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With the winding down and admin closure of the poll, as well as its delisting at WP:CENT I have gone ahead and deleted all the visa-free sections. Whilst doing so I was shocked to see what a horrifying state many passport articles are in, quite a few of them had a 'References' section void of any content at all (not even a <references/> tag), and many were filled with inappropriate HTML formatting such as line breaks in a poor attempt at ad hoc {{ clr}}-ing. Maybe a passport wikiproject would be a good idea? — what a crazy random happenstance 09:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Why weren't all regular editors invited to this vote? The vote is null and void really because of the Wikipedia:Canvassing and as you can see in the section above called " Undoing the removal of visa-free information? " there is a great anger (some rightfully so, like Ozguroot who paid subscription so that he could update the article instantly) among the regular editors for what has been done to their work based on that straw poll of few users therefore there is no consensus. As the matter of fact there seem to be more people on the side of keeping the visa free only in the section above then on the side of deletion in the whole poll you organised in secrecy. I can not accept that months and months of work on certain articles be erased because some other articles are of extremely low quality. The idea is not to downgrade good articles to level them with poor articles but to upgrade poor article to level them with good articles. We will not erase the major part of the article on Paris because the article on N'Djamena isn't really of the same quality. So basically, like in all other cases of such behaviour - concentrate on upgrading articles that you find to be of not so good quality instead of concentrating on destroying good articles so that the bad ones wouldn't look so bad. I have nothing against removing unreferenced data from articles like Liechtenstein passport and returning them only when each entry can be referenced but when it comes to carefully written articles, then it's a big no.-- Avala ( talk) 16:38, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
I am an editor of the Russian passport article and have helped keep the visa-free information there accurate and up-to-date. The discussion about the removal of visa-free information and the bizarre assertion that such information is "unmaintainable" has caught me by surprise. I find it difficult to trust a "consensus" that formed in just 16 days and that did not appear to have involved the editors of most of the passport articles, and I suspect that the debate was concluded too hastily. But maybe I am wrong, and the result of the discussion above really is a broad consensus position. If there are other editors of passport articles who have been keeping visa-free information accurate and current, who have not had a chance to participate in the discussion above, and who have an opinion, please leave a comment here.
My own position is that visa-free information has a place in a Wikipedia article provided that there are editors working to keep it current and provided that it is substantiated with links to reliable sources; the fact that some articles have let their visa-free sections rot is not a reason for deleting it everywhere. Tetromino ( talk) 10:16, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree, please revert Visa free info. Rave92( talk) 12:04, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
I support the reversal and was surprised to see the information removed from Croatian passport article which I sometimes edit. The information there was even more up-to-date than on the official MFA website. My opinion is that information about visa-free access is fundamental to a passport article. I don't think its unencyclopedic, perhaps you won't find it in Britannica, but Britannica doesn't have over million of articles. Tomi566 ( talk) 12:20, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Not to mention that all is referenced, at least on Montenegrin Passport page. Rave92( talk) 12:23, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree. I strongly support the reversal of the decision to remove the visa-free information from all the Passport articles. I regularly edit the British passport visa-free travel sections, updating it with the most up to date, sourced information that can sometimes be difficult to find elsewhere, and certainly not all on the same page. I was very upset to log on this morning to find such a useful resource had been wiped. PLEASE bring it back! Qwerta369 ( talk) 12:28, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Stop removing them! I spent my two years on Turkish passport article. Only for this article, I sent/received countless of e-mails, made phone callings to IATA, to ICAO, to Turkish MFA, I even bought commercial (paid) online "VISA subscription services" only to be notified about the changes, so i could update it instantly. It is ALWAYS UP-TO-DATE! All those efforts.. Hours, days, months.. You can't remove in one click because you want so! Read the comments from the people above. I told you, there will be A LOT OF people who WON'T accept the removal of those sections! Am i really the only one, now? -- Ozguroot ( talk) 14:49, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
I do not oppose the deletion as such, nevertheless the fact that it caught so many people by surprise (myself included) indicates that the discussion was mishandled. Talk pages of all the affected articles should have been notified. — Emil J. 15:38, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Fuck!! I spent so much bloody time finding the correct sources that came from Embassies, and Consulates for the Romanian Passport. Someone PUT THE VISA FREE LIST BACK UP WITH MY FUCKING SOURCES AND EVERY COUNTRY THAT WAS MEANT TO BE THERE!!!. I am so angry. Who the hell deleted it off. I am Australian and my bloody Passport section all the Visa Free/VOA is deleted. Since I was born in Australia I have an Australian Passport dammit I need to know this information about Visa Free/VOA as it could update at anytime. I also have an Italian EU Passport as well and that has been deleted as well. This is unacceptable I demand that the Visa Free/VOA (Visa on Arrival) List is placed back on accordingly as well as the valid sources. Someone will have to take responsibility for this vandalism. It was deleted without everyones consent - no one would have likely agreed to the deletion of all the hard work and organization that went into this project. Yes some Passports Visa Free and VOA lists were not valid and should have been removed but seriously not every other Passport whether EU, Australian, Canadian etc should have suffered because of either one or two Passports weren't up to scratch. Pryde 01 ( talk) 05:37, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
The discussion about the removal of visa-free information, that formed in just 16 days, non-involving most of the editors of the passport articles shouldn't be called - "consensus". Even in this limited discussion, there is no consensus! Gaston28 ( talk) 16:13, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
I strongly support reversal also! I have been taking care of the Costa Rican and Hungarian passport articles, I help to update it everytime there is something new. Im sure there are enough people on the world to take care of the 200 countries there are in the world.-- Philip200291 ( talk) 22:36, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Four airline companies currently provide links to IATA's Timatic database which gives a regularly updated synopsis of visa requirements for Irish citizens.
