User talk:Dorfdisco

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I am removing several photos you put on the entry for Kazakhstan as they are only tenuously related to hitchhiking advice. If you want to present your visual impressions from a hitchhiking trip through the country, I think it would be better if you posted them on some other site (and perhaps linked to that site in the "External links" section of the Kazakhstan entry). CRCulver (talk) 09:16, 12 January 2013 (CET)

Great freedom of speech on this "open source" website! All those pictures people uploaded from themselves during hitchhiking are of course much more helpful. From my point of view it is nice to have some pictures in the article because it makes it more comfortable to read and I can not exactly see any disadvantage. Dorfdisco

Dorfdisco, "open source" doesn't imply anything about how the show is ran. E.g. Linux is almost a dictatorship. It just means that you can go ahead and copy stuff from here and change it wherever you want, and even publish it and sell it. But well, nevertheless, hitchwiki is more of an adhocracy. See also how we want to keep Hitchwiki ;)
I think the text to image ratio was a bit low. I can see why Chris did what he did. On the other hand, I can also see that it's annoying to have stuff removed. I tried to find a middle ground by adding a <gallery> at the bottom. Hope you're both okay with this! Maybe add some more pics to the bottom. This can also be a good solution for many other pages. I mean, we definitely want more pictures, not less, also/even if they are just somewhat related to hitchhiking. :) guaka (talk) 17:57, 13 January 2013 (CET)
(btw, you can "sign" messages with ~~~~)

And erm, thanks for all your contributions on Hitchwiki! Definitely appreciated! :) guaka (talk) 17:59, 13 January 2013 (CET)

I meant "open source" in sense of a freedom for every user. Rule 1 in your link says "We try to avoid setting up rules". So I can not deny that I get disappointed when I feel blamed for breaking rules here. Also I don't know what could be the definition about a picture that is exactly related to Hitchhiking. To be honest a lot of the pictures are more or less self-representation as f.e. here http://hitchwiki.org/en/India For me personal this sucks, but I respect the independence of other contributers and do not delete anything. I like the idea of having a gallery on the bottom of the page. Also the fact with the ratio between image and text is true. dorfdisco

I’m not too happy about some of the photos of people hitchhiking here, but at least they depict hitchhiking. A picture of a cow on the road, or a roadside toilet, does not have anything to do with hitchhiking as opposed to any other form of overland transportation.
And no, they don't make the articles "more comfortable to read". One of the most common complaints I’ve heard about Hitchwiki when talking with other hitchhikers is that articles are overlong, have convoluted formatting, and require too much work to find the specific hitchhiking advice one needs. (The majority of people using the English Hitchwiki are non-native speakers who often read English only with effort.) When I write articles or edit other people's material, I try hard to ensure maximum conciseness. I'd encourage you and other editors to do the same. Don't "respect what other people have written" when it makes the article a mess. Revert or delete when you feel necessary, explain it on the user's talk page, and if there's an objection then consensus can be reached within the community. CRCulver (talk) 13:18, 14 January 2013 (CET)

In the end it is a matter of taste. I also know a lot of people that use hitchwiki and they complain about the uncharitable presentation. In my opinion it does not require too much work to find the information you search for as every page shows the content and if you want you can skip most of the text as the introduction, additional information etc. and f.e. just klick to "Going south" if you only need that. From my point of view a lot of material like long text or pictures show the passion of the people who wrote it. Of course some cities like Berlin have long articles that I also not read word after word, but especially for more "exotic" countries (what countries are in this definition is of course very subjektive) every information is interesting. Pictures for me are in first sense to give the user a feeling of this "traveling romantic" that might be the Nr.1 motivation for hitching and despite exact photos of the spot they can hardly be 100 percent connected to hitchhiking. And even this pictures can be defined as useless because most petrol stations looks pretty equal and if you follow the instructions you would find them anyway (perhaps).dorfdisco (talk) 13:39, 14 January 2013 (CET)

If people want to look at ordinary photographs of travels in "exotic" countries, they can go to another site for that, one about travel in general (such as whatever Free project replaced Wikitravel). Of course we can link to such a site from here, just like many articles link to Trashwiki for dumpster-diving advice instead of presenting it inline, but why clutter articles and inefficiently compete with other travel sites? Hitchwiki should do one thing and do it well: present hitchhiking advice.
Also, I kindly ask you to pay more attention to your English grammar and spelling. Just by carefully re-reading over what you have written before clicking "Save page", you can probably reduce 90% of the mistakes. It doesn't matter so much on your Talk page, perhaps, but correcting the language on articles takes time I could be spending on something else, and some mistakes made in Hitchwiki edits risk turning the advice unintelligible. CRCulver (talk) 13:58, 14 January 2013 (CET)

Horgos-Röszke border crossing

The "Serbian" drivers that are crossing there are almost always ethnic Hungarians of Vojvodina. They are only going a short distance because they are visiting relatives or carrying out business with acquaintances across the border. As you may know, that whole area was once part of Hungary, and ties between either side of the border remain strong (especially now that Vojvodinans can get Hungarian passports). CRCulver (talk) 20:14, 5 March 2013 (CET)