Wikivoyage talk:Tour Agency

Site tour
Sparked by the idea to make the Tourist Office more findable, I thought it might be nice to create a site tour, linked from the site notice, e.g., Take a tour of Wikivoyage! It would be a graphically friendly presentation of what we do, showing off some of our best work (article features, star articles, collaboration pages like the pub, new features either just implemented or in development like Books, the Tourist Office, dynamic maps, etc.), as well as ways to help the site, like a video tutorial on how to add/edit a listing, perhaps. --Peter Talk 20:15, 5 June 2013 (UTC)


 * A great idea! I'd been thinking of creating a site map for WV that was laid out like a real plan (perhaps of an airport?). Maybe something like that could be found at Site tour and we could use the imagemap technique (as seen on the Main Page) to send people to the tour's various subsections?
 * I think some sort of video tutorial would also be a great addition, though things like that can be a little tricky. We'd have to decide if we wanted an in-vision presenter or just a voiceover as well as who we'd want to fulfil either of these roles. Definitely something to work towards though! I'd been mulling over the possibility of a Welcome video for some time now, so I have a few ideas that we could perhaps use.
 * The only slight difficulty might be that we don't presently have a usable logo, so some finer points of branding and colour selection might be a little hard, but shouldn't really be a barrier.
 * --Nick talk 20:33, 5 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a idea worth pursuing. One of the let-downs of all our new initiatives and features is that people don't know they exist! A tour would allay that problem and make it clear that we're much more forward-thinking than that other travel site! Maybe it would be worth taking a look at mw:Extension:GuidedTour. That seems to be what we're aiming for, allowing users to cross to multiple pages with popups and balloons providing guidance. We could create an "Introduction" tour that goes through all the main features and works of our site, then specialised tours on particular topics; eg, "Creating printable books" or "Asking a question at the Tourist Office". We'd need word from some developers though whether that extension is ready for implementation, because it doesn't seem to have been updated since last year and is still in beta. James A ▪ talk 02:46, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi, I'm the lead developer of GuidedTour. The extension is already installed on major wikis, including Commons, several Wikipedias (including English), and MediaWiki.org.  I apologize for the outdated infobox at mw:Extension:GuidedTour, which is fixed now.  The extension is actively developed, and was last updated Friday.  It has already been used for significant projects, such as the Editor Engagement Experiments team's efforts to aid new editors.  However, development is still moving, including new features and refactoring.  If Wikivoyage chooses to install it, I am willing to help with implementing a tour.  If consensus is reached, you can file a Bugzilla bug requesting it be installed. Superm401 - Talk 03:33, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Your help implementing it would be awesome. Putting consensus and Bugzilla aside for a moment, how would we best help you in doing so (i.e., how should we go about mocking up what the tour should include/should look like). Also, could you provide a link or two to existing guided tours for inspiration? --Peter Talk 04:30, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, a breakdown of the planned steps is a good start. Figure out which steps (you can have more than one per page) should show on each page, and how you get from page to page.  There are a few existing tours you can look at.  A simple demonstration is test (code).  To see the GettingStarted tours (used to help new editors get started), go to Special:GettingStarted, and click one of the rectangular buttons.  You will see a one-step tour (code).  When that's closed, you can click the help button to see additional steps (code).  Those all happen to be extension tours.  Wikivoyage will probably use on-wiki tours, which have the same features but don't have built-in internationalization.  An example of an on-wiki tour is The Wikipedia Adventure (code).  Superm401 - Talk 21:38, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Those examples you provided look really great! I think it would be worth brainstorming a list of pages/features we would like to introduce in a tour, as well as confirming what the tour's goal would be. If we're going to have a few tours for different purposes, maybe it'd be good to have a page to organise them on. Possibly a Tour Agency to keep in line with our place-based system of naming. And we could discuss all the ideas surrounding tours on the talk page, instead of them drowning out here. James A ▪ talk 07:56, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Discussions seem to have slowed, so I thought it best if we created the page and started to get some ideas going. if it's decided it's not the best solution/name, we can change it later. For now, let's discuss future "tours" at Wikivoyage talk:Tour Agency. James A ▪ talk 06:11, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It would nice to be get some more ideas on board at Wikivoyage talk:Tour Agency - any thoughts? --Nick talk 22:17, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:30, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Brainstorm
I thought I'd kick things off here. The original idea was for a site tour to show off the best of Wikivoyage. Now that we know it's achievable using mw:Extension:GuidedTour, let's discuss what really is the best of Wikivoyage. Here are some ideas for a tour:
 * Start with a view of our Main Page and a quick overview of its key concepts and features
 * Star articles, possibly choose one which is highly organised with districts and a friendly tone to demonstrate
 * On the star article, point out features like the pagebanner and table of contents, the geo icon that brings up a map, the breadcrumb trail, etc
 * An example of an experimental implementation of dynamic maps, like Tokyo/Roppongi
 * A quick visit to a travel topic, itinerary and phrasebook to educate the user about our 4 types of articles
 * Using Books to create a PDF or printed book (maybe walk them through creating one for a city, learning to include its districts, a phrasebook, an itinerary, etc)
 * Asking a question in the Tourist Office
 * Possibly end by encouraging the user to type in their dream destination or future travel plans into the search bar, or if they can't think of anything, to click on Destinations in the sidebar.

Of course, I've probably missed some other awesome things that should be included, but it's a start with a possible running order. What are others' ideas? James A ▪ talk 13:13, 14 June 2013 (UTC)


 * All of those things do sound good! It would be great if we could get that extension to work; our (now archived) Bus Stop offers a sort of mini guide to some of the best sights on here, though I'm not sure I necessarily agree with all of its suggestions.
 * I also started a sort of 'airport map'-style guide to some of Wikivoyage's institutions, though it isn't yet finished (see right).
 * In addition, I really liked Peter's suggestions from the Pub: a video tutorial/welcome of some kind (though this would require a lot of thinking about) as well as selection of our latest developments. --Nick talk 15:30, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
 * That map looks pretty awesome! Firstly, should we just get a consensus in the Pub and get the extension installed? Then we can play around with it and know what we're doing and how it will work. The Bugzilla request will probably take months anyhow. James A ▪ talk 12:01, 20 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I think you're right yes - let's get the extension going and then see how quickly it can be sorted on Bugzilla. If necessary we could create an interim tour of sorts I suppose as well. --Nick talk 13:29, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Site tour
This has already been posited on here, previously, but I think it needs a bit of a push. A site tour would be a great addition to get people interested in the site and contributing positively to Wikivoyage. A page for such a tour already exists Tour Agency; we simply need to decide what to do with it. For this purpose, I think a video would be an excellent starting point. For some inspiration, take a look at the Wikidata video that was recently created - I think it's an excellent example of the genre and a great way to welcome people to the site. Other ideas for the tour would also be very welcome. --Nick talk 22:22, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I think it could be nice to have some kind of site tour or promotional thing, and a video seems a good way, but I do hope we would take a somewhat more practical approach. After looking at this friendly video I have, to be honest, still no idea what Wikidata is about or what I should do with it. :-) JuliasTravels (talk) 11:59, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree. The video to the right is very nice, but I'd like ours to be a little more down-to-Earth and perhaps even a bit tongue in cheek. --Nick talk 12:46, 27 August 2013 (UTC)