Talk:Tourism in Slovakia

Hostel effect on tourism[edit]

I have added in the Slovakian government's comments on the film Hostel as damaging to tourism since I feel it is noteworthy for this article. A source has been provided. Any objections to keeping it in? At least one user (User:Juro) seems to be reverting this with a vengence. -Husnock 02:43, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do not know who you are, but this is supposed to be a serious encyclopaedia and not a gossip magazine (and as you can see, the other editor, who edited the text before you, has even removed the reference to Hostel from the See also section). The government has not said anything officially on this ridiculous issue and the movie, just like any other movie placed in Slovakia, is completely irrelevant. (and by the way the movie - even though endlessly stupid - is rather good for tourism than bad). Juro 02:50, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here is the source for the statement: [1] -Husnock 03:05, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have asked other users to comment on the merits of keeping the film Hostel mentioned in the film. However, two sources have been located stating Slovakian officals did comment on its negative effect to tourism. For now, lets hear what oither users have to say. -Husnock 14:46, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First, I would like to thank all the contributors of this article because tourism in Slovakia has not been satisfactorily addressed on Wikipedia yet. As for this ridiculous dispute over the Hostel movie, I think the ongoing edit war is a waste of time that could be otherwise invested much better. In my opinion, the movie is not important enough to be included in the main Slovakia article (where the dispute originally emerged), but I believe that two sentences in this article are adequate to the movie’s significance. In my last edit, I have just changed the assertion that the movie “was tremendously harmful” into a more neutral formulation, based on the cited source (in which a government official stated that the movie damaged the image of the country). In fact, there is no evidence known to me that the effect of the movie significantly decreased the number of tourists coming to Slovakia, so let us stick with the facts presented in the cited source. I really hope that the current version will be convenient for both users involved in the last edit war and they will return to their otherwise impressive work on the Wikipedia content. Tankred 15:06, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tankred seems to have the right idea - it's not amazingly important, but it does mention a notice in this article, I feel. We need some citations for some of the claims here, though - does Slovakia really have more caves than anywhere else? I can't find anything saying it does... HawkerTyphoon 15:33, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Both questionnable assertions (caves and castles per capita) may be true because of Slovakia's small population and its high concentration of caves and castles. But I failed to find any reliable data. As for caves, I doubt this claim is based on real numbers because new caves are being discovered every year (both in Slovakia and elsewhere). As for castles, almost every village in Slovakia used to have at least one castle (or fort). But again, I have not been able to find any reliable and comprehensive international comparison. Unless someone else can provide such data, it would be perhaps safer to say that Slovakia is one of the countries with the highest number of castles and caves per capita, or something like that. Tankred 15:58, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Slovakia no doubt has lots of caves and lots of castles, but surely Nepal or Bhutan, or even Tibet have thousands more caves. Castles is quite possibly true, but quite possibly doesn't cut the cheese without sources. HawkerTyphoon 16:02, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As for the caves, is it desirable to warn the potential tourists that the caves are open few hours a day only and are closed on Mondays? Well this isn't exactly a tourist guide, so i'm not sure. Jancikotuc 17:52, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As for the Husnock conflict - just take a look at the article he has written initially, is it OK with you that an admin writes such a mess just to place a gossip about the last D class horror movie he has seen?? Is this the new policy to conceive articles (find anything you find intersting, add one sentence and put it under a title)? Am I supposed to ignore that? As for the caves - the text says "reputed" (which does not necessarily mean "definitely has") and "per capita", and probably we can change that into Europe (sources would be difficult, because the number of caves is given either as 2000+ or as 4000+, so not even that is clear). As for the castles, I have no time to look for that, but this is quite well-"known" and I have even seen this on an official US page (I guess of the embassy or so) some time ago. Juro 19:03, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

