Talk:Cider Pub Guide to Gloucestershire
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Nailsea
Where do inhabitants of Nailsea consider they belong to - Bristol, Gloucestershire, Avon or Somerset?
Once this is sorted, we might hive off the Bristol page.
Beer pub guide wars
I've noticed that a number of links and some facts about the pubs were removed as 'blank pages' and 'not helpful'. Just to confirm I have double-checked all the links and they all work. They link to an open directory which, like Wikipedia, can be updated by any user at any time.
At the very least, the links will give readers a map so they can see where the pub is, but in many cases there is detail on what other facilities the pubs offer, what real ales the beers sell, what opening hours they have and whether they are near to railway stations or motorways.
I hope this is of use to users of UK Cider Guide. The links are to an open directory, where neither pubs nor users are ever charged a penny and everyone can join in. It is to support sites like this that our directory was created.
I feel that this is very much in keeping with the goals of UK Cider and of Wikipedia, but would welcome discussion on the subject, either here or by emailing me at duncan.shine@britishpubguide.com . Duncshine 13:36, 13 March 2006 (GMT)
A) The first time Duncan Shine inserted all of his links he also deleted existing links to pages on the http://www.pubinnguide.com/ and http://www.beerintheevening.com/.
For evidence, see diff Lines 35 ( Beaufort Arms) and 70 ( Reckless Engineer)
This makes it look very suspiciously like the deliberate promotion of one particular online beer pub guide against the others, rather than an attempt to add any value whatsoever to ukcider.
B) Duncan claims to have set up britishpubguide in order to support sites such as ukcider, and yet in his list of links to other sites the ukcider pub guide and wiki are not included anywhere as at 13/3/2006 15.00h. He seems to want an entirely one-way relationship. Nice try.
C) In the quest for sponsors, the britishpubguide states
"For example, if a user searches for pubs which welcome pets, it is a pretty strong bet that (s)he owns a dog. Pet food, or pet insurance companies may be interested in targeting these people."
So it's a marketing site, and not a community enterprise at all, as further evidenced by the absence of any system for user annotation and discussion, such as Duncan is taking advantage of here.
D) The britishpubguide categories list "Lagers, cask ales, and CIDER" as types of beers!!
So what to do.
There seem to be at least half a dozen or so beer pub websites around, each trying to become a comprehensive guide. We probably don't want them replacing each others links and plastering links to their pages which rarely have anything to add to the ukcider entry except for perhaps a map which could easily be obtained elsewhere.
Is some kind of guideline now necessary for external links within the cider pub guide?
I would have thought that links to pubs' own websites would be preferred, and the rival commercial beer pub guides can fight it out elsewhere.
Should we favour just one of the page-per-pub sites such as Wikipubs perhaps?
Or mention each of the rival beer pub guides just once each somewhere, and discourage such links within the pages of the cider pub itself. Too many sites seem to be trying to create indexes for searches without any real content or genuine user involvement.
Any further suggestions?
--Andy 15:30, 13 March 2006 (GMT)
Duncan Shine replies
Hi Andy (and all),
OK, I'll try to address your points briefly.
You say I removed links to beerintheevening and pubinnguide sites. Oops! Honestly not deliberate and, when I reinstated the links today, I have certainly left all others intact.
You point out that ukcider.co.uk and wiki are not on the links page. If you look at the links page, you'll see it also includes links to Guide Books from 2003. I'm afraid this stems from when we first set up the site and had great plans for it. Reality, and the fact that we all have day jobs to do, has set in and so the links are out of date. I am hoping to get time to do them soon, and will certainly include ukcider and wiki as links.
The sponsorship page you refer to is of the same sort. When we created the site in 1999, we did think maybe we could get sponsorship to help pay for it. To be honest, we realised very quickly that this was a non-starter, and we have never taken a penny for sponsorship (or anything else for that matter). I have now been in and worked out how to edit the sponsorship page. I hope it better reflects what the site is all about now.