Please, it seems you don't care any opinion in here, you just delete again and again. Please stop mass-deleting of the sections. They might be meaningless for you, but keep in mind that they are some very precious contributions and efforts of Wikipedia's editors. Either help the editors to improve those articles, or don't touch them. It's that simple. For example Serbian passport, you delete hundreds of lines by one click. Wikipedia is not that easy, my friend. It is not a delete-what-you-want-when-you-want-for-free website. It neither is a my-ideas-are-the-official-rules website. Please respect the people's effort happening in here. as Avala said; The idea is not to downgrade good articles to level them with poor articles but to upgrade poor article to level them with good articles.-- Ozguroot ( talk) 17:45, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Ozguroot, your edit warring is inappropriate. The discussion has resulted in a community consensus to remove the sections. Just because you waffled on for pages and pages doesn't mean there is any more of you, nor do your arguments become stronger with quantity. Most editors have agreed they be removed, and and administrator has closed the vote with that in mind. It was widely publicised, ignorance is no excuse as they often say. Do NOT revert the administrator-approved consensus again. Instead, come here and debate. With the removal of the visa-free sections all that has been done is to expose the pathetic conditions that have already existed. An article with one sentence is still an article with one sentence, no matter how much outdated table data follows it. We're here to build an encyclopaedia - document the passport. Not make judgements and compile irrelevant data. Visa policy does not equal passport information. Visa-free sections are WP:OR, and do not belong on an encyclopaedia. — what a crazy random happenstance 00:55, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
I noticed that the Turkish Passport link in the Passport Box at the bottom of the Passport article is placed under Asia. It may be more appropriate for it to be placed under Europe rather than Asia. Although the country is geographically located in both Europe and Asia, passports are political documents and Turkey is a candidate country for membership to the European Union. It may be more approproate for it to be placed under Europe rather than Asia. Please share your opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ck02 ( talk • contribs) 03:45, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
I have added a {{timatic}} template to the Mongolian passport page with an attempt to compress the longer links deep within the Delta Airlines TimaticWeb site into shorter ones that have some meaning, with the goal to be less fragile should Delta change URL structure or should Wikipedia reference some alternative provider or providers. So far it's helped me find one broken link of the dozen I checked, so I think it's worthwhile. Edward Vielmetti ( talk) 08:33, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
because of the edit wars raging around "Removing the "visa-free travel" blocks in passport articles", which are going on now in Talk:Passport plus Russian passport, Mongolian passport, and several others;
suggest to create two separate sets of national articles;
one which is Country passport, which describes the passport itself, its history and use, and anything encyclopedic about it;
a second Visa free travel from Country article, which pulls out the "visa-free travel" section being deleted out of the passport articles, and preserves it in its own space.
The two would of course be connected together appropriately with cross links.
Edward Vielmetti ( talk) 09:47, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
To me it's a none sense to remove Visa Free section from passport page, no matter is that separate article or deleting. As you saw, a lot of people do their best to update it. Also, it's not like the visa regime changes every day that it is hard to keep up with updates. Rave92( talk) 10:53, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
For what it's worth (and this is the last I'll stick my nose into this debate), I find "visa-free travel from..." to be both entirely encyclopedic and (unlike most encyclopedic things) quite useful. Having it out of the passport articles makes sense, since the connection is fairly tenuous ("Well, er, you'd also need a passport to travel between these countries . . . uh, mostly . . ."). I saw a couple of these articles appear on Special:Newpages and dropped by Edward Vielmetti's talk page to say nice work. As to the remark above, well, lots of crap changes every day. I'm pretty sure Wikipedia doesn't come with a guarantee that it's up-to-the-minute. Glenfarclas ( talk) 11:11, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
The discussion about the removal of visa-free information, that formed in just 16 days, non-involving most of the editors of the passport articles shouldn't be called - "consensus". Even in this limited discussion, there is no consensus! Gaston28 ( talk) 16:18, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Why not recreate the tables on Wikitravel? As I understand it they are not copyrighted, so the Wikipedia-Wikitravel licence incompatibility should not come into play. They'd be perfectly suited for Wikitravel, and they are perfectly unsuitable here. — what a crazy random happenstance 11:40, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
We could talk this before your MASS-DELETION ATTACK, right? -- Ozguroot ( talk) 13:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
"FROM : LEGAL AND CONSULAR BUREA "ghmfa00" <ghmfa00@ghana.com> TO : OZGUR REF : LE/REQ
THE MINISTRY ACKNOWLEDGES RECEIPT OF YOUR EMAIL DATED 16TH FEBRUARY, 2009 ON THE ABOVE SUBJECT AND WISHES TO INFORM YOU THAT YOU CAN TAKE THE VISA ON ARRIVAL AT THE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. WARM REGARDS.".
Sending e-mails even to African governments, ONLY TO CHECK and TO VERIFY the validity of the sources in a Wikipedia article, is more than an effort, Happenstance. To remove by a single click? No, thanks. -- Ozguroot ( talk) 13:51, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
After a few rounds of edits and feedback, here's a restated structure.
For each country Country, there should be 3 articles:
My first pass at this created a set of "visa free travel" pages with probably not perfect names, since one of the things you might want to talk about in that is other kinds of passport controls faced that are not free; the corresponding suggestion was Visa requirements for Country citizens, a la the Visa requirements for Turkish citizens article is underway.
The contentious "visa free travel" section that caused 250 edit wars will be pulled to its own page, its own category, and reviewed and sourced and improved accordingly.
The Visa policy of Country pages will be suitable cross-references from the Visa requirements for Country citizens, so that if you are from Benin and need to know if the details on your page about travel to Peru are still up to date you can be 2 clicks away from an original, authoritative source if one exists. There are about 10 of those now; we just need 240 more.
To do this right we need to be prepared to create and cross-link 500 new pages, so it might take some time; but it's better than, say, spending that time with edit wars.
