On 10 April 2012 12:48, Peter Coombe <thewub.wiki(a)googlemail.com> wrote: It's a bit different though... on WikiNews you can objectively report things as "OR" - with clear notes taken at the time, etc. On WikiTravel it's not really like that; because a lot of it revolves around the best... restaurant, bar, place to stay, way to get around, sights to see. This is all extremely subjective and basically depends on who is writing the page. For example; I would probably write a very different guide to Paris as someone else who had visited the city! Dullness doesn't have anything to do with NPOV; it's just poor writing. There are featured articles on some very dull 16th century individuals that positively pop and sizzle because the writing is excellent. Non-neutral material *looks* exciting because it is controversial. But it's a faux-excitment, and is of significantly less utility to the reader. WikiTravel is AWESOME and should totally be embraced by Wikimedia. However, I'd be cautious of embracing all of their content without some level of filtering... I use it a lot and many of the pages ramble excessively and complain about issues without any form of sourcing. In fact most articles lack even the most basic sourcing; if they came onboard I don't think that state of affairs could continue, and I'd be cautious of importing content without any form of review. The other issue is one of advertising and promotion, which is rather delicate. Many pages have recommendations for accommodation, restaurants, bars, etc. that read either as promotional, or very subjective. They tend to be quite out of date too. Finding a way to integrate a database of amenities for each location (rather than have it on the page in the prose), perhaps with ratings/reviews, would be interesting - and solve the problem of introducing first hand accounts without clear context. Just some random thoughts; pitched right, Wikitravel would be a great addition to the mix IMO. Tom

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 1:48 PM, Peter Coombe <thewub.wiki(a)googlemail.com> wrote: [snip] I was thinking about this idea of NPOV and I'm thinking that trying to apply NPOV to a travel guide (and here I'm just thinking about the "what to visit" part of it, rather than "which hotel to stay in" or such can go in two directions. First, I can imagine, as you say that using some kind of NPOV might make the travel guide dull, because it'd end up listing about 300 tiny things to see in one small location, and you'd lose the edge of knowing "what to really see". On the other hand, I can imagine that allowing not-so-known locations to be integrated in a travel guide because of NPOV (everything gets to be there, if it exists, basically) could be also extremely interesting in allowing people to travel differently, and bring them to admire that never-mentioned-in-a-normal-travel-guide monument or go and see that extremely-interesting-for-its-time-but-made-by-a-nobody statue that no other guide bothers to list because well, it's not a Michelangelo thing. Something of an attention to detail that I can see Wiki communities having as opposed to larger established travel guides that keep on telling you to do the same things everyone else does. I am not advocating for or against NPOV for a Wiki travel guide, I'm just thinking outloud at what would be the challenges of taking it in or leaving it out. Cheers, Delphine -- @notafish NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails will get lost. Intercultural musings: Ceci n'est pas une endive - http://blog.notanendive.org Photos with simple eyes: notaphoto - http://photo.notafish.org