Also, you will notice that, at the bottom of every pub's page is a link saying 'click here' to tell us if any pub's details are wrong. I accept this is not a very clever or advanced method, but it certainly is designed to allow people to update the site themselves.
I reiterate, we have never received payment from pubs, users or sponsors for any part of this site. I think there is a banner ad at the top of the news page, but as I recall that was put up as an experiment and never taken down. I certainly haven't seen any money for it.
As regards listing ciders under the general heading 'beers', that's just a matter of expediency.
If your accusation is that our site is amateurish, then I plead guilty as charged. However, please believe me that the links I put up are done in the right spirit. I think giving people additional information on the pubs is useful, and whatever else my site is, it is NOT in any sense commercial.
As a final case for the defence, I'd point you to the CAMRA Bristol & District web site. If you look at their Pints West Newsletter, you will see I am a regular and voluntary contributor, and that I routinely allow them to use photographs from the site to support other articles.
Believe me, Andy, I understand your suspicions, but in this instance I really am running the web site as a labour of love. Feel free to contact me offline (duncan.shine@britishpubguide.com) if you want, and I'll gladly talk you through our site in more detail. Duncshine 17:08, 13 March 2006 (GMT)
pub guides
Personally I think that we should have a general link somewhere to pub guides rather than links added to individual pubs. This is particularly the case when pubs have their own web site as well. I don't think that taking people away from the wiki to other sites that are not so specifically about cider is a good idea. I've nothing against pub guides but I worry that we could end up with 600 pubs each with a link to 1 or 2 or more external pub guide sites. I have therefore removed those links where the pub had its own site. I have for now left the ones where there are links to multiple pub guides so that the discussion can continue both here and on the list. Also I removed the closed pub. I don't see the point of leaving it in situ. Until it re-opens and someone can check it still sells real cider then I think it should be removed.--Linda Hartley 19:01, 13 March 2006 (GMT)
I think that a separate wiki page listing links to pub guides would be very beneficial. It would prevent individual pub entries from becoming too long, but would still provide a means for wiki users to seek out further information from sources external to the wiki.
Perhaps if maintainers of external pub guide webisites were to post up their links on a separate 'links' page of the ukcider wiki, they could also include a description of the type of information they provide. For example, Duncan Smith could describe the facilities his pub guide offers, geographical area covered, mention the search-by-beverage function etc. It would mean a way for ukcider wiki readers to locate and utilize the information provided, without the concise nature of the wiki pub entries being compromised.--Tania McMillan 23:55, 14 March 2006 (GMT)
- I like that idea Tania. I'd be more than happy to do that. We could include links to just the pubs selling traditional cider, filtering out all other pubs. If the users here don't like the direct pub-to-a-page links, this may be a useful way forward. Duncshine 12:02, 15 March 2006 (GMT)
New page: Other_pub_guides added
I've added a new page called "Other_pub_guides" which might become the separate central place for linking to pub guides, but at this point it's more of a place for generalising the discussion which seems to have moved well beyond Gloucester and Bristol.
Incidentally, with the size of this page now, would it be more convenient to hive off Bristol to a page of its own?
Possible solution?
I've been wondering about a way to provide effective map links.
Everyone has their own favourite map site: Streetmap, Multimap, Google Maps, or others (I use Waterscape, for example... partly because I wrote it). It would be unfair only to link to one; and foolish to provide links to all of them.
Instead, it would be better to link to our own script (Perl, PHP, or whatever), which then forwarded the query onto the user's preferred map site. This is pretty easy to do as they all take essentially the same parameters - easting and northing, lat and long, or postcode. Wikipedia does this quite nicely.
So... why not do the same for links to pub guides? Most pub guide sites have a search function which, when given the pub name and town, will take you to that page. For example, I can find my local by searching for 'Rose and Crown' in 'Charlbury' on beerintheevening.com, giving this URL.
