Our policy about voting for DotM candidate articles, as written, speaks exclusively in the rather black-and-white terms of "support" and "oppose" votes. However, in practice, a custom has evolved whereby, in cases where a nominee article has issues that are comparatively easily addressed, we phrase our votes in language such as "Not yet", "Needs work", "Almost", etc., reserving "Oppose" votes for truly egregious problems. In light of several different instances of editors employing "Oppose" votes in violation of this custom, I'd like to propose we insert language into our policy obliging those voting on DotM candidates to distinguish between issues of greater and lesser severity and between those that would be more and less difficult and time-consuming to resolve, and specifically circumscribing "Oppose" votes for scenarios where a candidate article has major deficiencies that are unlikely to be resolved before the article's proposed term on the Main Page. Importantly, this would not represent some radical shift in the way we conduct DotM voting; it would merely be a codification of what we already do in practice. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:05, 16 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Forgive me, I'm new to this page, so don't have an appreciation for the customs and finer points of the etiquette. But when it boils down to it, why does it matter what language is used? The point that the user thinks the article in its current iteration isn't suitable is the same no matter whether the word is "oppose", "not yet" or something else. In my case, the oppose is temporary, pending necessary changes to the article in question. "Not yet" means the same thing. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 23:18, 16 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

As I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong), "not yet" etc. is for a article that isn't ready to be featured but can realistically be cleaned up in the near future in order to feature it. Whereas "oppose" is for an article with such serious problems that it's better to slush it and give up on the nomination for the time being. —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:17, 17 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

I support AndreCarrotflower's suggestion. I don't think this is really much of a change for the reasons he mentioned above and adding this new voting category could also potentially make discussions less confusing. Selfie City (talk) 01:35, 17 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Oppose. If I write that "I oppose a feature unless x is taken care of", that isn't wrong or inaccurate - I did that with Indonesian phrasebook. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:47, 17 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

I also have to say oppose. Even if it is something which you have already been doing in practice, "oppose" is what I meant, and that wouldn't have changed even if I had shrouded it in platitudes. I'd rather we were free to communicate our opinions directly, in the manner each of us choose, than have our language restricted by committee. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:49, 17 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

If one thinks there are some serious issues with a nominated article then it'd be prefectly OK to say "oppose". ϒpsilon (talk) 13:07, 17 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Yes, but even if the issues are less serious, I think we should be able to say "oppose, until the problems I've highlighted are dealt with" without ruffling any feathers. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 14:10, 17 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

In the rail travel case I voted oppose due to the rapid approaching date of featuring and my serious concern that the issue might not be fixed in time. I would have opposed the article going life without that info updated and integrated. Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:17, 21 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

I know there has been concern in recent years that "oppose" is "too harsh" and may make nominators "feel bad", but I think people should be free to judge as they see fit and "Not yet" is still an oppositional vote that will not produce different results than "oppose" if the overall sentiment is "not yet". I'd rather put the onus on the nominator to accept the critique and opposition rather than berating someone for saying "oppose" instead of "not yet"/"Needs improvement"/etc. which I think would discourage voting. ANY article can be featured if given proper attention, so an "oppose" vote can be changed just like a "not yet" vote. Also, ANY opposition votes are potentially disheartening if the user really feels confident or excited about featuring the article, so there is a level of maturity required by the nominator to understand that nominating is more than just a formality. In terms of voting issues, I'm much less a fan of the practice of writing "support" and then adding stipulations, because a vote of support should mean you support as is. The existence of stipulations should always mean "Not yet/Oppose". ChubbyWimbus (talk) 16:44, 21 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

That last point is a good one. I will try to follow that suggestion from now on.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 19:04, 21 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

It's not so much about avoiding hurting the nominator's feelings, but rather a way to more accurately gauge consensus. A recurring assumption I've seen in this thread is that "oppose" and "not yet" are two ways to convey exactly the same information, which I don't agree with. It's a matter of degree. In my ideal scenario, a nominee accruing a lot of "Not yet" votes would be taken as a rallying cry to get to work correcting the article's flaws; while a nominee accruing a lot of "Oppose" votes would be a signal that the problems are probably insurmountable, and we should consider slushing the nominee and/or demoting it from Guide status. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 22:01, 21 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Yes, an article with 4 supports and 4 "not yet" votes will not be slushed in the majority of cases, while an article with 4 supports and 4 oppose votes has a pretty high chance of being slushed IMO. I think generally a "not yet" or "needs work" or "almost" vote is not taken as seriously as an "oppose" vote. --- Selfie City (talk | contributions) 22:09, 21 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Sometimes we get premature nominations, like Special:Diff/3303328/3321174, where an article is usable but nowhere near feature-worthy. The usual procedure is to open a discussion "To guide and FTT?" on the article's talk page, so that the issues may be fixed before the article is nominated, but occasionally that step gets missed and we end up with "not yet" votes - or, worst case, one user in Buffalo slaving away frantically on the Underground Railroad to rewrite every listing in it days before the feature goes live. Perhaps the premature nominations are being made out of concern that DoTM/OtBP/FTT will underrun, leaving us with one month where no article is actually ready to be featured, but if something needs work before it's ready (such as a nomination for an UGRR itinerary that was missing Boston, Syracuse, the Mississippi River and a few other key listings) we say so. K7L (talk) 14:32, 28 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

