User talk:Marcool

Hey, Marcool,
Welcome to hitchwiki and thanks for your cool new stuff! If you have any questions 'n shit, feel free to ask, but as it looks you won't need it ;-)
--Zenit 01:48, 8 July 2011 (CEST)

Thanks a lot!
I've just finished adding stuff ranging over the articles on Suriname, Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, and some towns in those countries. If you would like to take a quick look at them and point out anything controversial (although I did try to make the information as neutral and objective as possible), typos and such I would be very grateful.
Regards, Mark.
--Marcool 14:06, 11 July 2011 (CEST)

Cool, thanks for all that. Neutrality's definitely not a problem there. I just re-edited a few things into the Mexico article you dropped and I restored the Dallas page - you blanked it because there was like no useful info on there, right? We'd keep that as a stub because it's quite an important place and like this, it's more probable that somebody will come along and fill the article in. Anyway, thanks and stay safe!--Zenit 00:28, 12 July 2011 (CEST)

Ok thanks for that. Yeah I hoped to bring the Dallas article back to "this article does't exist" status, but that obviously isn't the right way to go about it... If you think it's better to keep the stub though that's ok, I wasn't sure what would encourage people to create something the most. About the part on female hikers in Mexico at first I wanted to include it in Personal Experiences as it is quite linked to the persons experience and that I noticed very different things in Mexico, particularly the exact oposite behavior of the one described : people picking up girls to "keep them safe", I never heard anything about prostitutes... And the fact about hiking with somebody else is debatable as you could arguably be given just as much trouble from a weird hitch-hiker who decides to stick to you than from the weird driver... Nevertheless the paragraph doesn't have a Personal Experience type of writing to it and I don't want to adapt it in that sense as that would be pointless. I agree deleting it altogether was a little harsh its just that I read the "colorfully clothed "crowds" of locals" part, seriously... people in Mexico look just like you and me and describing them as a colorfully clothed crowd just makes them sound like a bunch of typical indian people dressed with feathers to attract the tourists! Sorry I guess I just hate generalizations, and travelers do tend to generalize a lot! Never mind I can live with it! :-)
--Marcool 22:37, 11 July 2011 (CEST)

It runs in the same veine as people who say "mind your bags" or "keep your money in your bra" or "this place is dangerous"... you may have noticed I deleted a whole bunch of that too. We travelled through the whole of south, central and north america and never, never, ever, ever did anybody even try to touch us, our bags or our money. We were in slums where people were beging, in streets with jewelry shops, in places all along the social scale and throughout those places we met plenty of people that you would at first dissmis as ones who might try to mugg you because they looks like they're at the last stage of hope... It just depends on your behavior and attitude.
There are crooks everywhere, there are guys who will take a girl on the side of the road for a prostitute everywhere, and there are - fortunately - very good people everywhere. It's always good advice to mind your stuff, it's always good advice not to flash your dollars about, and it's always better to travel in numbers, hitch-wiki has a great page explaining general advice like this, it's no use repeating it on every page in the site! And I'm sure that plenty have even gone about doing the exact oposite of all that good advice and still gotten lucky...
As for specifically quoting areas where one phenomena (robbery, taking people for prostitutes and such) is supposed to be more developed than in another, please, what the hell!?
Stuff like that just discourages people from travelling to an area they might otherwise find amazing, and where they might meet some great people.
Ok I guess after a while travelling a needed to say stuff like that to somebody! I hate paranoia basically!! It paralises the world and makes so many people miserable and unpleasant when they could be happy and outgoing!
Anyhow, I'm done ranting now... thanks for reading anyhow!
Regards, and again thanks for the proof-reading!
--Marcool 22:40, 11 July 2011 (CEST)

Yeah, I know what you mean. First, about the colourful crowds, we can easily edit that out and make the whole paragraph less generalised. Then, about precautions and stuff, obviously we don't have to add things like the danger of being robbed and the possible benefit of travelling in groups to every article, that's the Lonely Plantet folks' job. But I do think that in this particular case - with the single female traveller in Mexico - there is some information that is both specific to the country and potentially helpful. I also think it does make sense to point out areas where a girl standing by the side of the road will be thought of as a prostitute more easily, you have that in Italy, too, for example. I'm gonna edit it a bit, though, and you can tell me what you think.--Zenit 15:30, 12 July 2011 (CEST) (I was thinking we could do the opposite of the LP: add a disclaimer to every warning saying that you shouldn't be scared anyhow because bad things tend not to happen to you or something)

Ok yeah it sounds pretty neutral and helpful now with the edits you've made. I still don't know about the specific areas thing though. In my opinion in 99% of cases where somebody tells you "place x is more whatever than the rest of..." it's closer to meaning "when I was in x I got more whatever than when I was in the rest of...", that's why I tend to classify it as a personal opinion. In Central America most of all we were amazed how everybody we met would tell us : "oh you're heading there! It's really dangerous there you know", I can't even remember how many times we heard the line "hay muchos maliantes alla!"...
--Marcool 12:16, 12 July 2011 (CEST)