are lots of reasons people travel and use a travel guide: they travel for work, they travel to visit family and friends, they travel to see where their ancestors came from. Wikivoyage can serve all of these teavellers''.
 * 2) An article should not be merged because there is "too little content for separate article". The question we must answer is whether the destination deserves an article. If so, then a short article must be left in place and allowed to develop. This question should be answered with reference to What is an article?.


 * Well, perhaps I used the wrong words, but the conclusion is still the same. At this point there is no reason to keep these as separate articles. These articles are created according to administrative divisions, while official these divisions are arbitrary from the travellers perspective. For instance, if a Norwegian is "going to Stord", that basically means the island, not the municipality with the same name. Only locals will be aware that half of the island is actually within Fitjar. Norwegians visit places to meet friends and family, overseas travellers visit places or areas, only politicians and civil servants visit municipalities. --Erik den yngre (talk) 18:05, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * So, can you can the merge tags to point out what part of WV:WIAA you are referring to in arguing for merger? I'm still not clear. Thanks. Ground Zero (talk) 18:33, 5 May 2019 (UTC)


 * I'm not very well acquainted with Bømlo and Sveio, but in general I think that the mergers made within the scope of this expedition has been very successful. E.g. Lofoten and Faroe Islands are much easier to overview now than they were before their merges. One issue for a huge but sparsely populated region like the Nordic countries is that you get a huge number of places where you could sleep, but where you can't do much else. If we create one article each for these places, we will end up with a huge set of articles which are basically skeletons, making it very difficult for users to find useful information. It might also deter editors from improving those articles. (If I realize that e.g. the Sveio article will never be read I don't want to waste my time improving it, even though I would be willing to ad the same information to the Sunnhordland article.)


 * Therefore, I think that it is generally preferable to treat large rural areas within the scope of one "useful city article", rather than as several articles with one or two listings each. If this "useful city article" grows to the point where it contains enough material for several useful articles it can be split in the future. To flip the perspective, we could split Bømlo into the villages Svortland and Langevåg etc., but I strongly doubt that this would be very helpful to users or editors. I guess it comes down to how you interpret What is an article MartinJacobson (talk) 19:13, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Martin, since you are our local expert (more so than anyone else), I think we should take your recommendations on this as you've outlined above, and merge the articles. I just couldn't support mergers on the basis provided in the merge tags. Thanks again for your work on this. Ground Zero (talk) 19:51, 5 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Thank you, but when it comes to this area Erik den yngre is much more of an expert than I am! The comment above rather reflect my personal thoughts on "article scope", and general experience with editing destinations in the Nordic countries. MartinJacobson (talk) 21:47, 5 May 2019 (UTC)


 * I live a bit further north, but often travel between Bergen and Stavanger. I 2001 the "Triangle link" (bridges and tunnel) replaced ferries between Bømlo, Stord and Sveio. Leirvik to Bømlo is now an easy 15 minutes drive. Martin explained my reason for merging very well above. The "can you sleep there" test does not work very well for many areas in the Nordic countries. Municipal borders often results from political bargains. Sveio belongs to Hordaland (Bergen) county, but most regard Sveio as part of Haugesund district within Rogaland (a non-official district called Haugalandet, the fragmented peninsula west of Ølen). If we merge and leave a redirect I think that is most informative for the traveller. I already liste "sleep" according to area in the Sunnhordland article. --Erik den yngre (talk) 16:36, 6 May 2019 (UTC)


 * By the way, if we merge Bømlo and Sveio into Sunnhordland it seems to me that Etne would be the only remaining subpage within the Sunnhordland region. Then it would probably be better to treat all of Sunnhordland in one city article, and merge Etne as well. Do you agree Erik, or is there any reason not to merge Etne that I don't know about? MartinJacobson (talk) 06:45, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

I have been thinking about this. Kvinnherad is "officially" part of Sunnhordland, although most regard it is part of Hardanger, not least because of the tunnel under the glacier to Odda. Det same is partly true for Etne, where inner part of Åkrafjorden with Langfossen is the top attraction (plus the incredible giant potholes at Rullestad canyon) - only a shortish detour from Odda. Erik den yngre (talk) 20:37, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Simrishamn and Österlen
A bullet was added with "Simrishamn - Merge to Österlen?". I suggest that any such bullet should include a link to an existing discussion (or the start of one). The proposer usually has some idea of the context and should be able to select where to have it – before making such a proposition one has hopefully checked the relevant talk pages for possible relevant previous discussions.

I do not know Österlen. From Scania and Talk:Scania I get the impression that Simrishamn is much more well-known, and it might make sense to do the merger the other way round ("A separate section may be created within a small city article to cover a small nearby ... village").

--LPfi (talk) 19:13, 27 May 2019 (UTC)


 * I added the bullet! Since people rarely comment on or object to mergers I usually just ad a merge tag with a brief motivation and assume that anyone who wants to comment on the merger can start a thread at the talk page. If no-one has reacted within ~2 weeks I plunge forward with the merger. But if it is preferable that I start a thread at the talk page when I ad the merge tag I will do so in the future!


 * I have never been to Österlen, but I have heard about it, mostly in the context that "this or that celebrity has a summer residence on Österlen". I also know that Swedish weather reports divide Scania into two sub-regions: Österlen and the rest! I am under the impression that Österlen is a more well known name than Simrishamn, and that Simrishamn is most known in the context of being "the capital of Österlen", but I could be wrong. Even if the two names were equally established I would still have a slight preference to Österlen. If we are to treat the combined area of Simrishamn, Tomelilla, Kristianstad and Bromölla municipalities in one article, Österlen is just technically a more accurate name than Simrishamn. Especially since it is not Simrishamn, but Tomelilla which is the largest locality in the area. It also seems to me that most of the attractions are rural, and scattered around the region, rather than concentrated to Simrishamn. MartinJacobson (talk) 17:06, 28 May 2019 (UTC)


 * OK. I have just once visited the town (on my way over the Baltic). I just drew conclusions from Tomelilla not being mentioned in either article (other than as a redlink in Österlen) and the others being described as villages. For me it was not apparent whether the discussion should be here, at Scania, Österlen or Simrishamn, and those interested in the articles involved may not follow all the pages, so there is a risk of such editors not noting the merge suggestion (I did not see the merge tag). --LPfi (talk) 21:11, 28 May 2019 (UTC)