Wikivoyage/Lounge/Archive/2007-12-31

Where are the dumps?

I have lined out some ideas about tech:Database dumps on tech. Maybe, the solution is easier then it was supposed to be. -- Hansm 18:44, 12 December 2006 (CET)

Update: Dumps are available. See tech:Database dumps#Test dumps. There is also a HTML offline version of de: -- Hansm 11:41, 30 December 2006 (CET)

Other Languages

Congrats with WV. What are the plans for an en: version?

Thanks. So far, we only have a German language version and we are still pretty buisy with elaborating new policies, e.g. for decision making, travel related themes and others. There are also some more administrative things to do with respect to our association. Last not least, we would like to gain some more experience in running our own site. When we feel that all this runs well, we can focus on other language versions. So please, let us some time (or join us and help).
Starting an English version is a big thing, because that means to fork Wikitravel's en:. For doing so, we needed to be sure that there realy would be a large number of English speaking contributors that would join us. You can fork a project only once, either it works or you have shoot yourself into your knee. Thus, we rather want to think twice before forking Wikitravel's largest wiki. But, of course, as soon as there are enough new contributors interested in an en: version of Wikivoyage and we feel that it's about time, we won't hesitate to start it.
-- Hansm 10:48, 20 December 2006 (CET)
My name is Felix and I am one of the old wikitravellers, too. I have been very active in the past at the English version [1] of wikitravel, but the latest developments led to the decision not to put much more power into this. I am therefore glad that I have found wikivoyage and hope it can achieve, what wikitravel once promised: A free, community-based travel directory. Being German I have no problems with editing the German version and as I think I speak and write English good enough to be understand, I hereby offer my help, so that we can get an English version startet as soon as possible (I ready to help with the German version, too). I would be glad, if you accepted my offer and get in contact with me soon, as I believe there is a lot of work to be done. I would also volunteer to be some kind of moderator for the English version. Hope to hear from you soon, Felix 07:54, 30 January 2007 (CET)
PS: Just as a sidenote. I thought when registering once I do not need to register again. Well, that was true, but the changes I made to my user page in the :general section were not shown in the German language version. It was also impossible for me to find my way from the :tech version back to the "normal" version.
Hi Felix, welcome on wikivoyage. It is true, you don't have to register again, but you have different userpages on each wiki. If you like to help, feel free to do so. We need all Help we can get. If you like, have a look at To do --Der Reisende 11:22, 30 January 2007 (CET)
Felix (Fluglotse), also a welcome from me. You are right, tech: is not yet very elaborated. It's mainly a place to document our MediaWiki extensions and noboy has taken care for its main page. Our focus is still the German language version and, with minor priority, this general: wiki. It's still much to early to start a en: version, if you ask me personaly. However, smaller language versions might be possible in the next weeks if there were enough contributors. So far, there aren't yet any. As Der Reisende already has said, helping with translations of our German meta articles into English is always a big help. -- Hansm 13:22, 30 January 2007 (CET)
Hi, will go through the To-Do list now and see what I can do to help. Just give me a shout once you think you got enough contributers for an English version. If there aren't any yet, then this makes me the first ;-) Cheers, Felix 20:19, 30 January 2007 (CET)
Fine. To be exactly, you are the 2nd one interested in an en: version. User:Keithonearth has joined us already months ago, but he is inactive since an English version is not expected to be launched in the next future.
As I have seen, you have done some adaptions on the temporary translation wiki. Thanks a lot. If you think some article is ready for being exported to here, mark it with the RevOK template on its header. -- Hansm 23:04, 30 January 2007 (CET)
Inactive, but still here  :) --Keithonearth 02:42, 19 February 2007 (CET)
Dear people, first of all I'd like to congratulate you on having done this! But don't you think it's a better idea to first make the en site available, and then wait for the contributors to start coming in? I can imagine a lot of people finding the site (it took me a while to be honest, I think more dissemination of the fact that you exist is needed!) get stuck on the fact that there is only a German version so far and then just leave instead of signing up and making their presence known. PeterW 17:04, 28 May 2007 (CEST)


