French
DeutschBeautiful scenery, but too many pictures
[edit source]The scenery in the region is clearly beautiful, but there are too many pictures. But the pictures are so nice that I don't just want to go around, deleting ones on my own decision. I'd like to see people vote about which ones are their favorites, and then the least favorites can be removed. So here are the images:
I'd support cutting down the number of images to 4 or 5. So please, feel free to go ahead and vote! --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 03:10, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- Here's my order of favorites, roughly, best to worst: #1, #3, #7, #4, #2, #9, #8, #10, #6, #5. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 03:14, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- Why is this too many pictures? On my screen they look quite nice, though a little unevenly spaced. Do they hang past the bottom of the article on yours? —Granger (talk · contribs) 03:34, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- @Mx. Granger: No, but per Wikivoyage:Image policy no more than 2 or 3 successive images should be used, and 1 image per screen is considered adequate. This article clearly violates that policy. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 03:44, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- The policy you linked to says "1 image per screen (1,000 - 2,000 bytes) is generally adequate." The article has 30,244 bytes, so per the policy that's ~15–30 screens, so it seems 10 images is less than the policy recommends. Intuitively I think the current number of images looks okay, though I wouldn't mind adding a couple more. I support rearranging the images so that they're not bunched up, though. —Granger (talk · contribs) 03:51, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- Yes, but that's not averages through the article, that's per screen. So they should be rearranged. Also, take into account that a one-line listing uses way more bytes than a one line of text, so a code-heavy article could be quite short but appear to have a large number of bytes. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 04:03, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- If any have to be removed, #9 seems least interesting. But I think first, they should be distributed throughout the article, and then we can see. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:08, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- Sure. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 06:04, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- I am the bad guy who added the pictures and the most of the text to this unknown but highly interesting region. In my opinion I would even add more pictures, especially if I compare this site to the site Mountain ranges.... If we talk e.g. about „See“ than pics must be near text in a row to make sense in my opinion. Just to randomly distribute them in the text looks not logical to me. If we talk about known places, like Paris, pictures are not really necessary at all. But an unknown region like this needs pictures to attract the reader to get interest in visiting this place. DocWoKav 26 February 2019
- If you'd like to change Wikivoyage's image policy, you need to argue your position at Wikivoyage talk:Image policy. But read Wikivoyage talk:Image policy#Minimal use of images - not appropriate and the "Resolution" subsection first. Meanwhile, as things stand, a policy set by consensus must be enforced, and that policy is that images should not be bunched up in "See" and that the link to Wikimedia Commons is provided for people who want to see a fuller selection of photos of a given town or area. All Wikimedians are expected to respect existing consensuses even if they are trying to change them. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:03, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- Dear Ikan Kekek, just because we disagree about the organization of the articles in Northern Greece does not mean that we have to talk aggressively with each other. The guideline says, "Try to avoid having more than 2 or at least 3 successive images without space between them." In the Rhodope article it is 4 in the row. Does that justify your instructive conversation tone? Maybe it would have been enough to say, make a line between them to fit the guideline. I will do this to make you relaxed again. We are working together on a good project, not against each other :) DocWoKav 26 February 2019
- Sorry to seem aggressive to you; I just want you to know what the guidelines are and make sure you're in agreement with respecting them. Your work has been really helpful to readers and improved the content on this site, but so far, it does not sound like you actually are in agreement with respecting site guidelines. "Try to avoid having more than 2 or at most 3 successive images without space between them" doesn't mean maybe 4, especially as some participants in the discussion that I linked wanted to limit it to 2 in a row at most, and putting lines between images doesn't sound within site guidelines either. But either way, these are proposals that would require modification of existing guidelines that were ironed out in the thread I linked above, so I again suggest that if you want to change them, you give your argument there. That's not "aggressive"; it's how Wikis work. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:20, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- Dear Ikan Kekek, just because we disagree about the organization of the articles in Northern Greece does not mean that we have to talk aggressively with each other. The guideline says, "Try to avoid having more than 2 or at least 3 successive images without space between them." In the Rhodope article it is 4 in the row. Does that justify your instructive conversation tone? Maybe it would have been enough to say, make a line between them to fit the guideline. I will do this to make you relaxed again. We are working together on a good project, not against each other :) DocWoKav 26 February 2019
- If you'd like to change Wikivoyage's image policy, you need to argue your position at Wikivoyage talk:Image policy. But read Wikivoyage talk:Image policy#Minimal use of images - not appropriate and the "Resolution" subsection first. Meanwhile, as things stand, a policy set by consensus must be enforced, and that policy is that images should not be bunched up in "See" and that the link to Wikimedia Commons is provided for people who want to see a fuller selection of photos of a given town or area. All Wikimedians are expected to respect existing consensuses even if they are trying to change them. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:03, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- I am the bad guy who added the pictures and the most of the text to this unknown but highly interesting region. In my opinion I would even add more pictures, especially if I compare this site to the site Mountain ranges.... If we talk e.g. about „See“ than pics must be near text in a row to make sense in my opinion. Just to randomly distribute them in the text looks not logical to me. If we talk about known places, like Paris, pictures are not really necessary at all. But an unknown region like this needs pictures to attract the reader to get interest in visiting this place. DocWoKav 26 February 2019
