From Wikitravel

Contents 1 Welcome 2 Isle Royale National Park 3 LNT 4 Hey TVER 5 On Vandalism 6 Map 7 Rail travel in North America 8 rm status tag 9 Danger that way lies 10 NA Solution 11 Tornado 12 New article status pages 13 Your Michigan map 14 Yellowstone? 15 Hanover edits 16 I suggest... 17 Admin 18 The troublesome ampersand 19 Template:Disambig 20 Template:Disambig 21 Infobox 22 Comments direct at the wrong person 23 Linz 24 Really down there 25 Deletions 26 Geo 27 Factbookectomy 28 Apology 29 Gardena and Hawthorne 30 Section headers deletion 31 About Cúcuta 32 About Cùcuta (again) 33 Grand Canyon 34 Speedy delete, please. 35 Stay safe 36 Quickbar templates 37 Image:Compass star emblem coolvetica logo.png 38 Happy 39 why deleted 40 D.C. 41 nl: 42 Kentwood 43 Ko Samet 44 Talk Main page 45 Mainer2006 46 Time Zone of Sri Lanka 47 Pisew Falls 48 Delete vandal 49 Images 50 I just caught this 51 Damn you're good 52 Guess who

Welcome

Hello TVerBeek!

Welcome to Wikitravel. Please take a sec to look at our copyleft and policies and guidelines, but feel free to plunge forward and edit some pages. Scanning the Manual of style, especially the article templates, can give you a good idea of how we like articles formatted. If you need help, check out Wikitravel:Help, and if you need some info not on there, post a message in the travellers' pub.

Thank you for contributing to Akureyri. Your uploaded images are very nice too. However, please read the Wikitravel:Image policy. The Image:Akureyri.jpg for example has the face of a person on the right hand side. Unless you have a model release, we cannot use this image. It would be OK if it were cropped. Also, all images need a release statement. A simple statement saying something like taken by me, released under CC-by-SA is enough. Sorry about the bureacracy but we need to be careful where images are concerned. The text is fine. If it is a bit old, someone else with newer information, can update it. --Huttite 22:02, 1 Jan 2006 (EST)

My family's always complained that there are never any people in my vacation photos. I can't win. {wry grin} I've edited the photo to comply, and fuzzed out an iffy face in another snapshot. Todd VerBeek 21:06, 18 March 2006 (EST)

Isle Royale National Park

Just a note to say that you've done a great job with Isle Royale National Park. Thanks! -- Ryan 13:28, 18 March 2006 (EST)

I'm just trying to keep myself occupied while waiting to go back there in June. Todd VerBeek 21:06, 18 March 2006 (EST)

LNT

Thanks for linking my blurb about Leave No Trace policies on the Acadia National Park page to the LNT page that I didn't know existed. I was trying to figure out an easy way to summarize effort without plaigurizing, so this works well. -- Derek 13:12, 25 March 2006 (EST)

Hey TVER

HELLO i would like to ask you for help editing my pages since Tom is not liking me and is probably busy at the moment as of windhorse and somone else? Traveler2006 14:37, 28 March 2006 (EST) thnks asap?

On Vandalism

Certain vandals appear to get their jollies by pissing people off. If you think you might be dealing with an attention-seeking vandal, it is best to avoid all communication with it once the initial attempt at corrections have failed. And if you get tired of them, always feel free to walk away for a bit and assume that someone else will clean up the mess -- it's a team effort! -- Colin 16:36, 28 March 2006 (EST)

aim? mine is feverwarrior todd to say hello and no bad stuff. thank you

Map

Hi Todd, just wondering if I could get your technique for creating your map of Isle Royale. I've attempted a couple maps of Mount Desert Island but haven't been satisfied with them. This page is one of my babies, so I want to do it justice. Thanks for the info. -- Derek 10:27, 6 April 2006 (EST)

Rail travel in North America

Todd, yesterday you persuaded me on the case for Tips for rail travel and adding a "See Also" section to the various rail travel articles. However, I have a question for you about the future of these rail articles. In your opinion do you think Rail travel in Canada and Rail travel in the United States should be merged back together or remain seperate articles? I know the benefit of having the articles seperated is that the US can be expanded, however at the same rate I'm worried that the Canadian article will be unable to be grow much unless commuter rail info is added in. What do you think? Sapphire 15:30, 6 April 2006 (EDT)