P.S.:I see now that the text says "in Europe" already.Juro 19:06, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No article can be said to "start as a mess", small stubs are meant to be grown upon, not attacked and deleted. The entire purpose of the very first edit creating an article is just to lay a stone and let others build upon it. I knew nothing about tourism in Slovakia except that the BBC said the movie Hostel was hostile (no pun intended) to it. In any event, I am moving on now. I ama ctually inactive on the site, and made these edits since I just saw the film. I had no idea they would blossum into a conflict. I leave tourism in Slovakia now to the experts who live there. -Husnock 02:19, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment[edit]

I was asked for comment on my talk page about this article. It seems to me that the conflict came to an end now, but I promised to give my opninion in the case, so :)

As for the Hostel movie, I think this silly, unimportant film will be soon forgotten by everybody except hardcore horror fans. I don't think it deserves mentioning in an encyclopedia, and I'm sure that in the next half year somebody will certainly delete it.

The first paragraph is a bit strange for me. After 16 years of the democratic change the fall of the Iron Curtain is not the most important thing about a country. Recently freed??? We are not living in 1992... Instead of this sentence I think somebody should write something relevant about the importance of tourism in the economy of present-day Slovakia. Zello 22:54, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I have already thought I am losing my mind here, because I am the only one who found exactly these two things very strange. Juro 22:54, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bratislava[edit]

To the anonymous user: Adding nonsense to Wikipedia is considered vandalism. Both Juro and I are consistently removing your paragraph because it is simply factually wrong. I will reiterate the reasons that you already know from our edit summaries: The man mentioned in your comment was not arrested but only interrogated. His activity was against the municipal law of the city of Bratislava, not against the state law of Slovakia. The given municipal law was based on the EC law, so this situation is not specific to Slovakia as you suggested. That legal act has already been changed anyway, so I do not see any reason why your addition should be relevant. Feel free to discuss it on this talk page instead of launching an edit war. I would like also to make clear that your use of sock puppets (69.142.110.13 and 195.56.228.83) will not make your sole contribution to Wikipedia more relevant. Tankred 20:09, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am new to Wikipedia yes, but I dispute that the facts are false, they aren't. I will concede the point that the term arrested should be replaced with detained for seven hours, interrogated and released. I think that this is an appropriate topic under the heading of trivia in Slovak tourism. The two IP addresses might be from the fact I have a dynamic connection? In any case I am not trying to be anonymous.

To say that this isn't relevant to tourism because the law is a Bratislava municipal law and not a Slovak national law is ridiculous. These are the laws affecting tourists in the capital city. You get arrested there for sightseeing, that's pretty odd and definitely falls under the heading of trivia related to tourism. The fact remains that the incident happened, recently. On May 20, 2006 four tourists were placed in police vehicles and were detained for 7 hours for not having a tour guide. That's pretty funny don't you think. It's definitely not usual. I have a reference from a respected news organization. It's a fact. It happened in Slovakia, to tourists. It should stay. Hunmfg 20:09, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Hunmfg, it is very nice that you have decided to sign your edit. However, I still believe that your claim (tourists in Slovakia may be arrested for sightseeing) is not correct. In reality, an unauthorized guide could be interrogated and fined in Bratislava (not in the rest of Slovakia) before that municipal law was changed. The man mentioned in your text was interrogated because he was accused by a guide authorized by the municipality. Fortunately, this legal act has been revoked and the competition between tourist guides in Bratislava is now completely free, so I do not see why this article should include information about an old legal case, which lost its relevance. If there is consensus that such paragraph should be included, it would be necessary at least to correct the factual errors and to write it in the neutral point of view. Tankred 21:56, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tankred, Thanks for the polite reply. I thought that the article was relevant to tourists as a funny trivia item. The person who was detained was also a tourist who was explaining some facts to the rest of his party, in effect acting as a tour guide, but not comercially. So I thought that was pretty relevant to people who were travelling to Bratislava as tourists. Also, it happened May of this year so it's not that far in the past. I now understand that the law was technically invalid already at the time of the "detention" which I suppose says something about law enforcement in Bratislava. I also thought the length of detention was excessive. In any case I am new to Wikipedia as you point out, and why debut with a conflict, so if the regular keepers of this page think its not valid than I will respect your work and won't protest, but I do believe that the item overall may be written differently but is at root, while trivia yes, factually correct.Hunmfg 14:04, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This topic is irrelevant already because other countries and cities have exactly the same laws and procedures even today. Only Hungary suddenly has had a problem with this for (traditionally) nationalist reasons You have to have a permit for these things in France, Austria... everywhere.Juro 01:51, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I thought we had closed this issue nicely, but this final comment is unnecessary. Each member of the group was a tourist. There was no local acting as a tour guide. Where exactly in the world does this sort of thing happen, not anywhere civilized. It's frankly amusing to listen to the convoluted logic used here to explain away the incident. If the guy was a paid local tour guide that was breaking the rules I would buy the argument, but that's not the case. He was a member of the four person group and, moreover the entire group was detained. Why detain the non tour guides, what law did they break? Wait, I know, they were speaking Hungarian; apparently that's pretty common in Slovakia. It's a shame. I thought Eastern Europe was beyond this. I know you guys are interested in keeping the page positive to promote Slovakia, and I don't blame you for it. But hopefully all the nationalists out there will learn that it doesn't have to be a zero sum game. For Slovaks to gain, Hungarians don't necessarily need to lose and vice versa.