- Sure. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 06:04, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- The policy you linked to says "1 image per screen (1,000 - 2,000 bytes) is generally adequate." The article has 30,244 bytes, so per the policy that's ~15–30 screens, so it seems 10 images is less than the policy recommends. Intuitively I think the current number of images looks okay, though I wouldn't mind adding a couple more. I support rearranging the images so that they're not bunched up, though. —Granger (talk · contribs) 03:51, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- @Mx. Granger: No, but per Wikivoyage:Image policy no more than 2 or 3 successive images should be used, and 1 image per screen is considered adequate. This article clearly violates that policy. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 03:44, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- Why is this too many pictures? On my screen they look quite nice, though a little unevenly spaced. Do they hang past the bottom of the article on yours? —Granger (talk · contribs) 03:34, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
[unindent] OK, efforts to move images around have proven to me that there are indeed too many thumbnails in an article of this length. I already suggested removing #9. I would suggest that #7 is a less interesting waterfall picture than #4 and we can delete it. #10 can also be removed because it's too distant a photo of the monastery for us to see much. If removing 3 photos is not sufficient, I'd propose to remove #2. If no-one strenuously objects to these particular thumbnails being removed, as opposed to others, I'll start removing them in this order and moving images around more, unless one of you would prefer to take the time to do that (which I'd greatly welcome!). Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:43, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
- I continue to think this is a perfectly fine number of images for the article. The policy quoted above seems to agree with me (or even suggest that more images would be good) if I'm understanding it correctly. —Granger (talk · contribs) 10:21, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
- The images are still too bunched up. Now, there are 5 images pretty much in a row at the beginning of the article, including the map. Anyway, I do think you are not understanding the spirit of the guideline. It looks to me like you never took part in the discussion at Wikivoyage talk:Image policy#Minimal use of images - not appropriate and the "Resolution" subsection, so you might want to look at the nature of that discussion, but at any rate, please have a look at Wikivoyage:Image policy#Minimal use of images. A couple of relevant key points:
- For longer articles, 1 image per screen (1,000 - 2,000 bytes) is generally adequate.
- Images should be distributed throughout an article, not bunched up in any section.
- Try to avoid having more than 2 or at most 3 successive images without space between them. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:27, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
- I've skimmed through the discussion you linked and still don't see how the current article violates its spirit or the policy itself. I missed the fact that a map counts as an image—taking that into account, the article has 11 images and (per the policy's estimate) about 15–30 screens. On my monitor specifically, it takes up 9 and a half screens, has 11 images (again including the map), never has more than three images bunched up, and looks quite nice in my opinion. Maybe it looks different on your monitor, so I'll leave that to you to deal with and won't press the issue. —Granger (talk · contribs) 11:57, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
- True, things do look different on different monitors. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:03, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
- Looks OK at the moment, but I'm still not a great supporter of #4, the picture of "Womb Cave". The picture doesn't have a very good balance (some parts are very light, and others are dark), and there are some objects on the floor of the cave that make it just look like a construction site. But again, I'm on a larger screen right now; if I go to a smaller screen, especially like an iPad, it will look very bunched up. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 15:00, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
- I deleted all pics that are not so important. I guess none of you has ever been there so I would propose to leave at least the famous old thracian sanctuaries inside, including the most famous womb cave. The first pic could be deleted too, showing landscape only if there are still too much pics. @User:SelfieCity Maybe with the help of the parent article Mountain ranges you can teach me how a good article (created by an administrator) with pictures should look like. DocWoKav 27 February 2019
- I think it's important to keep a picture of the Womb Cave. Even though the photo isn't the best quality, the sight is really striking. On administrators, I don't think that's the point. The point is to work together to make each article as good as possible, within site guidelines, keeping in mind that articles do look different on different monitors. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:03, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
- I deleted all pics that are not so important. I guess none of you has ever been there so I would propose to leave at least the famous old thracian sanctuaries inside, including the most famous womb cave. The first pic could be deleted too, showing landscape only if there are still too much pics. @User:SelfieCity Maybe with the help of the parent article Mountain ranges you can teach me how a good article (created by an administrator) with pictures should look like. DocWoKav 27 February 2019
- Looks OK at the moment, but I'm still not a great supporter of #4, the picture of "Womb Cave". The picture doesn't have a very good balance (some parts are very light, and others are dark), and there are some objects on the floor of the cave that make it just look like a construction site. But again, I'm on a larger screen right now; if I go to a smaller screen, especially like an iPad, it will look very bunched up. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 15:00, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
- True, things do look different on different monitors. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:03, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
- I've skimmed through the discussion you linked and still don't see how the current article violates its spirit or the policy itself. I missed the fact that a map counts as an image—taking that into account, the article has 11 images and (per the policy's estimate) about 15–30 screens. On my monitor specifically, it takes up 9 and a half screens, has 11 images (again including the map), never has more than three images bunched up, and looks quite nice in my opinion. Maybe it looks different on your monitor, so I'll leave that to you to deal with and won't press the issue. —Granger (talk · contribs) 11:57, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
- The images are still too bunched up. Now, there are 5 images pretty much in a row at the beginning of the article, including the map. Anyway, I do think you are not understanding the spirit of the guideline. It looks to me like you never took part in the discussion at Wikivoyage talk:Image policy#Minimal use of images - not appropriate and the "Resolution" subsection, so you might want to look at the nature of that discussion, but at any rate, please have a look at Wikivoyage:Image policy#Minimal use of images. A couple of relevant key points:
@DocWoKav: Yes, IK's right about admins. While admins and bureaucrats naturally get a sort of authority and recognition on wikis, it's not intended to be that way. "All men are created equal" is something, except for blocked accounts, that is intended to work on this wiki as well as in a Country. However, DocWoKav, I definitely admire your good intentions in the above comment, although honestly I wouldn't say Mountain ranges is the best example of a good article.