From my talk page:

I suppose they could be separate articles, but I think the information for Canada, the US, and Mexico would fit well into just one. Sadly there just isn't that much to tell (especially Mexico), and there's a fair amount of overlap, so it makes sense to me. For example, I live as close to Ontario as to Illinois, so if I were looking into taking a rail trip, seeing both Canadian and US routes listed in the same place would be helpful. - Todd VerBeek 09:16, 7 April 2006 (EDT)

Right, that's was my concern too, but I seperated them because Evan saw it turning into something like that, but there seems to be only one noteworthy rail passenger service in Mexico and very little passenger service in Canada. The US is the bulk of the information. So should I merge them back and then VFD Canada and the US articles? Sapphire 09:24, 7 April 2006 (EDT)

From the Japan talk page

The issue is how much information does there need to be in a country's continent's "get around" section? The NA/ EU articles allow for the excessive amount of information to be available for travellers. This would be my idea for coming to a consensus:

• Rail information should be in a country's "get around" section provided that there is little information that is available or that rail travel is of little use in that country.
• If there is an excessive amount of information then explore the possibility (does not give a guarantee for the creation) of a [[Rail travel in xxx]] article.

The case for the European article (as an example) many travellers use rail to cross Europe. The information provided in the EU article would therefore be useful, because then the traveller knows what to expect in some cases of traveling by rail across Euroland.

Sapphire 13:41, 7 April 2006 (EDT)

rm status tag

So, I realize that our article status isn't well-defined for much of anything besides city destination articles, but I think we should probably try to define them for e.g. travel topics, rather than removing the tags completely. I think the same kind of 5-point system would work well. Do you want to take a poke at it, or do you want me to? --Evan 16:39, 7 April 2006 (EDT)

Wow! That was fast. Nice job. I've just done a cursory review and it looks good. I'll make the rest of my comments on Wikitravel talk:article status, but thanks a ton for getting the process started. --Evan 22:00, 7 April 2006 (EDT)

Danger that way lies

So, I wanted to warn you: every time you change a Template: file, the cache is invalidated for all the articles that use that template. That can mean thousands of invalidated files, and lots of thrashing and high load, for high-usage templates like the status templates. So, it may be a good idea to test them in a workspace first, get them straight, and then update them once or twice. Obviously, it's not killing us, but it'll be a sloooooow process if you do it a lot. --Evan 20:18, 10 April 2006 (EDT)

NA Solution

I just wanted to get your thoughts again. I'm going to Merge the Canada and US rail articles back together and Redirect Canada and US to Rail travel in NA. Does that sound good to you? No one else has responded to your post about that possibility. Plus if a consensus is ever reached we can just revert it. Sapphire 21:27, 11 April 2006 (EDT)

Tornado

I realized that you changed the map of "Tornado Alley" on Tornado Safety Did you do this because of my comments on Image:TornadoAlley.png? User:Sapphire

New article status pages

Hi Todd - when you're happy with them, can you add your new article status pages (and any other new pages created in the Wikitravel namespace) to the Wikitravel:Namespace index? I do my best to keep that page up-to-date, but I'm on the road right now and will probably miss any new pages created during the next few days. Thanks! -- Ryan 02:54, 15 April 2006 (EDT)

Your Michigan map

...is awesome. I just had to tell you how much I enjoyed it! Great job. Haem85 16:51, 20 April 2006 (EDT)

Yellowstone?

Did you mean to add Yellowstone (which has not been nominated) to the upcoming Wikitravel:Destination of the Month candidates or did you mispell Yosemite? -- Colin 15:38, 27 April 2006 (EDT)

Bah! Those big western-US parks all look the same. :) - Todd VerBeek 15:48, 27 April 2006 (EDT)

Hanover edits

Thank you for your edits on the Hanover page. I think it looks better than ever now... - Sixzilly 22:20, 3 May 2006 (WEST)

I suggest...

