Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 146

Aspiringchemistyht (talk) 21:30, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

i would like to know why i am banned? i was told it was for chinese numbers but then i was told that was irrelevant — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aspiringchemistyht (talk • contribs) 21:30, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

@Aspiringchemistyht: You are not blocked or banned here, which you can tell by the fact that you were able to edit this page. You are blocked indefinitely on English Wikipedia, which is a separate site. You need to ask about this on the site where you are blocked. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:45, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

@Aspiringchemistyht has been blocked for this continuous activity per WP:ONESTRIKE. Dibyojyoti^{let's chat} 09:59, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Do we have a tool to check if words are good here?

I sometimes struggle to figure out what words fit here. I am a native speaker of English so I have some trouble knowing which words are preferred here and which are too complex. Immanuelle (talk) 14:53, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

There are some tools that give you an idea of the grade level of text. We sometimes say to try for an 8th-grade reading level. You can use Wikipedia:Basic English combined wordlist as a starting point, but the best thing is just to have a feel for what words are simpler than others. Another part of writing simple English is using simple sentence structure. Wikipedia:How to write Simple English pages might help you. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:32, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Lexical Tutor is an amazing website with many tools for analyzing vocabulary. The Vocabulary Profiler here is easy to use. It will tell you which words in your text are very common and therefore simpler and which ones are uncommon and therefore less understood. --Gotanda (talk) 23:16, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

I used complexity checker gizmos all the time when I was rating articles for the WikiLovesWomen edit-a-thon! I'll see if I can find my favorite again! Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:01, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

@Immanuelle: Found it! Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:05, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

RfD

I was in the process of adding a page for quick deletion using Twinkle and the page was deleted before I entered it. Twinkle still made a deletion discussion page for the deleted page. Can I delete this page? Midknight of the Abyss (talk) 17:41, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Midknight1342, I'm afraid I didn't see this and have already closed the RfD. If a page is already deleted before you've created the RfD, you can request the RfD for quick deletion under G6. --Ferien (talk) 18:05, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Confusion in biology articles

I think people should be make it clear what an article is about, when they are writing about living things. In some cases it isn't clear whether an article is about a larger group or a smaller group. Two examples are:

• Cod which has the taxobox for en:Gadidae, but in the first sentence, defines cod to be en:Gadus morhua. Probably Gadus morhua is the most important species of cod, and it's okay for the article to mostly about that species. But I think it shouldn't give the species name in the first sentence, because that changes the scope of the article.
• Blackbird which seems to be about all birds that are called blackbirds, but has a wikidata link to en:Common blackbird, Turdus merula. But in the intro, it mentions a different species, en:Mistle thrush, Turdus viscivorus, which isn't described in the article (and isn't even a blackbird!).

Lights and freedom (talk) 20:11, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

The confusion is really caused by the insistence of editors in using common names for living things, which I warned about over ten years ago. The Linnaean system was designed to avoid all this: one naming system throughout the world. Unfortunately there is also a biological angle, because long-term the wretched animals do evolve and, worse still, ignorant journalists insist on using local names. I'm afraid that as long as you have pages with titles like "Cod" you are going to have trouble. And yet I quite understand the need for names that readers can recognise. I should mention that taxoboxes are brought over by D.J. Sasso, and sometimes may be at odds with the text. If you think these issues are easy to solve, do go ahead and try it. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:51, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

English wiki was first

The use of common names instead of scientific names for popular animals and plants was established on En wiki before Simple wiki was founded. The long-term consequences were not understood by those early editors. In top of the page titles with popular names came the infoboxes with excessive formalities. Now, it's not sane to change such basic decisions. Just understand that wiki systems have their limitations. We're stuck with some decisions made 20+ years ago, and other systems are stuck with other kinds of inflexibility. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:30, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Back

I tried fixed to my draft "IShowSpeed", but there is a redirect page, how to back about his IShowSpeed to draft page? Bakhos2010 (talk) 18:00, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi Bakhos2010, I deleted the page about iShowSpeed as there was no claim to notability in the article. We don't have the draft namespace here. Do you want the page to be restored to your userspace so you can work on it there? --Ferien (talk) 18:07, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes Bakhos2010 (talk) 18:26, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Bakhos2010, you can edit it at User:Bakhos2010/IShowSpeed. --Ferien (talk) 18:54, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Also i fixed IShowSpeed draft page. So what do you think? Bakhos2010 (talk) 05:15, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

@Bakhos2010 The draft could use some work, but YouTube videos are not reliable sources(unless stated otherwise). SoyokoAnis - talk 12:34, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

@Bakhos2010: Agree with SoyokoAnis here. We need to try showing things from secondary reliable sources, not on YouTube and not from Speed. --Ferien (talk) 20:15, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

UCoC EG Community review period closed

Dear Wikimedians,

Thank you for participating in the review of the Revised Enforcement Draft Guidelines for the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC). The UCoC project team and the Revisions Committee appreciate you all taking the time to discuss the guidelines, suggest changes, and ask questions.

