Talk:Tuscany

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tuscany is within the scope of WikiProject Italy, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles on Italy on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the Project's quality scale. See comments
Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the importance scale.

Contents

[edit] Plaintive bleat about gastronomy

I wonder if we could get more information about Tuscan food

I came to this page looking for information on tuscan food and am dissappointed.

I'd suggest you drop this request at the appropriate (though still woefully inadequate) entry: Cuisine of Tuscany. 216.52.69.217 12:49, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] General inadequacy of the article: work needed!

Stripped of its meaningless lists, this is a very inferior article for a major region of Italy.

  • The text smells of Italian, I cleaned it up a bit.
  • It's also quite inadequate: I run my own website, so am not going to spend the hours required to churn out good text, but I hope that my little surgery will spur others to provide detailed and adequate text.
  • I did delete stuff that was not particular to Tuscany (the bit about the agriturismi for example), and did a bit of NPOV, and fixed nonsense (for example: dozens of famous museums; can you name three of them? in fact, there are one or two famous museums, the rest are not "famous".)
  • The lists are covered by the category system, and a simple link to them is sufficient; this has the further benefit of eliminating inactive links. The people list was also full of errors: Bernini for example was born in Naples, and Alberti in Genoa.
  • The "geographical data" are already in the table, and the population figures in the text are older and thus conflict with it.
  • The thumbnail photo was inane, and looks more like a computer simulation than anywhere in Tuscany.
  • I marked the article a stub. Bill 14:29, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Inadequate external links

21 Sep: I deleted the PhotoGlobe link; "georeferenced photos of Tuscany" sounds impressive, but means only that the photos are each accompanied by a small map, probably a copyright violation, and a larger location map (the same for each, localing Tuscany on a large-scale map of part of Europe). The photos are captioned, if not really very informatively; but — there are only 36 of them, and they are by no means a representative selection of Tuscany, being geared toward the same tired tourist haunts: Pisa, Florence, Siena, Chiantishire, and S. Gimignano; of the region's 10 provinces, that's only a few famous places in 3 of them. Bill 21:24, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of PhotoGlobe Photos

Just a few remarks on the comment of user Bill, who removed the external reference to PhotoGlobe:

I don't see your arguments for deleting this reference. Of course, these photos are only a few ones - but they are georeferenced, that means that each photo comes with exact GPS-based coordinates of the position where it has been taken. Thus a potential visitor can enter the coordinates into his/her GPS, finding those places easily. Furthermore, PhotoGlobe offers the locations of all photos as a plugin for NASA World Wind, which makes it real fun exploring our world (try it, you will love it: http://www.photoglobe.info/worldwind.html)

Just another comment on your insinuation that the map is probably a copyright violation: The map is free of copyrights (a map of the US army dated from 1942, which has been put into public domain).

Another point is, that the PhotoGlobe project is a non-profit educational project (however, the project is just at its beginning) offering lots of information (not only photos). So I am asking you, why are you keeping one of the other two references ("lodgephoto") - which is simply an advertising of a commmercial business, delivering photos which are too small to be useful?

So I am asking you to put the reference back on the external link list. In the case you don't have it, here's the URL : http://www.photoglobe.info/db_tuscany/