Edward Vielmetti ( talk) 14:35, 26 January 2010 (UTC) Edward Vielmetti ( talk) 15:31, 26 January 2010 (UTC) - changed "nationals" to "citizens"
If this will stop all the mess then OK. As for using this to then delete the supplemental article - anyone can propose merge which is always to be used before deletion.-- Avala ( talk) 18:59, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
We have finally arrived at a mechanism to put this issue to bed. Edward's proposal was accepted all round as a way to move on, but it must be applied as agreed. These edits to Serbian passport is not what we agreed. Does consensus mean nothing around here? Assuming good faith that there was a genuiine misunderstanding, I have asked the posting editor to self-revert. RashersTierney ( talk) 19:53, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
The visa-free map on passport articles is entirely unacceptable to me, and is not in the spirit of the compromise. Whilst I still have a problem with visa-free pages, getting this garbage off the passport pages was the only reason I agreed to this compromise. My support is contingent on them not being re-added. — what a crazy random happenstance 05:15, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
An editor has raised concerns re. the histories of the 'nominal' passport articles being lost by cut-and-paste moves. These articles were nominates for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mongolian passport. When that distraction is resolved, could they be 'moved' to 'Visa requirements for X citizens' and the 'X passport' articles (essentially the line X passports are issued to the citizens of X for the purpose of international travel., be started from scratch? Just passing on the doubts. RashersTierney ( talk) 18:18, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
The page Category:Visa free travel now has a nicely growing (15) set of maps that have been categorized out of the maps that had been in the Passport pages before they were cut out of them. Efforts to add that category to additional maps would be welcomed.
It ends up being a really useful and helpful effect to see the whole collection at a glance, since you can pretty clearly see different visa policies between countries. There may be a more effective page layout for those maps that creates a better effect with less unnecessary white space.
The edit history of those maps ends up being a useful part of this discussion as well, noting the careful changes that are going on to update them regularly, and noting the relatively small number of editors who make those changes.
Edward Vielmetti ( talk) 06:09, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
[[Category:Visa free travel|Country name]]
[[Category:Foreign relations of Country name]]
(replace "Country name" with the appropriate versions of the country's name). --
Tetromino (
talk)
08:05, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
Sigh. You go to write a compromise, and people keep fighting the old battles (while you go and try to recreate the bits that were damaged).
Before we go to decide which elements of the page should or should not be on a mythical "perfect" passport page, I'd like to see an inventory of the page elements that *are* on a passport page, so that someone faced with a blank page like Haitian passport could get some idea of what they might look for.
Care to start, please? Section and element names would be good. I'm thinking things like pictures of the cover and inside pages are easy, a narrative about getting one, some history, any controversy. But help me out - I want to make Haitian passport better (because heaven help you if you own one). What do I do? Edward Vielmetti ( talk) 23:32, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't think we should particularly restrict passport articles with a grand guideline or anything, though stylistic recommendations would not go astray. As a bare minimum I suggest photos of the cover and data page, as well as a description (and translation, if applicable) of both (including all data fields). Additionally, we could have photos of the first inside page, a transcription and translation of the passport note, a history section, historical photos or scans, documentation on the different types of passports - to whom they are issued and why, any unique features and any relevant passport issuing policy of the nation in question. I would like to suggest Australian passport as the prototype here, because I believe it is in a format well-suited to any sort of other passport, whether Togolese or British. — what a crazy random happenstance 06:19, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
OK per previous section we have reached a consensus to include:
I think that we also need to include
And I think we need a consensus that will say that
Can we reach a consensus on these as well?-- Avala ( talk) 19:40, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Ah dear. So it appears that you guys have now decided on moving the exact same content minus the introductory sentence to some different title. I don't really see the sense in that, but so be it. (It also has me wondering how long this "consensus" will last...) If that's really the "consensus" (for whatever darn reason), I will withdraw the AfD-nomination provided someone will go ahead with the page-moves ASAP. Please confirm. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 03:58, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
Sigh.
Due to continued squabbling, it appears that there needs to be a process by which we can determine whether a passport article is of good quality, in order to avoid the risk of edit warfare breaking out again. I am not pleased by this and I wish that this minority of editors would get to the task of getting 180 new articles off the ground rather than engaging in behavior for which it is an act of great faith to assume good faith.
That said, there is some evolving catalog of what makes a good passport article, what makes a great passport article, and what sections detract from the quality of a passport article by not being about the passport at all. I will list them, in handy bullet point format, and ask that editors update the list with examples as best they know them of passport articles that exemplify the genre.
In addition, there are some passports and countries which are exceptional which require exceptional treatment, e.g. Kosovo passport, Israeli passport, Iroquois passport e.g. which will be expected to contain information relevant to those countries and nations distinctive history.
In addition, there may be other sections variously named in various articles that are encyclopedic and useful and helpful and well sourced, and these should not be removed strictly because they are not in this list; however, they should be less prominent in each case than the core passport information.
In addition, there are some countries where information on the ground is scarce, and considerable latitude must be paid to improving these articles systematically in lieu of any stylistic guidelines on uniform design; this may include sourcing information which would not be in an exceptionally good article, but that is useful as scaffolding in building a better one.
In addition, there are some countries where there are exceptionally detailed details available, and considerable latitude must be placed to allow those details to reside in primary articles, e.g. Physical features of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region passport, which would otherwise overwhelm the main entry.
You will note carefully that I did mention maps. It is possible, even likely, that some sections of the passport article will include lists of other countries to which travel has some special and notable status. It is in all cases relevant to illustrate these facts with a map. However, these maps should be in all cases less prominent than any photos, scans, or other descriptions of the passport itself. Maps should be accompanied by a narrative that summarizes, characterizes, or explains the map in such a way that if the map were removed the section could stand on its own.