This community review period lasted from September 8 to October 8, 2022. Over the past four weeks, the UCoC project team has collected valuable community input from various channels, including three conversation hours sessions, where Wikimedians could get together to discuss the revised UCoC Enforcement Guidelines. The Revisions Committee will review community input when they reconvene in the second week of October 2022. The UCoC project team will support them in providing updates as they continue their work and will continue to inform the community about all important developments and milestones as the Committee prepares the final version of the UCoC Enforcement Guidelines that is currently scheduled for a community-wide vote in mid-January of 2023.

On behalf of the the UCoC project team,

Zuz (WMF) (talk) 11:45, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Flag template not working for Afghanistan?

The countries listed in List of countries are listed using the {{flag}} template. However, that template doesn't seem to work for Afghanistan, so it gets removed and replaced, removed and replaced. It seems to be the same on en:List of countries. Would anyone like to look at it to see if they can figure out why {{flag}} won't display a flag for Afghanistan? TIA. -- Auntof6 (talk) 00:07, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

@Auntof6 The flag shows up on my browser. The file used for Afghanistan is this file. — *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 00:20, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

@Fehufanga: Thanks. I was ignorantly expecting a different kind of flag, not just text like that one. -- Auntof6 (talk) 00:50, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

I was wondering why that flag kept getting removed. I thought maybe the Taliban decided not to use a flag or something. Lights and freedom (talk) 02:01, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

How to add wikidata ID

So, I guess I just need help on this. How do you insert one? SikiWtideI (talk) 01:39, 21 October 2022 (UTC)SikiWtideI

@SikiWtideI Hi, if you want to link an article to Wikidata, the easiest way to do it is to click "Add interlanguage links" or "Add links", which can be found on the left side of the screen. You can then link a page to Wikidata by entering the name of the article on another project (it's easiest to go with the English Wikipedia) and the project's name. — *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 01:48, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

@SikiWtideI @Fehufanga: Yes, just be sure you're entering the correct page name. Sometimes a page on another Wikipedia with the same name as one here isn't about the same thing. -- Auntof6 (talk) 01:50, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Patrolling new pages

Hey all, new page patrol is one of the areas where I think the project will benefit with more participation. The problem, however, is that we have no clear set of criteria/guidelines that can help us know which page to mark patrolled. I think that is one of the many reasons why people hesitate to mark the yellow pages that appear on the new page list as patrolled. This makes things really hard as it is time-consuming to distinguish between the pages that have already been reviewed by experienced editors and the ones that needs to be reviewed.

New pages are not perfect, and we can't expect new page patrollers to deal with all the issues on the page. Pages are usually made better by the participation of multiple interested users. So, page being marked as patrolled doesn't mean it is a good page. It just means that it meets the basic requirements for being in an encyclopedia.

Here is what I think can be the basic criteria to mark a page as patrolled:

1. The title of the page should be correct (per WP:MOS)
2. The content of the page should be wikified to a certain extent. This includes link to other pages, bold and italics text where needed, infobox, pictures etc.
3. The content of the page should be simplified to certain extent.
4. There should not be significant grammar errors on the page. It should make sense.
5. There should at least be one reference for verifiability unless the subject is very common like eg. 'Apple'.
6. The subject of the page should meet the notability requirement.
7. References and other websites should be properly formatted. Appropriate sections should be added if there are those, and there isn't a dedicated section for them yet.
8. The page should be properly categorised and tagged. This doesn't mean one can just bomb a page with tags. This is only for the necessary tags like merge and stub tags which generally encourage editing.