I can think of a simple frame-based design, similar to that used by about.com or Google Image Search, that would work well. And yes, I am volunteering to do the code if needed. :) --Richard Fairhurst 19:03, 13 March 2006 (GMT)
...and here it is in action:
Obviously expandable to include whichever sites are deemed suitable (or not). Due to some peculiarities of the way that Duncan's site works, the button for his site won't actually function... hey ho. --Richard Fairhurst 23:48, 13 March 2006 (GMT)
- I'm glad you've provided an example Richard, because now it is possible to understand what you are proposing. I believe this is what the web2.0 people call a "mashup" and is all the rage? Combining information from seperate databases to provide new functionalisty, in a creative way that the originators of the components apps wouldn;t have envisaged. Great stuff, I like it. We may be able to go one step further and provide a parameter driven template within the mediawiki for pub entry headings, in a similar way to Template:Rg_head which then includes calls to the map and pub guide links, as long as it doesn't make it harder for the newcomer to add a basic pub entry if you see what I mean. Would it be possible to add pubutopia.com as well please? --Andy 09:46, 14 March 2006 (GMT)
- Hi Richard. Nice idea. One problem is that you will get lots of links to just name and address pages or stubs on every web site. Would it not be preferable to have a guideline that users should only link to a directory site if they feel the link adds relevant information not on ukcider. It is a shame to be lumped in with the commercial sites, but I'm struggling to convince people mine isn't one! That said, if this is the way users decide to go, I'll find out from our web genius how our search parameters look. Cheers. Duncshine 09:54, 14 March 2006 (GMT)
- Right, I've looked at this. The search you would need for the britishpubguide.com site would be http://www.britishpubguide.com/cgi-bin/pubsearch.cgi?trantype=search&pubname=Rose+&beer=&town=Charlbury&location=all&submit=
- That would return the right pub, if it were on our site(!). If you cut and paste this link to your browser
That should return something. Hope this helps.
Cheers
Dunc
- Andy - no problem, have added pubutopia. Template seems like an excellent idea. And I suppose it is a little Web2.0 (though this made me laugh - warning, coarse language).
Duncan - the idea's kind of that you only need the one link, and then users can choose to use the guide they prefer: but by offering the choice, users are more likely to find the information they need (opening hours, as you cited, or whatever). Your genius's input might be appreciated - I couldn't figure how to consistently get results from your site, I'm afraid! --Richard Fairhurst 12:54, 14 March 2006 (GMT)
- Richard- rofl! Love the link! Mash ups are good but I'm concerned about the idea of having to add all this to every new pub. Would it be possible to have this with some sort of search function up at the top of each page in a section of its own? So you could get a map for the area? I like the idea of the pub guide entries appearing with the ukcider header :-) But I still think that would be best in a separate area so people wouldn't be faced with adding complex code.
--Linda Hartley 20:12, 14 March 2006 (GMT)
Further thoughts
In retrospect, I think Linda's idea to only link to a directory where there is no pub 'homepage' seems sensible. I will not add any links where this is the case.
Although interestingly, the official website for the Robert Fitzharding pub just lists name, address and four 'facilities', where unofficial directories (not just mine) give a whole lot more information, so even this may not be the best way forward.
Although my site is not solely about cider, it does allow you to search for pubs which sell specific ciders (or beers, or even lagers, but you can't have everything), and I hope that's useful.
As to linking guidelines. It would be a shame to deny your members extra information where it exists. How about this:
Allow links to directory entries where there is additional information available. So, where a site has a pub photo, searchable details of ciders (and real ales), a full list of facilities available (dogs welcome, food available, near a railway station etc), the map, that sort of thing. But discourage links to 'stub' pages that just have name and address.
That said, it's up to you guys. My site is there for people to use and update if they want to. If ukcider would rather not make use of the information, that's entirely your choice.
But I must stress, mine is a non-commercial free site that really complements yours. It would be a shame not to work together. Duncshine 09:12, 14 March 2006 (GMT)
New additions
I've added details of 12 more pubs in Bristol that serve traditional cider. Given the discussions above and on the user group, I have NOT added any links to my web site, though I will be happy to do so if the discussion moves in that direction. Duncshine 17:05, 14 March 2006 (GMT)