Category:Passport stubs currently contains stub-class passport articles. Some of these are better than others. A passport article is a stub if the photo is missing, if there are no external references, if there is no description of the physical characteristics of the passport, or if the editor thinks it needs to be.
That's my story, and I'm sticking with it, subject to subsequent edits, which inevitably there will be. Edward Vielmetti ( talk) 09:23, 30 January 2010 (UTC) update with visa requirements section recommendation Edward Vielmetti ( talk) 09:56, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
As afraid visa policy articles are attracting attention of other Wikipedians who find them unnecessary. The first one to be tagged is the Visa policy of Mongolia article. You can see the tagged version here even though User:Dream Focus removed the deletion template we can only expect for more of these cases to surface. The agenda to get rid of visa, visa free and passport articles seems to be unfolding nicely for one user that has it.-- Avala ( talk) 16:46, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
OK we had a 0 - long established consensus to include visa free sections in passport articles.
Then we had:
Then we had:
Then we had
Each time consensus changes were made per WP:CCC, and despite consensus changing quickly due to poor organization of discussion as well as ignoring what was agreed on and the discussion itself (we can see many pleas by users asking for them to be listened to but no response except for blind reverts) and insulting other users (calling their contributions crap and garbage) it is still valid. As we have consistent violation of the latest consensus (ie. compromise solution) by one editor I think it is only fair to go back to the consensus established before that and that is to include the information on visa free travel fully into the articles on passports.-- Avala ( talk) 17:36, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
stopppppp thissss!!!!!! stop destroying romanian passport article!!!!! you fucked all these beautiful articles!!!!dont you understand nobody likes your idea in here????? guys, ignore that communist minded retarded hapenstance and continue your great works!!!!
Warning: User:Happenstance is on revert rampage again, just so that articles could be his way for the sake of it which is spoiled editing IMO, and violating very fragile compromise. If this continues I believe we can again go back to the consensus nr.2 and user Happenstance will have to accept that it is solely his fault that a possibility for this to be solved so that he could be partially satisfied and we can be partially satisfied failed because of his stubbornness to have it his way or no way. It reminds me of a The Dog and the Shadow story somewhat, Happenstance was lucky to get a dozen of us to accept to compromise with him even though we didn't have to, but it wasn't enough for him, he didn't want a compromise, he wanted it all, even beyond what he could get and is now on a brink of loosing it all.-- Avala ( talk) 12:55, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I would also like to put the little thumbnail map for a better view and easier access of 'Visa requirements'. Wow. That seems much more better, actually: Turkish passport. There isn't any violation, any illegal act, a fake/false information, neither a forbidden or a dangerous image for the visitors health. I implemented the 'Gallery of historic images' section too, as requested. Thanks. -- Ozguroot ( talk) 15:57, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Since I was asked on my talkpage to share my opinion, here it is. I moderately oppose the thumbnail map on the main passport page, for two reasons: (1) it lacks any context, and (2) at thumbnail resolution it's almost completely useless. To me it's not an issue of what material "belongs" on the passport page, just that it's unhelpful and potentially confusing. Contrary to Ozguroot above I don't think the thumbnail on the passport page allows "easier access" to visa information, since the map file by itself also lacks explanation and context, and when you're looking at the file it's awkward to get to the visa article by scrolling down to File Links. The one thing, in my mind, that would make a thumbnail potentially useful on the passport page would be if it were linked to the appropriate visa requirements article rather than to the image file. While I'm at it, having given the matter consideration, I should say the following: (3) I supported, and continue to support, the splitting of visa issues into their own articles, instead of (a) deleting them or (b) keeping them on the passport page; (4) I like the current naming scheme; and (5) I would also support a section in each main passport article containing perhaps a one-sentence summary of visa-travel issues and main-article links to the appropriate visa articles. Relegating the links to the see-also section seems to give them short shrift, in light of the strong thematic connection between the visa articles and the passport articles. All the best— Glenfarclas ( talk) 20:18, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I was also asked to share my opinion, but I couldn't get from your discussion, are we here talking about thumbnail map on passport page, or keeping the visa section on passport page or separate article. I will share my opinion on both things. Keeping Visa thumbnail image on Passport page is useless if we don't have visa requirements on passport page. So here is my opinion: 1)We should have Visa-free section on PASSPORT page, like it was before someone deleted it, and got us in this mess. 2) If we can't keep the Visa-free section like it was before, then there is no point of the image on passport page.
I hope we can get back visa-free section on passport page where it belongs, and then leave the thumbnail image of visa-free section where it is suppose to be. If we are going to have separate visa-free section from passport page, there is no use of image.