You take a peek at Wikitravel:Administrator_nominations. Majnoona 15:23, 6 May 2006 (EDT)

Admin

So, your admin bit is now flipped, and you should see some extra tabs on the top of each page. Please use them for good, not evil, and remember that with very slight power comes very moderate responsibility. B-) --Evan 23:08, 20 May 2006 (EDT)

The troublesome ampersand

Just so you know how I finally zapped those pages containing ampersands...when I hit delete, I got an error message. The URL of the delete message contained an ampersand in the wrong place, which I replaced with "%26" and hit return. That did the trick. -- Jonboy 05:28, 22 May 2006 (EDT)

Template:Disambig

Hi Todd. Could you please tell us why you created Template:Disambig when we already have Template:Disamb doing the same thing? Thanks. Ricardo (Rmx) 18:28, 22 May 2006 (EDT)

Template:Disambig

Hi Todd - since there is already a Template:Disamb in use, and since it sounds like the Template:Disambig was just an experiment, can you delete the new template? It would be better (IMO) not to have two templates that perform the same function. If you feel the new template should be kept, could you leave a comment as to why on its talk page? Thanks! -- Ryan 10:53, 23 May 2006 (EDT)

Geez, you don't have to nag me. - Todd VerBeek 10:58, 23 May 2006 (EDT)

Sorry, didn't mean to nag. I missed Ricardo's comment above and figured you had missed the comment on the template talk page. I'm a bit of an organization freak, and having unused & duplicate templates hits a sore spot with me for whatever reason. -- Ryan 11:02, 23 May 2006 (EDT)

Infobox

TVerBeek, Would you please reword the infobox on Berlin#Eat. I like how you rewrite phrases to be more illustrative. Thanks. - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 16:02, 29 May 2006 (EDT)

Beautiful! It's appreciated! - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 16:31, 29 May 2006 (EDT)

Comments direct at the wrong person

I believe the comments made on User_talk:Bill-on-the-Hill#Linz were directed toward you, but the user somehow confused you with BotH. - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 18:46, 29 May 2006 (EDT)

I have a hunch you're going to need to go into hiding. First Linz now the bus article (if this turns into an war over the article). If you need a place to hide we have some good places to hiding places in Cincinnati. I'll bring you food and water every day. :) Unless you attack anything about my Cincinnati article. In that case I'll tell everyone where you're at. - User:Sapphire

Many years ago I made plans in case I ever needed to go into hiding. My first phone call would be to a certain person I don't get along with (so no one would ever think of looking for me there), but whom I have enough respect for (and vice versa) that I know I'd be safe with them until things cooled down. But thanks for the offer. - Todd VerBeek 23:32, 29 May 2006 (EDT)

Linz

Quote: "Those are the headers we use on pages throughout the site, and they're part of our Manual of style. Granted, they're a little unusual, but they're part of what makes Wikitravel different from other travel guides, giving it a more active personality."

Who are "WE"? Are you talking for the whole of Wikipedia? Who decides the style? Who decides the Manual of Style?

A little unusual? They´re not English. Maybe I should have written, "Me eat, you eat... good..."

Does making verbs into commands (See, do, eat) give them a more "active personality"? What does that mean? Can words, or a web-page, have an active "personality"? Hmmm...

Writing "Understand" is also a command/verb, and something that should never be written as a command. History/Overview/Lifestyle is better, or? Tell me I´m wrong.

I changed the words because I think that Gerunds are important. "Eating", as in, "Eating in Linz", (which is what the article is about, after all) is grammatically correct.

Please don´t think this was written hastily, or nastily, but I hope you get my meaning.

andreasegde

Really down there

Congratulations for all the stuff you're putting into the Antarctica and South Pole articles. They really made me curious and are very enjoyable to read. Ricardo (Rmx) 21:52, 30 May 2006 (EDT)

Deletions

I caught some of the discussion about shortening the wait on deletion of images and articles. What consensus did you guys come to? I'd appreciate a response so I know what to do in the future. Thanks! - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 22:14, 31 May 2006 (EDT)

No consensus has been reached. See Wikitravel talk:Deletion policy. - Todd VerBeek 22:59, 31 May 2006 (EDT)