In case you didn't know, on WV we have a system in which we rank articles based on the quality of their content. Most articles are either rated at outline, usable, or guide status (identified at the bottom of each article), but the best are rated at star status. Star articles lists these articles, and I'd recommend those if you want to see what a good article looks like. Guide articles would, too, be good examples. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 02:38, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
- Paris/1st arrondissement is a star article that has too many images, though. We should probably work on removing some of them. I may do a little on that tonight. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:16, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
- Good catch. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 03:26, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
Massive cleanup needed
[edit source]Right now the article is a bit of a mess. This is partially due to its unclear definition and odd position in the geographical hierarchy - it looks like it was initially an extra-hierarchical article, then someone turned it into a region of Bulgaria and simultaneously someone erroneously linked it as a sub-region in Western Thrace (see the Talk there). Perhaps related to the above, some enthusiastic user(s) have filled the article with various listings that are not only excessive in number, but sometimes go way outside the geographical area - for example, Sapareva Banya is on the western slopes of Rila, and some listings in Greece are not even in Western Thrace, but in Macedonia. I'll start cleaning up the mess, aiming towards a region article for Bulgaria, if nobody objects. Daggerstab (talk) 19:13, 23 September 2026 (UTC)
- Please go ahead! I stumbled upon this mess during a trip last year, but don't have enough local knowledge to make sweeping decisions.
- Would it make sense to have both a "Rhodope Mountains" extra-hierarchical article also covering Greece, as well as a "Bulgarian Rhodopes" or somesuch region article? Gerode (talk) 23:57, 24 September 2026 (UTC)
- If this is any kind of region article, it shouldn't have detailed listings in it, certainly not if they can be listed in articles for cities, etc. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:16, 25 September 2026 (UTC)
- A lot of the existing listings are superfluous and I'll clean them out bit by bit or move them to other articles, but most of the place is essentially a very large rural area, so some sights are going to remain "hanging" until suitable settlement articles are created, and some can remain even after that. Daggerstab (talk) 11:13, 25 September 2026 (UTC)
- Should a separate "Rural Rhodopes" bottom-level article be created? There's precedent for that kind of thing. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:50, 25 September 2026 (UTC)
- A lot of the existing listings are superfluous and I'll clean them out bit by bit or move them to other articles, but most of the place is essentially a very large rural area, so some sights are going to remain "hanging" until suitable settlement articles are created, and some can remain even after that. Daggerstab (talk) 11:13, 25 September 2026 (UTC)
- I thought of renaming this one "Bulgarian Rhodopes" to reduce ambiguity, but I don't have hard preferences any way yet. An extra-hierarchical article would have very little content on its own - just a brief geographical definition, possibly some historical notes about the Thracians (who deserve a separate travel topic article), and a couple of sentences about the Pomaks. It would serve mostly as a disambiguation article between the Bulgarian region and a possible article about the Greek wikipedia:Rodopi Mountain Range National Park if someone ever creates that. On the other hand, this describes the already existing extra-hierarchical article about Thrace. Daggerstab (talk) 11:08, 25 September 2026 (UTC)
- That makes sense, I don't see a lot of value either in keeping overlapping extra-hierarchical articles for both the Rhodopes and Thrace. I'm leaning towards giving the Bulgarian region an unambiguous name and leaving up a brief "Rhodope Mountains" disambiguation page, but don't feel strongly about it. Gerode (talk) 15:54, 25 September 2026 (UTC)
- I meant that an extra-hierarchical article about the Rhodopes would look similar to the one for Thrace, not that it would have the same content, but you are also right that the regions partially overlap. Daggerstab (talk) 18:39, 25 September 2026 (UTC)
- That makes sense, I don't see a lot of value either in keeping overlapping extra-hierarchical articles for both the Rhodopes and Thrace. I'm leaning towards giving the Bulgarian region an unambiguous name and leaving up a brief "Rhodope Mountains" disambiguation page, but don't feel strongly about it. Gerode (talk) 15:54, 25 September 2026 (UTC)
- If this is any kind of region article, it shouldn't have detailed listings in it, certainly not if they can be listed in articles for cities, etc. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:16, 25 September 2026 (UTC)