Ok, I found the list of articles requiring translation but got told I don't have access to arch.wikivoyage.org, please advise. PeterW 17:24, 28 May 2007 (CEST)

I have updated my (our) old Fork FAQ in order to be able to provide at least some basic ideas about our intensions in English. How do you think about? Feel free to modify it. -- Hansm 16:23, 20 December 2006 (CET)

I think we should reduce it to a statement why we forked and leave the rest out of it. Instead we should set up a real FAQ about contributung, legal stuff and so on.--Der Reisende 14:13, 14 January 2007 (CET)
OK. -- Hansm 17:46, 14 January 2007 (CET)
I will do so.--Der Reisende 10:08, 15 January 2007 (CET)

Have not done so. I suggest we move it to an archiv or history page including the discussion which was a good one as I think of it. I have set up a new FAQ. It is time to fill it up.--Der Reisende 10:52, 15 January 2007 (CET)

Server down for maintenace

I will shut down the server for maintenace at 1-1-2007 at 22:00 UTC. WV won't be accessable for about 2 hours. -- Hansm 23:59, 29 December 2006 (CET)

To do

I have made a To do list for some articles that seem important to be translated. -- Hansm 18:02, 12 January 2007 (CET)

Strange looking Mainpage (bug?)

The mainpage does look strange. The Wikivoyage Logo is cut on the right, the navigation sidbar has different font in type and size, the top "Reiter" like page, edit and so on are not connected to the page (in layout, working is fine) all other pages are fine. --Der Reisende 10:25, 24 January 2007 (CET)

Wikis down for maintenance

Our wikis will be down for maintenance at sunday, 3-6-2007, begining at 20:00 UTC. We will do a MediaWiki version upgrade to version 1.10.0. Estimated downtime is 2 houres. -- Hansm 11:57, 2 June 2007 (CEST)

Update to version 1.10.0 is done. Please report bugs on my German talk page. -- Hansm 23:35, 3 June 2007 (CEST)

Spam blacklist activated

Forced by repeated spam attacks during the last days, we have installed a spam filter for weblinks. The blacklist is maintained on shared: and only editable for admins. If you get a spam filter message when trying to save your legitimate edits, please contact an admin, preferrably on his de: talk page. -- Hansm 10:21, 13 June 2007 (CEST)

Downtime for maintenance

At Monday, 16 July, 19:00 UTC, the wikis will be down for maintenance. Estimated down time: 2h. -- Hansm 21:07, 12 July 2007 (CEST)

Language Versions

User:Bobo11 has proposed to start a general discussion about language versions in order to preprare a scheduled topic of our 2nd association's meeting in september. -- Hansm 17:40, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

French main page for www.wikivoyage.org is ready at my discussion page, if ever we want to get an French version of our main page. I have also been wondering about the use of vollständig (German), complete (English) and complet (French) for our travel guide as it seems a bit presumptuous to me pretending to try writing a complete guide. By its definition, a travel guide can never be complete or exhaustive as interests vary and things change constantly. I am for a deletion of this adjective in our aims. --Mulleflupp 15:20, 19 July 2007 (CEST)

You are right, we should discard complete completly ;-)--Der Reisende 16:42, 19 July 2007 (CEST)
Well, travel information is some kind of moving target and we never will really reach it. However, it is our goal to come as close as possible to it. I would feel fine with "complete", but I don't insist on it. -- Hansm 17:05, 19 July 2007 (CEST)
OK. I see your point, we should leave it in our policy but should we leave it in our description as well?--Der Reisende 17:23, 19 July 2007 (CEST)
It is better to translate einen aktuellen und verlässlichen weltweiten Reiseführer, en: an up-to-date and authentic worldwide travel guide fr: a actuel et fiable mondial guide. Bobo11 17:57, 19 July 2007 (CEST)

English version - or DIY?

