ویکی‌سفر:مقاله‌های راهنما

A guide article is a status rating for any article in Wikivoyage that is essentially complete. This is what a Wikivoyage article is intended to be. Not only would you not need to consult another guide, you'd really have no reason to want to: it's all here.

Guide articles aren't necessarily perfect... just very close. For example, a city guide might not have a map, some of the listings might not exactly match our manual of style. The article may have perfect spelling and grammar but the prose is a bit dry and wikipedic. This prevents them from being considered "star" articles, which are the ones we hold up as examples of just how great a Wikivoyage article can become.

See also: Stub articles, Outline articles, Usable articles, Star articles.

Identification

The criteria for what makes a "guide" article varies depending on what the subject is. For example, an article about a city must have multiple hotel and restaurant listings, but that doesn't make sense for an article about an entire region, which should instead have a listing of the cities in that region. Obviously the criteria for a travel topic or phrasebook would be different. See Project:Article status for an overview of article status criteria, or the following links for guide criteria for specific article types:

• Project:City guide status (also for districts)
• Project:Region guide status (also for continents and continental sections)
• Project:Country guide status
• Project:Itinerary status
• Project:Travel topic status
• Project:Phrasebook status
• Project:Park guide status

A complete list of all current "guide" articles can be found in Category:مقاله‌های راهنما.

What to do with them

Tag them

If you find an article that meets the criteria for "guide" but hasn't been tagged as such, or if you improve an article to the point that it qualifies, please tag it.

There is special markup in our software to mark something as a guide article. Unlike the "stub" and "outline" tags, which are generic enough to apply to any kind of article, we have different tags for the different kinds of articles. For example, the tag for a guide about a city looks like this: {{guidecity}} which makes this appear on the page:

The other kinds of "guide" tags are {{guideregion}}, {{guidecountry}}, {{guideairport}}, {{guidepark}}, {{guidetopic}}, {{guidephrasebook}}, and {{guideitinerary}}.

You can add one of these messages at the bottom of the page. This tells readers that this article should be all they'll need to plan their visit... but acknowledges that there's always room for improvement (and updates) and invites them to make the article even better.

Improve them

If you find a "guide" article and you can see what's holding it back from becoming a "star"... plunge forward! If you know your way around Illustrator or Inkscape, make a map for it. If you have a good eye for detail, comb through the listings and fix any formatting mistakes. If you have a flair for the English language, give the text a full-body massage with a happy ending, and make it sing. Give the article that final nudge from "great" to "superb".

The specific criteria varies depending on the kind of article (i.e. city, country, etc.) but a star article is as good as it gets. At that point it's a guide to be proud of, and should be nominated to be a "star".

When an article is just starting out, we often need all the information we can get to get the article started, and style and detail comes second. Even some touting is occasionally tolerated just to get information in the guide. Additions to guide articles should try to maintain the articles quality, and comply with the style guidelines whenever possible. However, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't always plunge forward to add your latest discovery at a destination.