I say this as contributor of Montenegrin passport. Cheers! Rave92( talk) 22:09, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I feel that there is nothing all that wrong with keeping the map (as long as it's properly sourced of course, and the image description explains that it is "as of..." and "according to...") on the main passport page. After all, the main use of passport is as travel document. (One would think that its main function is a proof of citizenship, but this actually ain't so, at least not in Canada: when one applies for a passport, one needs to present a "proof of citizenship" which can be one's birth certificate or Certificate of Canadian Citizenship; amazingly, Canadian Passport Office does not accept its own Canadian passports as a proof of citizenship, or at least it did not the last time I dealt with them! It is also a form of ID, but in practice few people use it as such other than in the international travel context). So a map depicting entry privileges granted to the passport's holders by various countries may be quite pertinent in the passport article, methinks. (In some cases one can also have the map show countries which countries recognize the passport as a valid travel document at all: some passports are not recognize world-wide - think of Republic of China, or certain countries in the Near/Middle East...). Vmenkov ( talk) 15:14, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
It has been brought to my attention that Ozguroot has canvassed every single Oppose vote from this discussion and I have reported him here. I am sure any objective observer, no matter his stance on the issue, will realise just how deeply inappropriate his actions were. — what a crazy random happenstance 04:39, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
With the winding down and admin closure of the poll, as well as its delisting at WP:CENT I have gone ahead and deleted all the visa-free sections. Whilst doing so I was shocked to see what a horrifying state many passport articles are in, quite a few of them had a 'References' section void of any content at all (not even a <references/> tag), and many were filled with inappropriate HTML formatting such as line breaks in a poor attempt at ad hoc {{ clr}}-ing. Maybe a passport wikiproject would be a good idea? — what a crazy random happenstance 09:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Why weren't all regular editors invited to this vote? The vote is null and void really because of the Wikipedia:Canvassing and as you can see in the section above called " Undoing the removal of visa-free information? " there is a great anger (some rightfully so, like Ozguroot who paid subscription so that he could update the article instantly) among the regular editors for what has been done to their work based on that straw poll of few users therefore there is no consensus. As the matter of fact there seem to be more people on the side of keeping the visa free only in the section above then on the side of deletion in the whole poll you organised in secrecy. I can not accept that months and months of work on certain articles be erased because some other articles are of extremely low quality. The idea is not to downgrade good articles to level them with poor articles but to upgrade poor article to level them with good articles. We will not erase the major part of the article on Paris because the article on N'Djamena isn't really of the same quality. So basically, like in all other cases of such behaviour - concentrate on upgrading articles that you find to be of not so good quality instead of concentrating on destroying good articles so that the bad ones wouldn't look so bad. I have nothing against removing unreferenced data from articles like Liechtenstein passport and returning them only when each entry can be referenced but when it comes to carefully written articles, then it's a big no.-- Avala ( talk) 16:38, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
I am an editor of the Russian passport article and have helped keep the visa-free information there accurate and up-to-date. The discussion about the removal of visa-free information and the bizarre assertion that such information is "unmaintainable" has caught me by surprise. I find it difficult to trust a "consensus" that formed in just 16 days and that did not appear to have involved the editors of most of the passport articles, and I suspect that the debate was concluded too hastily. But maybe I am wrong, and the result of the discussion above really is a broad consensus position. If there are other editors of passport articles who have been keeping visa-free information accurate and current, who have not had a chance to participate in the discussion above, and who have an opinion, please leave a comment here.
My own position is that visa-free information has a place in a Wikipedia article provided that there are editors working to keep it current and provided that it is substantiated with links to reliable sources; the fact that some articles have let their visa-free sections rot is not a reason for deleting it everywhere. Tetromino ( talk) 10:16, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree, please revert Visa free info. Rave92( talk) 12:04, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
I support the reversal and was surprised to see the information removed from Croatian passport article which I sometimes edit. The information there was even more up-to-date than on the official MFA website. My opinion is that information about visa-free access is fundamental to a passport article. I don't think its unencyclopedic, perhaps you won't find it in Britannica, but Britannica doesn't have over million of articles. Tomi566 ( talk) 12:20, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Not to mention that all is referenced, at least on Montenegrin Passport page. Rave92( talk) 12:23, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree. I strongly support the reversal of the decision to remove the visa-free information from all the Passport articles. I regularly edit the British passport visa-free travel sections, updating it with the most up to date, sourced information that can sometimes be difficult to find elsewhere, and certainly not all on the same page. I was very upset to log on this morning to find such a useful resource had been wiped. PLEASE bring it back! Qwerta369 ( talk) 12:28, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Stop removing them! I spent my two years on Turkish passport article. Only for this article, I sent/received countless of e-mails, made phone callings to IATA, to ICAO, to Turkish MFA, I even bought commercial (paid) online "VISA subscription services" only to be notified about the changes, so i could update it instantly. It is ALWAYS UP-TO-DATE! All those efforts.. Hours, days, months.. You can't remove in one click because you want so! Read the comments from the people above. I told you, there will be A LOT OF people who WON'T accept the removal of those sections! Am i really the only one, now? -- Ozguroot ( talk) 14:49, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
I do not oppose the deletion as such, nevertheless the fact that it caught so many people by surprise (myself included) indicates that the discussion was mishandled. Talk pages of all the affected articles should have been notified. — Emil J. 15:38, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Fuck!! I spent so much bloody time finding the correct sources that came from Embassies, and Consulates for the Romanian Passport. Someone PUT THE VISA FREE LIST BACK UP WITH MY FUCKING SOURCES AND EVERY COUNTRY THAT WAS MEANT TO BE THERE!!!. I am so angry. Who the hell deleted it off. I am Australian and my bloody Passport section all the Visa Free/VOA is deleted. Since I was born in Australia I have an Australian Passport dammit I need to know this information about Visa Free/VOA as it could update at anytime. I also have an Italian EU Passport as well and that has been deleted as well. This is unacceptable I demand that the Visa Free/VOA (Visa on Arrival) List is placed back on accordingly as well as the valid sources. Someone will have to take responsibility for this vandalism. It was deleted without everyones consent - no one would have likely agreed to the deletion of all the hard work and organization that went into this project. Yes some Passports Visa Free and VOA lists were not valid and should have been removed but seriously not every other Passport whether EU, Australian, Canadian etc should have suffered because of either one or two Passports weren't up to scratch. Pryde 01 ( talk) 05:37, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
The discussion about the removal of visa-free information, that formed in just 16 days, non-involving most of the editors of the passport articles shouldn't be called - "consensus". Even in this limited discussion, there is no consensus! Gaston28 ( talk) 16:13, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
I strongly support reversal also! I have been taking care of the Costa Rican and Hungarian passport articles, I help to update it everytime there is something new. Im sure there are enough people on the world to take care of the 200 countries there are in the world.-- Philip200291 ( talk) 22:36, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Four airline companies currently provide links to IATA's Timatic database which gives a regularly updated synopsis of visa requirements for Irish citizens.