Geo

Todd,

Do you know where I can find info about how to insert the Geo tag? It's been a while and I can't find any page about the template by searching. Thanks. - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 13:21, 5 June 2006 (EDT)

See Wikitravel:Geocoding. - Todd VerBeek 15:32, 5 June 2006 (EDT)

Factbookectomy

These barnstars remind me of the stickers that teachers give out to grade school kids, but as goofy as they seem they remain Wikitravel's best way of noting good contributions, so here's one for you. Nice work on cleaning up the last of the factbook imports, as well as for everything else you've been doing around here. Hours and hours of work rewarded with a random bunch of pixels. Cheers! -- Ryan 15:29, 5 June 2006 (EDT)

• I award you one too, though, I'm unsure if I have the power to do so. - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 15:34, 5 June 2006 (EDT)

P.S. Thanks for getting back to me on the geo thing, but I had eventually discovered it. - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 15:34, 5 June 2006 (EDT)

They're done? Really? All the factbook articles? That's SO INCREDIBLE. Hooray for Todd! --Evan 12:03, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

Apology

See my talk page...

Andreasegde 16:01, 5 June 2006 (EDT)

Gardena and Hawthorne

Gardena and Hawthorne are both cities in Los Angeles County. Typically, when a page has bad content, the best thing to do is blank it, then add the appropriate template, rather than deleting it. --Evan 12:02, 7 June 2006 (EDT)

Section headers deletion

The article guidelines do say that sections should be left out if the content is not relevant. In the case of small places, where there is no onward destination without going back the way you came, they suggest the Get Out should be left out. In the case of Bergen (Netherlands), which you can walk through in 15 minutes, a Get Around section is inappropriate. I think that the village does not even merit a separate article, but others disagreed. Wesopa 07:49, 9 June 2006 (EDT)

The guideline on an onward destination, as I understood it, was if you would normally visit village B as a day trip from city A, then it should be listed under in the article of city A. 'Onward destinations' are places where you would go to stay for at least one night. I originally put Bergen in the Get Out section of the Alkmaar article, but other people objected precisely that 'nearby villages' don't belong in the Get Out section. (Bergen is within walking distance of Alkmaar).

Since Bergen is near the coast, going anywhere else in the Netherlands normally involves taking the bus to Alkmaar station, and that is how most non-cycling visitors would get there anyway. It is not always the case that places are strung out along a logical itinerary, with an evident content for the Get Out section. Wesopa 09:01, 9 June 2006 (EDT)

Thanks for pointing out the "Respect" irony. I hadn't noticed it out. - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 10:27, 9 June 2006 (EDT)

About Cúcuta

Sr. TVerBeek don't change the page of Cúcuta.

THANKS.

Ricardoramirezj

Perdón? Lo siento, Ricardo, pero voy a continuar editando esa pagina, corregir los errores usted higa cuando usted la corrigio. - Todd VerBeek 14:30, 9 June 2006 (EDT)

About Cùcuta (again)

I am not copying information from the Spanish Wikitravel, because I created the article of Cúcuta in spanish... check up the history.

Don't change the article of Cúcuta or you will be in the list of vandalism.

PD: If you can't speak well spanish.. just don't do it.

Thanks!!

Ricardo Ramírez

(No soy vandal; soy un admin de Wikitravel ingles.) Y yo hablo espanol (mas o menos). Si puedes leer ingles, puedes leer Wikitravel:Manual of style donde explica como articulos en este website deben ser ajustados a formato. - Todd VerBeek 14:41, 9 June 2006 (EDT)

Grand Canyon

Thanks for your edits on the Grand Canyon page today. I think we were battling for edit time! We were trying to figure out how best to insert a book, and you did it well. Thanks again. Findbgs 16:57, 9 June 2006 (EDT)

Speedy delete, please.

Would you please delete Image:Existingbiketrail.JPG. After a second look, the license the Ohio DNP isn't as compatible with Cc-by-sa as I thought it was. Thanks. - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 22:03, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

I'd love to, but I don't seem to have admin privs on Shared at the moment. {scratches head} - Todd VerBeek 22:24, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

I found out that I do, so I deleted it.