Regards,

  Hans Lohninger (initiator of the PhotoGlobe project)
Good that that map is in the public domain; might as well so mark it on your site, it will avoid confusion by others. There is so much piracy online, that the natural inference (especially with maps, which almost perforce are not one's own creations) is that uncredited stuff is pirated.... On my own site I mark everything one way or the other, for just that reason.
Ad rem, however: there's just not very much content. My own personal criterion is based on What Wikipedia is not, if indirectly. Like that page says, since Wikipedia is not a list of links, the links that are eventually listed should be few and valuable. If a listing of links would be very, very long if all websites at the same level of informativeness were included, then by my lights the link doesn't belong there. For Tuscany, so travelled by so many people, that means a site has got to be really good to make it into the top five or six. By way of illustration, and assurance that I've got no vendetta against PhotoGlobe or any other site — I have a site of my own on Tuscany, which I wouldn't dream of listing here, although it has 30 pages, with 66 large photos — plus an entire book with 107 engravings, 8 maps and plans, and 4 more photos: it's not only PhotoGlobe but my own site that is not good enough.... (And my site always gives the latitude and longitude of the places in question, too: big deal.) Bill 13:11, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Oh, and PS: the LodgePhoto site is marginal; it too should probably be tossed out.... Bill
Bill, I looked into your Tuscany site - really nice site, although I am missing some navigational aids (i.e. a table of contents, or an index, and/or a full text search). As far the location data is concerned: it seems to me that you are providing rather coarse coordinates per town, but no coordinates of the individual photo points - which is quite a pity, given the many fantastic photos on your Web site.
If you have GPS-based coordinates of the photos, I would like to invite you to contribute to the PhotoGlobe project. Your photos certainly will be a valuable addition to the project (what we need is high resolution photos, the lat/long values with GPS accuracy, and a title and a caption for each photo; the caption is deliberately restricted to 255 characters, but we can display a link with further information on each photo page (i.e. a link to your site). Details on how to contribute can be found here: http://www.photoglobe.info/contribution.html .... Regards, Hans
PS: I'll take up your suggestion to disclose map sources, however it will take some time until this will be available on the Web site
Oops, I just discovered that there *is* a full text search on your site.... Hans

[edit] Link suggestion

I'm not able to contribute to this article (i live in tuscany, but my english is not as fluent as an encyclopedia). Anyway i'd like to suggest an urlof a videocast we are currently running under a CreativeCommons license (http://tuscany.podtravels.tv). The videocast is updated weekly with videos from places slightly off the tourist traffic (most of the time).

[edit] Montecatini Val di Cecina

I have added an article on Montecatini Val di Cecina using material that we researched for ItalianVisits.com. As I stated in the discussion page for the Montecatini Val di Cesina article, the material has been gleaned from a number of sources available on the Internet, including material contained on the Official site for the comune. The material is not as reliable as one would hope, but might serve as a good starting point.

During the next few days I will endeavour to flesh-out the Wikipedia articles on Montecatini Terme and Montecatini Alto, as well as various other Tuscan towns and cities.

I have also re-added the ItalianVisits.com link to the main Tuscany page, believing it to have some merit. I understand the "debate" concerning "travel websites", but we are making a concerted effort to develop information on ItalianVisits.com that goes well beyond the usual "tourist site" approach. I would ask that anyone who might be inclined to remove this external link please look at ItalianVisits as a whole, with special regard for the Umbria and Calabria sections which are more developed, but show the direction we are taking with other Regions including the Tuscany region. Certainly, I would hope the matter of inclusion should be open to discussion. JVian 23:07, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removing an article

The article on Montecatini contained a link to "Montecatini in Val di Cècina". This name is incorrect because it contains the word "in". It is also problematic for anyone who does a search without using the "è" in "Cècina" So, I created a new page "Montecatini Val di Cecina" and edited the Montecatini page to link to it. However, the "Montecatini in Val di Cècina" page still exists in Wikipedia.

How does one remove a page? And, was there a better procedure for doing this? JVian 21:27, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] San Miniato, Pisa Province

I added an article about the city of San Miniato. The article synthesizes a variety of information about the city that I found on the Internet and therefore is meant to serve as the basis for further work done by more learned people than me.JVian 18:58, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Added External Link again

I have once again added a link to ItalianVisits.com, which will probably not please some folks. Someone removed it before because, they said, the main article in ItalianVisits was a regurgitation of information from Fodors. We completely re-wrote the article, but, looking only at it is not, in my opinion, a sufficient view of what we are doing. The Tuscany section of our site is growing - there are some 16 articles on towns and cities in the Region and many more will be added, so on a cumulative basis there is a lot of coverage. Also, when we research and write about a place in Tuscany for which there is no article in Wikipedia, we are also adding it to Wikipedia under an open license.

Obviously, there are a ton of websites about Tuscany on the Net. If all of them were to be included in the External Links section, the Tuscany article would be overwhelmed. So, it is agreed, that some considerable attention has to be paid to the "intellectual" comprhensiveness and quality of those that are included, the ultimate purpose being to give Wikipedia users access to plentiful and useful information about the Region. So, for instance, in my opinion, Bill Thayer's Gazetteer of Tuscany should also be included in the External links because it compliments the information in the article. So does IV, at least, that's my, admittedly biased, opinion.