Please, it seems you don't care any opinion in here, you just delete again and again. Please stop mass-deleting of the sections. They might be meaningless for you, but keep in mind that they are some very precious contributions and efforts of Wikipedia's editors. Either help the editors to improve those articles, or don't touch them. It's that simple. For example Serbian passport, you delete hundreds of lines by one click. Wikipedia is not that easy, my friend. It is not a delete-what-you-want-when-you-want-for-free website. It neither is a my-ideas-are-the-official-rules website. Please respect the people's effort happening in here. as Avala said; The idea is not to downgrade good articles to level them with poor articles but to upgrade poor article to level them with good articles.-- Ozguroot ( talk) 17:45, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Ozguroot, your edit warring is inappropriate. The discussion has resulted in a community consensus to remove the sections. Just because you waffled on for pages and pages doesn't mean there is any more of you, nor do your arguments become stronger with quantity. Most editors have agreed they be removed, and and administrator has closed the vote with that in mind. It was widely publicised, ignorance is no excuse as they often say. Do NOT revert the administrator-approved consensus again. Instead, come here and debate. With the removal of the visa-free sections all that has been done is to expose the pathetic conditions that have already existed. An article with one sentence is still an article with one sentence, no matter how much outdated table data follows it. We're here to build an encyclopaedia - document the passport. Not make judgements and compile irrelevant data. Visa policy does not equal passport information. Visa-free sections are WP:OR, and do not belong on an encyclopaedia. — what a crazy random happenstance 00:55, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
I noticed that the Turkish Passport link in the Passport Box at the bottom of the Passport article is placed under Asia. It may be more appropriate for it to be placed under Europe rather than Asia. Although the country is geographically located in both Europe and Asia, passports are political documents and Turkey is a candidate country for membership to the European Union. It may be more approproate for it to be placed under Europe rather than Asia. Please share your opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ck02 ( talk • contribs) 03:45, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
I have added a {{timatic}} template to the Mongolian passport page with an attempt to compress the longer links deep within the Delta Airlines TimaticWeb site into shorter ones that have some meaning, with the goal to be less fragile should Delta change URL structure or should Wikipedia reference some alternative provider or providers. So far it's helped me find one broken link of the dozen I checked, so I think it's worthwhile. Edward Vielmetti ( talk) 08:33, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
because of the edit wars raging around "Removing the "visa-free travel" blocks in passport articles", which are going on now in Talk:Passport plus Russian passport, Mongolian passport, and several others;
suggest to create two separate sets of national articles;
one which is Country passport, which describes the passport itself, its history and use, and anything encyclopedic about it;
a second Visa free travel from Country article, which pulls out the "visa-free travel" section being deleted out of the passport articles, and preserves it in its own space.
The two would of course be connected together appropriately with cross links.
Edward Vielmetti ( talk) 09:47, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
To me it's a none sense to remove Visa Free section from passport page, no matter is that separate article or deleting. As you saw, a lot of people do their best to update it. Also, it's not like the visa regime changes every day that it is hard to keep up with updates. Rave92( talk) 10:53, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
For what it's worth (and this is the last I'll stick my nose into this debate), I find "visa-free travel from..." to be both entirely encyclopedic and (unlike most encyclopedic things) quite useful. Having it out of the passport articles makes sense, since the connection is fairly tenuous ("Well, er, you'd also need a passport to travel between these countries . . . uh, mostly . . ."). I saw a couple of these articles appear on Special:Newpages and dropped by Edward Vielmetti's talk page to say nice work. As to the remark above, well, lots of crap changes every day. I'm pretty sure Wikipedia doesn't come with a guarantee that it's up-to-the-minute. Glenfarclas ( talk) 11:11, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
The discussion about the removal of visa-free information, that formed in just 16 days, non-involving most of the editors of the passport articles shouldn't be called - "consensus". Even in this limited discussion, there is no consensus! Gaston28 ( talk) 16:18, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Why not recreate the tables on Wikitravel? As I understand it they are not copyrighted, so the Wikipedia-Wikitravel licence incompatibility should not come into play. They'd be perfectly suited for Wikitravel, and they are perfectly unsuitable here. — what a crazy random happenstance 11:40, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
We could talk this before your MASS-DELETION ATTACK, right? -- Ozguroot ( talk) 13:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
"FROM : LEGAL AND CONSULAR BUREA "ghmfa00" <ghmfa00@ghana.com> TO : OZGUR REF : LE/REQ
THE MINISTRY ACKNOWLEDGES RECEIPT OF YOUR EMAIL DATED 16TH FEBRUARY, 2009 ON THE ABOVE SUBJECT AND WISHES TO INFORM YOU THAT YOU CAN TAKE THE VISA ON ARRIVAL AT THE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. WARM REGARDS.".
Sending e-mails even to African governments, ONLY TO CHECK and TO VERIFY the validity of the sources in a Wikipedia article, is more than an effort, Happenstance. To remove by a single click? No, thanks. -- Ozguroot ( talk) 13:51, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
After a few rounds of edits and feedback, here's a restated structure.
For each country Country, there should be 3 articles:
My first pass at this created a set of "visa free travel" pages with probably not perfect names, since one of the things you might want to talk about in that is other kinds of passport controls faced that are not free; the corresponding suggestion was Visa requirements for Country citizens, a la the Visa requirements for Turkish citizens article is underway.
The contentious "visa free travel" section that caused 250 edit wars will be pulled to its own page, its own category, and reviewed and sourced and improved accordingly.
The Visa policy of Country pages will be suitable cross-references from the Visa requirements for Country citizens, so that if you are from Benin and need to know if the details on your page about travel to Peru are still up to date you can be 2 clicks away from an original, authoritative source if one exists. There are about 10 of those now; we just need 240 more.
To do this right we need to be prepared to create and cross-link 500 new pages, so it might take some time; but it's better than, say, spending that time with edit wars.