— Ravikiran 02:15, 15 June 2006 (EDT)

For your information: I asked Evan to give me the super powers on Shared too, whenever he gets around to flipping the bit for me. I also told him that you were unable to do the speedy delete for me, because you didn't have admin privs on Shared and he said he would add you. - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 14:11, 15 June 2006 (EDT)

Stay safe

Hi Todd. I was recently reviewing the 'Stay safe' section of the USA article and was a little concerned at some of the "don't worry, problems are unlikely" attitude taken. Could you review it a bit too? I'm feeling a bit underinformed on some of it, and wondering if I'm being unduly concerned. -- Colin 18:46, 2 July 2006 (EDT)

Quickbar templates

Looks like we're down to four articles still needing quickbar templates: Isle of Man, Guernsey, Gibraltar and Republic of Ireland. Rather than risk starting one only to find out we were both working on the same article at the same time I'm gonna take a break for a bit, and if there are any left later tonight I'll take care of them.

As an aside, the Isle Royale National Park article, which was great before, is now off-the-charts awesome with your new pictures and other additions. Very nice work. -- Ryan 21:03, 2 July 2006 (EDT)

Quick question on quickbar formatting - I've been changing "450 sq km" to "450 km²" as I figured it's more concise and clearer for non-native speakers to use the "²" notation. Additionally, I've been capitalizing the first word of each section for consistency ("government=Republic"). I see that you reverted that for Brazil, and I'm curious about your reasoning? Is it due to the changing of line height with superscripts? I'm not married to my way of doing things, but I also don't want to "clean up" your changes while you're cleaning up my changes at the same time. -- Ryan 18:40, 3 July 2006 (EDT)

I've been going with "sq km" because A) that's how the original data was written, so it was the path of least resistance in conversion, and B) the unfortunate ugliness of most browsers' support for superscripts. Other than that, I don't have a strong preference for one or the other. (It'd presumably be trivial to write a bot to do a global search-and-replace to standardize it.) To be honest, I don't see why we'd want to capitalize the government descriptions, as the factbook had it right to begin with: they're not proper names. i.e. "The Republic of Ireland", but "Ireland is a republic". - Todd VerBeek 18:58, 3 July 2006 (EDT)

Image:Compass star emblem coolvetica logo.png

Would you happen to have any idea what I did to the image? All I know was I was looking at past versions of the image and mistakenly hit rev(ert) and now I can't revert my actions. -- Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 12:54, 4 July 2006 (EDT)

I don't know. It sometimes takes a while (hours, maybe a day) for the history on images to actually show up, so maybe if you wait, you'll be able to revert whatever you might have reverted. - Todd VerBeek 13:01, 4 July 2006 (EDT)

Will do. BTW what do you see? Do you see the Wikitravel logo or a picture on Don Rumsfeld? -- Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 13:03, 4 July 2006 (EDT)

I see the logo. (I only see Rumsfeld when I eat spicy foods too close to bedtime.) - Todd VerBeek 14:22, 4 July 2006 (EDT)

Happy

I would be really happy if you went here. The thing 10:35, 8 July 2006 (EDT) P.S. I'm NOT a spammer.

why deleted

hi Todd.

I tried to put a link to wheretostay.com on some pages and I noticed you deleted them. This is a cool site that allows travelers to post reviews and share experiences with others. Can I ask why you deleted my edits?

Tom

Wikitravel is a travel guide. We like to include all the necessary information in our own guide, rather than linking to other people's guides. In particular, we do not have an "External links" section, because the only places we link to are primary sources: the hotels, restaurants, etc. that we list, and the official tourism agencies of the cities and countries we have guides for. - Todd VerBeek 00:05, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

Understood. I have read the "Goal and non-Goals" and get your point. Sorry, should have read that first. To clarify, on a page like this (http://wikitravel.org/en/Barbados) would is be appropriate to create a link to a list of hotels in Barbados in the Sleep section?

Tom

No, not really. See Wikitravel:External links for some details. --Evan 00:27, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

We'd much rather have a list of hotels in the Barbados article itself. - Todd VerBeek 00:30, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

D.C.