I suppose the matter could and perhaps should be arbitrated. JVian 17:09, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Italianvisits

So, to be cynical here - you rapidly rehashed the Fodors copy and added your own tagline in an attempt to get the link back in. And you're doing this for Wikipedia users? If your site is non-commercial, why the need for the link? And, if it is commercial, then, as you say, there are hundreds of older, larger and more detailed sites out there. In certain areas your site may merit deep links - there seems to be a lot of truly original Southern Italy detail, for example. Not so for Tuscany.

Well first of all, I don't think anyone who isn't registered, and/or who doesn't sign their work should have the privilege to act as gatekeeper. Secondly, it is impossible to write anything original about Tuscany, at least with regard to any matter that is likely to appear in Wikipedia, or on any site that is endeavouring to give its readers an overview of the Region in a limited space. Granted, a few writers might have the talent to write something about Tuscany in an original, interesting voice, but none of the "external links" that are included here can make any such claim. Thirdly, this attempt to separate the commercial from the non-commercial external links is bound to fail in many, if not most cases. For instance, Castles in Tuscany offers tours, accommodation etc.; Terra di Tuscany has an online shop, and offers a variety of other commercial services. So, what's the criteria that is being used? If there are no fixed criteria, and if the gatekeeping is being done on a strictly subjective basis by one individual, then I think it is time for an aribtration on the matter. Anyone else agree? JVian 21:05, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Montalcino

I added an article for the Tuscan town of Montalcino. This was a slight revision of an article I added to ItalianVisits on March 18, 2006.JVian 17:00, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Monteriggioni

I added an article for the Tuscan town of Monteriggioni. This was a slight revision of an article I added to ItalianVisits on Jult 28, 2006.JVian 17:00, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

jhjhj

[edit] Don't know why my site is removed and by who

Hello, I am trying to add my weblog http://tuscany-travel.blogspot.com full of useful info on Tuscany to the page on wiki-Tuscany, but someone (editors? Competitors that have other blogs?) keeps removing it. I do not understand why, as I see that the page displays plenty of commercial and doubtfully useful other websites. In particular I have seen www.l o d g e p h o t o.com or www.s p i g a d i g r a n o .it(without the spaces, of course), but also others, that give no info on Tuscany at all and are just adsense receptors... you can leave those there if you think they are useful to visitors, but please also accept (or do not delete) my, more useful, resources! Thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 151.52.127.66 (talk) 11:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Images of Tuscany

Tuscany is one of the most beautiful places in the world. It's outrageous that there's a bazillion pictures of Afghanistan at that "country's" article but Tuscany has only one image in the entire article. Anyone with images theyre licensed to use ought to put them up here.

[edit] NPOV?

"For its landscapes and its artistic legacy, Tuscany is considered the most beautiful region in Italy". I may even agree but perhaps needs to be supported by something slightly more objective, like number of UNESCO protected sites, or some other widely recognised criterion.

You do not need refernces for trivial statements. Tuscany and Florence are widely regarded as the single most beautiful place in Europe or possibly the whole world. BTW, many features of fictional planet Naboo from the Star Wars movies are clearly referencing Italy and Tuscany especially. 91.83.19.241 (talk) 23:27, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect

I've found a redirect from Tuscia to Tuscany. Tuscia is provincia di Viterbo, the southern part of the ancient Etruria. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wento (talk • contribs) 19:25, 28 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Tuscans and Turks are relatives

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-sci-etruscans18jun18,1,159086.story?coll=la-news-a_section&ctrack=2&cset=true Shouldn't it be mentioned that nowadays Tuscans and nowadays Turks share the same genes? --134.155.99.41 09:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

if you look a Tuscan and a Turks they are completely different..Firts the Turks came from Asia in 1000 C.E. ans second the Etruscans in Tuscany were just the Upper Class --GaiusCrastinus (talk) 15:13, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

...yes, rather like the Irish and the Persians. --Wetman (talk) 00:41, 17 February 2008 (UTC)