Edward Vielmetti ( talk) 14:35, 26 January 2010 (UTC) Edward Vielmetti ( talk) 15:31, 26 January 2010 (UTC) - changed "nationals" to "citizens"
If this will stop all the mess then OK. As for using this to then delete the supplemental article - anyone can propose merge which is always to be used before deletion.-- Avala ( talk) 18:59, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
We have finally arrived at a mechanism to put this issue to bed. Edward's proposal was accepted all round as a way to move on, but it must be applied as agreed. These edits to Serbian passport is not what we agreed. Does consensus mean nothing around here? Assuming good faith that there was a genuiine misunderstanding, I have asked the posting editor to self-revert. RashersTierney ( talk) 19:53, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
The visa-free map on passport articles is entirely unacceptable to me, and is not in the spirit of the compromise. Whilst I still have a problem with visa-free pages, getting this garbage off the passport pages was the only reason I agreed to this compromise. My support is contingent on them not being re-added. — what a crazy random happenstance 05:15, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
An editor has raised concerns re. the histories of the 'nominal' passport articles being lost by cut-and-paste moves. These articles were nominates for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mongolian passport. When that distraction is resolved, could they be 'moved' to 'Visa requirements for X citizens' and the 'X passport' articles (essentially the line X passports are issued to the citizens of X for the purpose of international travel., be started from scratch? Just passing on the doubts. RashersTierney ( talk) 18:18, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
The page Category:Visa free travel now has a nicely growing (15) set of maps that have been categorized out of the maps that had been in the Passport pages before they were cut out of them. Efforts to add that category to additional maps would be welcomed.
It ends up being a really useful and helpful effect to see the whole collection at a glance, since you can pretty clearly see different visa policies between countries. There may be a more effective page layout for those maps that creates a better effect with less unnecessary white space.
The edit history of those maps ends up being a useful part of this discussion as well, noting the careful changes that are going on to update them regularly, and noting the relatively small number of editors who make those changes.
Edward Vielmetti ( talk) 06:09, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
[[Category:Visa free travel|Country name]]
[[Category:Foreign relations of Country name]]
(replace "Country name" with the appropriate versions of the country's name). --
Tetromino (
talk)
08:05, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
Sigh. You go to write a compromise, and people keep fighting the old battles (while you go and try to recreate the bits that were damaged).
Before we go to decide which elements of the page should or should not be on a mythical "perfect" passport page, I'd like to see an inventory of the page elements that *are* on a passport page, so that someone faced with a blank page like Haitian passport could get some idea of what they might look for.
Care to start, please? Section and element names would be good. I'm thinking things like pictures of the cover and inside pages are easy, a narrative about getting one, some history, any controversy. But help me out - I want to make Haitian passport better (because heaven help you if you own one). What do I do? Edward Vielmetti ( talk) 23:32, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't think we should particularly restrict passport articles with a grand guideline or anything, though stylistic recommendations would not go astray. As a bare minimum I suggest photos of the cover and data page, as well as a description (and translation, if applicable) of both (including all data fields). Additionally, we could have photos of the first inside page, a transcription and translation of the passport note, a history section, historical photos or scans, documentation on the different types of passports - to whom they are issued and why, any unique features and any relevant passport issuing policy of the nation in question. I would like to suggest Australian passport as the prototype here, because I believe it is in a format well-suited to any sort of other passport, whether Togolese or British. — what a crazy random happenstance 06:19, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
OK per previous section we have reached a consensus to include:
I think that we also need to include
And I think we need a consensus that will say that
Can we reach a consensus on these as well?-- Avala ( talk) 19:40, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Ah dear. So it appears that you guys have now decided on moving the exact same content minus the introductory sentence to some different title. I don't really see the sense in that, but so be it. (It also has me wondering how long this "consensus" will last...) If that's really the "consensus" (for whatever darn reason), I will withdraw the AfD-nomination provided someone will go ahead with the page-moves ASAP. Please confirm. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 03:58, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
Sigh.
Due to continued squabbling, it appears that there needs to be a process by which we can determine whether a passport article is of good quality, in order to avoid the risk of edit warfare breaking out again. I am not pleased by this and I wish that this minority of editors would get to the task of getting 180 new articles off the ground rather than engaging in behavior for which it is an act of great faith to assume good faith.
That said, there is some evolving catalog of what makes a good passport article, what makes a great passport article, and what sections detract from the quality of a passport article by not being about the passport at all. I will list them, in handy bullet point format, and ask that editors update the list with examples as best they know them of passport articles that exemplify the genre.
In addition, there are some passports and countries which are exceptional which require exceptional treatment, e.g. Kosovo passport, Israeli passport, Iroquois passport e.g. which will be expected to contain information relevant to those countries and nations distinctive history.
In addition, there may be other sections variously named in various articles that are encyclopedic and useful and helpful and well sourced, and these should not be removed strictly because they are not in this list; however, they should be less prominent in each case than the core passport information.
In addition, there are some countries where information on the ground is scarce, and considerable latitude must be paid to improving these articles systematically in lieu of any stylistic guidelines on uniform design; this may include sourcing information which would not be in an exceptionally good article, but that is useful as scaffolding in building a better one.
In addition, there are some countries where there are exceptionally detailed details available, and considerable latitude must be placed to allow those details to reside in primary articles, e.g. Physical features of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region passport, which would otherwise overwhelm the main entry.
You will note carefully that I did mention maps. It is possible, even likely, that some sections of the passport article will include lists of other countries to which travel has some special and notable status. It is in all cases relevant to illustrate these facts with a map. However, these maps should be in all cases less prominent than any photos, scans, or other descriptions of the passport itself. Maps should be accompanied by a narrative that summarizes, characterizes, or explains the map in such a way that if the map were removed the section could stand on its own.