If you have any suggestion regarding this, please feel free to write it down. I am just listing what I think could potentially improve our process and make things easier. There might be other better ways to do this, or maybe our current way of doing things is fine. I just thought it might be constructive discussing this. Thanks--BRP ^ever 14:53, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

There is also User:Auntof6/Things I would like Wikipedia editors to know#How to patrol, perhaps a mix between your and their ideas would be good to make a guideline or policy. Will expand on my opinion later. --Ferien (talk) 16:04, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

I agree with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8 on this list and everything on Auntof6's list as the basic criteria to patrol a page. I don't think 6 should be included as I feel patrols should be quick checks, checking something meets the notability requirement takes a relatively long time compared to everything else. --Ferien (talk) 19:23, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Maybe at least a quick check to see if it seems notable. Otherwise, when would we catch things that aren't notable? -- Auntof6 (talk) 23:41, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes, normally we either look for a claim or any other indication of the subject meeting WP:GNG. I think it should at least not be QD-able per A4.--BRP ^ever 13:45, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

@BRPever and Auntof6: how about something like "The page isn't eligible for quick deletion"? That covers A4 and other possible problems with the article. --Ferien (talk) 15:33, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Maybe. What I usually do is this: if I decide to request a QD or RFD on a new page, I mark it as patrolled after I do the request. That way, no one else has to spend time looking at it. I don't think of marking a page as patrolled as saying that the page is good, just that it has been checked and any appropriate actions taken. -- Auntof6 (talk) 19:34, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

That is a lie many times you have just deleted pages with no QD on it nor giving time for someone to respond to anything you post. You just mass delete. Such a liar. 2600:8801:CA05:EF00:1938:C5F8:1A68:857C (talk) 04:34, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Just as all admins do, I sometimes delete pages that have no QD on them. But what I said above is "if I decide to request a QD or RFD". That means when I decide not to delete the page myself, but instead add a QD request so that another admin can look at it. That doesn't happen often, but it does happen even if you haven't seen it.

The quick deletion criteria are things that are not supposed to require discussion, so it is not expected that discussion is necessary. That's why it's called quick deletion. If you have a problem with any page being deleted, you can use Wikipedia:Deletion review to ask for it to be reconsidered.

Finally, please do not call me or anyone else a liar. If you think I or someone else has said something that isn't true, please provide specific examples of what you're talking about. -- Auntof6 (talk) 05:14, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

I don’t have time to go through all of the ones you just up and deleted because you wanted to. Yes very rarely have you put a QD on but you just delete with no notice. Look at all of your deletion logs since others do not have rights to see them other than admins and above. Again pretty self-explanatory. Honestly your admin should be pulled for misusing it to your advantage and to set things how you want them and when you don’t agree “Poof the Magic Mop” comes in and wipes it away. 2600:8801:CA05:EF00:1938:C5F8:1A68:857C (talk) 06:30, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Again, no specific examples... just broad statements that seem to be incorrect, looking at the reply below as well. As I said, this isn't the place for casting aspersions on other editors. And yes, these are aspersions - if you are accusing another editor of misbehaviour without evidence, that is casting aspersions... --Ferien (talk) 06:36, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

This is tiresome to have to go through, but in the event a new or inexperienced editor is reading this thread, it should be noted the above IP is a globally locked LTA evading their block for, among other things, griefing sysops and being unkind. Sysops on this and most other projects can delete pages that meet WP:QD criteria without first tagging the page. Those who have a mop don't need to wait for someone to put a spill sign down. Operator873 ^connect 06:42, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds good.--BRP ^ever 12:01, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

I just added an item to my page linked by Ferien. That item is to make sure the page is linked in Wikidata if possible.

As for being properly categorised, that could be a guideline by itself. I tend to look at that by accounting for all the typical question words, as applicable: who, what, when, where, why, how. Not all of those are applicable to every kind of topic, and some of them apply differently or in multiple ways to some topics, but I think it's a good starting place. -- Auntof6 (talk) 18:05, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

I am strongly against requiring articles to be properly categorized to meet the basic requirements. Okeh, if you want to categorize a page, but I find the whole category thing pretty much useless. The few times I have gone to a category, I have gotten nothing out of it (beyond some head scratching). Kdammers (talk) 20:14, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

It is not useless to me and I think it's usefulness depends on the user. For now, categories exist, and they are an important part of the project. Categorising pages has a lot of use other than just being a means to find articles from a group, or finding similar pages to study. That being said, it's not too hard if you use tools like Hotcat. Also, if we put it in the guideline, it just means you can leave the part you are unsure about to someone else and just not mark it as patrolled. That being said, I think patrollers need to have some knowledge of categories. BRP ^ever 23:42, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Agree with BRP. Would this be an essay, or an addition to the Patrollers page (which I think should also be made a guideline). Griff (talk) 16:17, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Interesting that an admin brings it up and everyone hops on board, but if a regular user brings it up, it is immediately shot down by Auntof6 and god forbid outside an admin they ask for this permission and Auntof6 immediately responds with their templated not a chance in hell message. 2600:8801:CA05:EF00:51DF:31A:7008:FD44 (talk) 12:10, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