This is already a fairly important tourist destination and I think is about to boom because a new airport opens this month. See Talk:Panglao#Guide?_DotM? for details.

Currently the article is well short of Guide status, though. Would anyone like to pitch in & improve it? Could it be a good candidate for Collaboration of the Month? Pashley (talk) 20:25, 25 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

The article seems to have a lot of potential, since it has a custom banner and a lot of listings — unfortunately, the number of listings in the sleep section is out of proportion with the rest of the article. But I think with coordinates, etc. it could be a good article. Not so sure about Collaboration of the Month, though. ---Selfie City (talk | contributions) 20:48, 25 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

I think it would need quite a lot of work to come up to standard, but it might well be worth it. It is already one of the country's main tourist destinations and, since the new airport can handle large international jets, it seems likely to become even more popular. Pashley (talk) 22:10, 25 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Well, we don't seem to a bad job in our coverage of the Philippines, and this could be helpful — much more helpful than improvising article coverage for Mongolia or somewhere of that nature, where few tourists would go. ---Selfie City (talk | contributions) 22:18, 25 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

I noticed the archive of this talk page is pretty long. Is it necessary to subdivide it into sets of a couple of years each, like the nominations themselves?--ϒpsilon (talk) 09:05, 28 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Yes, dividing into years seems like the best choice to me, but I don't think it matters much once it's in the archive. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 15:53, 28 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Happy to support this. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:56, 28 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

• I'll support too. By the way, I think we could archive some of the stuff on this page in the process as well. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 15:59, 28 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

I don't understand the importance of dividing the archive into more than one page. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:31, 7 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

This means the impending loss of God knows how many potential source images for banners. I say let's start making banners for as many future DotMs as possible, while we still can. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 04:46, 6 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

I'm sure that Commons will be doing as much as possible to salvage these photos, too, as they did for Panoramio, etc. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:26, 6 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

What a shame. The good news is that it's not quite as bad as it sounds – according to this, free images uploaded before 1 November 2018 are safe from deletion by Flickr (but may still be deleted by the uploaders to free up space for new photos). A discussion about saving images that are at risk has been started at commons:Commons talk:Flickr files#Flickr paid plans and deletions. —Granger (talk · contribs) 08:13, 6 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

How many people use Flickr for free and upload more than 1,000 photos? Seems like a lot of pictures. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 14:39, 6 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Galway, Ireland and Rijeka, Croatia will be European Capitals of Culture in 2020. Both articles are currently usable, but Galway looks like it doesn't require too much work to make it a guide. I thought that it was good that we feature Valletta last year when it was a Capital of Culture, and maybe we should aim to do so again next year. AlasdairW (talk) 21:34, 13 February 2019 (UTC)Reply

At what point did we establish a consensus that DotM blurbs should now end with "Tap to learn more"? Maybe I'm in the minority, but I use Wikivoyage primarily on my laptop. If I tap on the screen, nothing happens. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 15:40, 23 February 2019 (UTC)Reply

Not me. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 16:18, 23 February 2019 (UTC)Reply

I can't see anywhere that says "tap to learn more." --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 18:40, 23 February 2019 (UTC)Reply

Looks like it's since been modified to only be visible on mobile. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 18:43, 23 February 2019 (UTC)Reply

Oh yes, I see. Traveler100 is doing some great work on the mobile side of things. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 20:05, 23 February 2019 (UTC)Reply

@ARR8, Traveler100: I just looked at the WV main page on mobile and it looks good. However, an idea: when you tap the picture (or the hand), the text shows up. I think it should be, that if you tap the hand again, the box disappears, as it does if you tap other places on the page.

Also, the bullet points in the discover box are up against the left edge of the box on mobile. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 23:57, 23 February 2019 (UTC)Reply