So Tankred, How would you phrase it in a neutral way. I tried to be neutral, but apparently failed. Do you have any suggestions? Hunmfg 17:03, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Concentrate: It is prohibited to work as a guide when you have no licence. This rule holds almost everywhere in the world. This has become quite a big problem even for Slovak persons in Bratislava (I know that from direct personal experience, they were very strict with this) The local policeman (or ward or whoever) thought that this rule was broken in that particular case and therefore the non-guide was interrogated. That is all, an absolutely normal situation. The fact that the non-guide was a Hungarian is a coincidence (after all they are not the only Hungarian tourists in Slovakia), this is not the first case of such interrogations, and the fact that the policeman was probably wrong is also nothing special (although this is not sure, as far as I remember). The only "problem" of this case has been the reaction of Hungarian media. Juro 12:12, 26 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I still think that this kind of information is irrelevant because the mentioned legal act has already been revoked, so an incident of this type cannot happen again. I must say, I am really happy about that because I find this kind of economic protectionism absurd and I am sorry that innocent tourists could be harassed in this way in the past. However, I will oppose the inclusion of your paragraph because of its little relevance for the present situation. I do not think it is very encyclopedic. As for the neutrality, your paragraph was not precise: It was the municipal law of Bratislava, based on the EC law. It means that such an incident could happen in Bratislava, not in Slovakia in general. It also means, that the situation is not exceptional because other cities in the EU can (and do) use the same protectionist measures. Moreover, you could not be "arrested" but "interrogated" and not "for sightseeing without hiring a tour guide" but for acting as a tour guide unlicensed by the municipality. Finally, you should have used the past tense, not the present tense because the law was revoked. I would like to encourage you to start adding the content that is factually right and relevant (such as your edit of New Brunswick, New Jersey) instead of wasting your time on this old legal case. You can become a valuable contributor and there is still much else to improve in Wikipedia. Tankred 15:08, 26 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tankred, I agree. Now that I have a bit of experience with Wikipedia I see how the issues associated with nations can be very divisive. My intent wasn't so, moreover I thought the item was funny in a sad way, pointing out the tit for tat silliness that happens all over the region on both sides of the border. I can see how the post is percieved as the same kind of provocation. In any case, for the record, I still think Juro is dead wrong about what really happened, hopefully he'll come around. I'm going to stay away from this divisive stuff and stick to my area of expertise. Good Luck with the page. Hunmfg 14:29, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On Hostel[edit]

If hostel could damage the image of slovakia, why do you slovak editors on wiki or are you tourguides? mention it on your tourism section? And you say this is a "serious" page for tourism and tourists, but you create an "trivia". 41.114.6.158 (talk) 12:21, 16 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]