That's just completely wrong (perhaps you want to view the other posts on this page) and this isn't the place for casting aspersions on Auntof6 and other admins... in fact, I don't think anyone wants you to be casting aspersions anywhere on this website. If you can't provide evidence for any of your claims of admin abuse, then we're not interested in it. --Ferien (talk) 19:00, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

@Ferien Look at all the people who requested the right for patrolling and Auntof6’s response. Not one person has been approved for the right because they haven’t created enough substantial articles. They even mentioned it in this thread and the ones below. They evidence is right there under your nose but since you are an admin you too will protect other admins. No where does it state a minimum number of articles so that is what that admin always uses as an excuse for denying the rights to someone. For this project someone would need that right but get rejected because of that admins views on what they consider enough articles. See Wikipedia:Patrollers. Look at their history. There are no aspirations, just full on truth which you as an admin can’t see through the fog that has enveloped your head since you got the mop. 2600:8801:CA05:EF00:1938:C5F8:1A68:857C (talk) 04:31, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Well, I was a patroller before becoming an admin. I don't think getting a patroller flag is that hard if you know how to create basic articles that meet most of the criteria listed above. I think you are just exaggerating things instead of working on the pointed concerns by an admin. That being said, patroller flag just marks yours, or the page you think meets the basic criteria and won't need other patroller's attention as patrolled. It's not a big deal. BRP ^ever 23:24, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I think a lot of why we haven't had a new patroller this year isn't because admins decline everyone straight away... it's instead because people seem to misunderstand what the patroller right is. It isn't really anything to do with anti-vandalism and more to do having a lot of experience with creating new pages and showing that you know what a new page should look like. --Ferien (talk) 12:35, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

@Griffinofwales I think we can just make this a part of WP:PATROL. If the page becomes lengthy later, we can summarize it and create a different essay, but for now, I think we can just add it there. :) --BRP ^ever 12:55, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

• Based on the suggestions here, I have made a proposal for the text to be added at Wikipedia talk:Patrollers. Please feel to make any suggestions that you have here or on that page. :) --BRP ^ever 05:31, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Proposal: Merge diseases, disorders, and illnesses categories

Simplewiki has Category:Diseases, Category:Disorders, and Category:Illnesses, but on enwiki they are merged to en:Category:Diseases and disorders. I suggest the same thing should be done here, because there is no clear distinction between them. For example, why is Parkinson's disease considered a disease and not a disorder? Can we discuss this?

Note: this does not mean that there shouldn't be categories within Category:Diseases and disorders, such as "Genetic disorders", "Infectious diseases", "Mental illnesses", etc. It only means these three words by themselves don't help classify topics.

Lights and freedom (talk) 18:58, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

You've got to factor in that many editors here write on topics they really know little about. Parkinsons is better described as a condition, but "Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that are associated with specific signs and symptoms. A disease may be caused by external factors such as pathogens or by internal dysfunctions". So we will have to put up with it! Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:57, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Has the format here changed?

I notice both after logging in and out, the viewing and editing format is quite different now. Is there anyway I can select the previous format before the change?--NadirAli (talk) NadirAli (talk) 02:54, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

@NadirAli It might be the new Vector skin being applied. You can go to your preferences (now called "my settings") and select Legacy Vector. — *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 02:55, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

@NadirAli: I saw the same thing, and put back the other format. One day when I'm not busy, I think I'll take a look at the new one, though. It looked like it had some interesting differences. -- Auntof6 (talk) 03:25, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

I was confused by the new lay-out. I couldn't find basic things. How am I, a reader of English, to know that a figure of a paw with a v next to it is the key to the hidden wonders of Simple English Wikipedia? Fortunately, there was a button to return to the previous set-up. Will new users be better served by this slimmed-down page? Was it tested on non- / new users? 164.47.179.32 (talk) 18:53, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

• @Fehufanga: yes that seems to be it. I tried what you instructed and it seems to be fixed. Much appreciation to you.--NadirAli (talk) 22:01, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Confused

When i was created 2022 Whatsapp Outage, but she put quick deletion, it's says "test page". But it's not a test page. What are you talking about? Bakhos2010 (talk) 18:12, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

@Bakhos2010 Good question. You can use WP:Deletion review to ask for it to be restored.