Category:Passport stubs currently contains stub-class passport articles. Some of these are better than others. A passport article is a stub if the photo is missing, if there are no external references, if there is no description of the physical characteristics of the passport, or if the editor thinks it needs to be.
That's my story, and I'm sticking with it, subject to subsequent edits, which inevitably there will be. Edward Vielmetti ( talk) 09:23, 30 January 2010 (UTC) update with visa requirements section recommendation Edward Vielmetti ( talk) 09:56, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
As afraid visa policy articles are attracting attention of other Wikipedians who find them unnecessary. The first one to be tagged is the Visa policy of Mongolia article. You can see the tagged version here even though User:Dream Focus removed the deletion template we can only expect for more of these cases to surface. The agenda to get rid of visa, visa free and passport articles seems to be unfolding nicely for one user that has it.-- Avala ( talk) 16:46, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
OK we had a 0 - long established consensus to include visa free sections in passport articles.
Then we had:
Then we had:
Then we had
Each time consensus changes were made per WP:CCC, and despite consensus changing quickly due to poor organization of discussion as well as ignoring what was agreed on and the discussion itself (we can see many pleas by users asking for them to be listened to but no response except for blind reverts) and insulting other users (calling their contributions crap and garbage) it is still valid. As we have consistent violation of the latest consensus (ie. compromise solution) by one editor I think it is only fair to go back to the consensus established before that and that is to include the information on visa free travel fully into the articles on passports.-- Avala ( talk) 17:36, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
stopppppp thissss!!!!!! stop destroying romanian passport article!!!!! you fucked all these beautiful articles!!!!dont you understand nobody likes your idea in here????? guys, ignore that communist minded retarded hapenstance and continue your great works!!!!
Warning: User:Happenstance is on revert rampage again, just so that articles could be his way for the sake of it which is spoiled editing IMO, and violating very fragile compromise. If this continues I believe we can again go back to the consensus nr.2 and user Happenstance will have to accept that it is solely his fault that a possibility for this to be solved so that he could be partially satisfied and we can be partially satisfied failed because of his stubbornness to have it his way or no way. It reminds me of a The Dog and the Shadow story somewhat, Happenstance was lucky to get a dozen of us to accept to compromise with him even though we didn't have to, but it wasn't enough for him, he didn't want a compromise, he wanted it all, even beyond what he could get and is now on a brink of loosing it all.-- Avala ( talk) 12:55, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I would also like to put the little thumbnail map for a better view and easier access of 'Visa requirements'. Wow. That seems much more better, actually: Turkish passport. There isn't any violation, any illegal act, a fake/false information, neither a forbidden or a dangerous image for the visitors health. I implemented the 'Gallery of historic images' section too, as requested. Thanks. -- Ozguroot ( talk) 15:57, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Since I was asked on my talkpage to share my opinion, here it is. I moderately oppose the thumbnail map on the main passport page, for two reasons: (1) it lacks any context, and (2) at thumbnail resolution it's almost completely useless. To me it's not an issue of what material "belongs" on the passport page, just that it's unhelpful and potentially confusing. Contrary to Ozguroot above I don't think the thumbnail on the passport page allows "easier access" to visa information, since the map file by itself also lacks explanation and context, and when you're looking at the file it's awkward to get to the visa article by scrolling down to File Links. The one thing, in my mind, that would make a thumbnail potentially useful on the passport page would be if it were linked to the appropriate visa requirements article rather than to the image file. While I'm at it, having given the matter consideration, I should say the following: (3) I supported, and continue to support, the splitting of visa issues into their own articles, instead of (a) deleting them or (b) keeping them on the passport page; (4) I like the current naming scheme; and (5) I would also support a section in each main passport article containing perhaps a one-sentence summary of visa-travel issues and main-article links to the appropriate visa articles. Relegating the links to the see-also section seems to give them short shrift, in light of the strong thematic connection between the visa articles and the passport articles. All the best— Glenfarclas ( talk) 20:18, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I was also asked to share my opinion, but I couldn't get from your discussion, are we here talking about thumbnail map on passport page, or keeping the visa section on passport page or separate article. I will share my opinion on both things. Keeping Visa thumbnail image on Passport page is useless if we don't have visa requirements on passport page. So here is my opinion: 1)We should have Visa-free section on PASSPORT page, like it was before someone deleted it, and got us in this mess. 2) If we can't keep the Visa-free section like it was before, then there is no point of the image on passport page.
I hope we can get back visa-free section on passport page where it belongs, and then leave the thumbnail image of visa-free section where it is suppose to be. If we are going to have separate visa-free section from passport page, there is no use of image.
I say this as contributor of Montenegrin passport. Cheers! Rave92( talk) 22:09, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I feel that there is nothing all that wrong with keeping the map (as long as it's properly sourced of course, and the image description explains that it is "as of..." and "according to...") on the main passport page. After all, the main use of passport is as travel document. (One would think that its main function is a proof of citizenship, but this actually ain't so, at least not in Canada: when one applies for a passport, one needs to present a "proof of citizenship" which can be one's birth certificate or Certificate of Canadian Citizenship; amazingly, Canadian Passport Office does not accept its own Canadian passports as a proof of citizenship, or at least it did not the last time I dealt with them! It is also a form of ID, but in practice few people use it as such other than in the international travel context). So a map depicting entry privileges granted to the passport's holders by various countries may be quite pertinent in the passport article, methinks. (In some cases one can also have the map show countries which countries recognize the passport as a valid travel document at all: some passports are not recognize world-wide - think of Republic of China, or certain countries in the Near/Middle East...). Vmenkov ( talk) 15:14, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
It has been brought to my attention that Ozguroot has canvassed every single Oppose vote from this discussion and I have reported him here. I am sure any objective observer, no matter his stance on the issue, will realise just how deeply inappropriate his actions were. — what a crazy random happenstance 04:39, 5 February 2010 (UTC)