Thanks for beautifing the article. Do you also think the DC article should be called Washington, D.C.? I raised this point sometime back on the DC talk page. -- Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 18:44, 9 July 2006 (EDT)

nl:

Question: did you put the nl-0 template on your user page because you have a Dutch name and you don't want people to think you speak Dutch? Or is it because you speak a little Dutch?

I'm asking because the main go-between on Wikitravel nl: is traveling in South America, and there's been an uptick in activity on the nl: site. I've been trying to do some welcome messages, but my Dutch is practically non-existent. If you're at all interested in checking out nl:, it'd be a big help. --Evan 13:56, 10 July 2006 (EDT)

Kentwood

I'm about to get a Wyoming, MI article up with some content. Would you happen to know far is Kentwood from Wyoming? Thanks. -- Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 21:55, 11 July 2006 (EDT)

Ko Samet

I queried the Ko Samet article status as it's "usablecity" and Ko Samet is a (very small and extremely un-city-like) island, and I wasn't sure if that's how "usablecity" is supposed to be applied or not. 125.24.4.216 01:00, 14 July 2006 (EDT)

"city" is the closest match of the six different kinds of "usable" templates we have. The others are regions (with cities in them), countries (with currency and visa info needed), phrasebooks, travel topics, and itineraries (which are completely different kinds of articles). - Todd VerBeek 01:05, 14 July 2006 (EDT)

Cheers. And thanks for fixing my botched == Get out == edit!

Talk Main page

Hi Todd! 83.76.218.153 was me I reverted the spam at the talk of the main page. Ravikiran showed me that yesterday. Did I do it right? Thanks Jan 07:52, 14 July 2006 (EDT)

Mainer2006

This is likely the same person as User:Traveler2006... just be paitent and bide your time... it only lasted a few days last time. -- Ilkirk 13:49, 14 July 2006 (EDT)

Oh, I know who it is. I'm not being patient with him or nice to him because I want him to go away and not come back. -Todd VerBeek 13:51, 14 July 2006 (EDT)

Time Zone of Sri Lanka

For the past decade or so, Sri Lanka, has been GMT+6. The GMT +5:30 was correct some years ago, but no longer is. - MMKK 02:55, 17 July 2006 (EDT)

Pisew Falls

Hi Todd The Missus and I are taking the 22km kike to Kwastickiwan this week.... should be a blast, and hopefully Environment Canada gives us some good news on the weather. I already asked this in the IRC chan, but since you seem to be fairly active, do you think that stub tag still needs to be there? I can't think of much more to add. Weaponofmassinstruction 15:32, 17 July 2006 (EDT)

Delete vandal

Thanks for dealing with that. I know that stuff is really, really tedious. --Evan 16:21, 18 July 2006 (EDT)

User contributions, middle-click, middle-click, middle-click, click, click, click. Lather, rinse, repeat. No biggie. :) - Todd VerBeek 16:24, 18 July 2006 (EDT)

Images

Can I delete Image:Manhattan midtown from brooklyn bridge.jpeg and Image:Manhattan downtown from brooklyn bridge.jpeg and move these images to Shared? -- Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 18:00, 18 July 2006 (EDT)

I don't have any real emotional stake in them; my only connection is that I fiddled with their brightness levels. My only concern is whether their full attribution history (crediting User:Mark as creator) will be maintained in the process. - Todd VerBeek 18:12, 18 July 2006 (EDT)

I just caught this

"If you have a flair for the English language, give the text a full-body massage with a happy ending, and make it sing." I think I'd feel used afterwards. --Evan 08:34, 20 July 2006 (EDT)

Deep down, you know you want it! - Todd VerBeek 08:40, 20 July 2006 (EDT)

Damn you're good

Outstanding job on the full article copyedits for Cruise ships. I am humbled. Do you write for a living? One bone to pick: you make the balconies seem even smaller than they are! Anyhow, thanks for being wicked smart and for being here. OldPine 16:36, 21 July 2006 (EDT)

Thanks, but... People can get paid to write? Damn my guidance counselor for not mentioning that! All the writing I do costs me time, money, or both. - Todd VerBeek 18:03, 21 July 2006 (EDT)

Guess who

Boy... I thought I was being helpful and then this happens. Oh well. It was worth a shot.  :( -- Ilkirk 12:27, 24 July 2006 (EDT)