Any news about an English version? (Messages above are at least month old). My views are in line with those of PeterW above. Basically I am looking for a viable travel site to contribute to now. (I have tried WikiTravel and I don't like it). If there isn't one - and there are problems launching one here, I am thinking of starting my own. (I have already set up one WikiMedia Wiki in the past). Any ideas or comments? Best regards, -- Skakagrall 08:18, 28 August 2007 (CEST)

This issue is one of the points that will be tackled on the members' meeting (Mitgliederversammlung) in Stuttgart on September 29th 2007. The main problem concerning an English language version is that we need a lot of administrators and users who help along (it is not easy to import 15,000 articles). The second point before starting with an English version is that we want to "perform" a test with the launch of another (smaller on WT) language version. We don't want to make the mistake to start with an English version that is amateurish and fragmentary. Bobo11 09:11, 29 August 2007 (CEST)
I agree with Bobo11. Although the English language version would probably be the one were we could find the most and the most easily contributors for, it is also the biggest one on Wikitravel, i.e. it means lots of work and a very good coordination to perform the import and handle the whole start up procedure in order to avoid silly mistakes and provide a good starting point for new English speaking users. Therefore it seems essential to have a certain number of wiki experienced English speaking admins and also some power users from the beginning on to handle all the necessary adaptations and so on. Me too I think that after the General Members' Meeting end of September, things should be clearer.
As we got so far demonstrations of interest from something like 4 or 5 people for an English language version, it seems necessary to me to get more feedback in this direction. Maybe it would be worth setting up an article where interested people (for English or other language versions) could leave us a message and where we could discuss the whole topic. Best would then be to put a link on the German main page, on the General: main page as well as on the domain's main page. And now that Skakagrall has joined the discussion about the language versions, it might indeed be interesting to revive the topic a bit. --Mulleflupp - Беседа 10:03, 29 August 2007 (CEST)
Thanks for replying to my message. I think some kind of register (recording interest) is necessary, otherwise people like me will just come and go, and never coalesce into a group. I'm looking for a wiki which is a lot better than WikiTravel, more Wikipedia standard. I'm not sure where I can find that, that why I am thinking of starting my own. Best wishes! -- Skakagrall 11:29, 29 August 2007 (CEST)
We will have to think about. We are planning to make a new paragraph that will allow a quick decision about new language versions if an urgent decision is needed. Meanwhile we would like to know wether there are more people who would support (activ) an english version. Please do not underestimate the necessary work. --Der Reisende 10:12, 30 August 2007 (CEST)

I just set up a subpage of Language versions for recording the interest. Please visit Interest in starting a new language version.--Der Reisende 11:52, 30 August 2007 (CEST)

29. 9. 2007 general meeting

The association Wikivoyage e.V holds a general member meeting on September 29th 2007 in Stuttgart. Details in German can be found here. After this meeting we may be able to say more as to the perspective of other language versions. Bobo11 15:01, 4 September 2007 (CEST)

Renaming the Pub to Lounge

What do you think about renaming the pub into Lounge, General: Lounge or Wikivoyage Lounge like on de:? This would differentiate us from other wikis where the term "pub" is often used and provide a certain coherence with the German language version (same topic posted on shared:). --Mulleflupp - Беседа 12:21, 3 October 2007 (CEST)

I am all for it! --Felix 13:05, 3 October 2007 (CEST)
O.K.--Der Reisende 15:46, 4 October 2007 (CEST)
My accordance to renaming pub into lounge have you.--Bobo11 16:33, 4 October 2007 (CEST)

Renamed and moved. Links not fixed yet, redirect from pub still exists.--Der Reisende 08:48, 5 October 2007 (CEST)

Links fixed and/or dissolved. I left the redirect from pub for the time being. --Mulleflupp - Беседа 11:16, 6 October 2007 (CEST)
Thank you very much for fixing.--Der Reisende 20:57, 6 October 2007 (CEST)

Rules for lannguage versions released

Language version policy was set up to provide you with the necessaties for setting up a new language version. Currently it is for non english versions only, secial rules for an english version will follow soon.--Der Reisende 11:44, 23 October 2007 (CEST)

Sheduled downtime at Saturday, 11-24

Our wikis will be migrated from the MySQL database to a PostgreSQL database. This will take several hours and our wikis will be toggled to read-only or won't be accessable at all during this time. I will anounce it here when the maintenance works have been completed.

After the migration, please keep a local backup copy of all major edits for some days. In the worst case, data losses may occure.

-- Hansm 11:58, 22 November 2007 (CET)