@Derpdart56 and Macdonald-ross: Why did you think this was a test page? -- Auntof6 (talk) 19:07, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

It wasn't a test page, I should have sent it to RFD. My bad. Derpdart56 (talk) 19:53, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

@Derpdart56: OK. Why did you think it should be deleted? -- Auntof6 (talk) 20:14, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

The event didn't seem notable to me. Derpdart56 (talk) 20:17, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Confusion on whether article was forked

On wikipedia, forking means to copy and changed. MTV Live (Canadian TV channel) looks like it was forked. I don’t know if this should be deleted. SikiWtideI (Speak to the backwards police) 02:04, 26 October 2022 (UTC)SikiWtideI

@SikiWtideI: The article was deleted. It is common for people to copy articles from other Wikipedias to create articles here. That is okay if complex text is simplified and attribution is given. -- Auntof6 (talk) 02:37, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Improving Biology pages

I'm new to editing Simple Wikipedia. The biology pages I've looked at often retain all the jargon, but define it in simpler language, and I've been replacing this with explanations that don't use the jargon at all (maybe adding a list of technical terms at the end). Is that appropriate> More generally, for pages about scientific topics, is it appropriate to simplify the science that's being explained as well as the language used to explain it? Thanks. Rosieredfield (talk) 00:52, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

@Rosieredfield: That's not one of the solutions we usually go with (this discussion comes up from time to time). If by "jargon" you mean a scientific term, then there's no problem with using it. Link it, even if the link is red (meaning that we don't have an article). Then you can also explain it in simple language, which is especially needed if we don't have an article. After all, we do have articles on the scientific terms, so we should link to them as appropriate. What we don't usually do is have any kind of glossary at the end.

Another solution people sometimes use is to link the term to a Simple English Wiktionary entry, but let me put in my two cents against that. We want terms to link to articles here whenever possible. If we link to Wiktionary because there's no article here, then if/when an article is later created those links may never be found and replaced with article links.

Since you're new here, you might like to look at this list I maintain of things here that are different from other Wikipedias. The list itself is not a policy or guideline, but it does link to some relevant policies and guidelines. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask. -- Auntof6 (talk) 02:16, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! Rosieredfield (talk) 17:49, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Problem with InternetArchiveBot

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T321642

I noticed that InternetArchiveBot (talk · contribs) has been repeatedly duplicating text on List of suicide crisis lines (history). Does anyone know why? Lights and freedom (talk) 05:15, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

@Lights and freedom Oh, oh dear. Seems it first happened in August. I've copied the table from enwiki (simplifications pending), and see if that still triggers the bot. I'm going to ask around about this. — *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 05:32, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Issue is now tracked at phabricator.— *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 05:50, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Sudden lack of editors

I've noticed that in the past few months a lot of the major simplewiki editors (eg. BRPEver, PDL, TDKR, MrMeAndMrMe) all have became much less active or quit (in TDKRs case, he will retire in a few months, and in PDLs case he was indefinitely blocked). This worries me, is there a cause? Lallint (talk) 🍔cheesborger🍔 17:00, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

@Lallint: Summer holidays? Normal attrition? Maybe if you ping them here they will respond for themselves. -- Auntof6 (talk) 19:40, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

I may also become more and more inactive over the next months, but I won't be gone, I still look at the Wikipedia pages and I am up to date mostly with what is going on, you just won't see me editing as much if I am unable. --Tsugaru let's talk! :) 00:56, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

I am always around checking things and can easily be reached via email or in IRC. I have been busy IRL and will be for next 2-3 months. I am expecting to be more active from January.--BRP ^ever 02:57, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

We do have some big holes in our armoury. The biggest one I've found recently is our poor coverage of the struggle between the brand-new USA with the Spanish crown. This raged from the Philippines to Central America and the early U.S.A. All the pages dealing with the early USA need looking at.

Also, we can't be happy with our accounts of Eastern Europe, although Poland has had a lot of attention over the past few years.

I would dearly love to see less attention paid to worthless trashy individuals, and more attention to topics which can educate the next generation. Dream on... Macdonald-ross (talk) 05:52, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

@Macdonald-ross: I do think that while we do not really have a lack of editors and this is not an extremely important issue, I do think editor retention is important if we want to improve and create more articles, and I think the comment describing editors as worthless and trashy is unnecessary. --Ferien (talk) 06:16, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Of course, I did not describes the editors as worthless and trashy!! Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:24, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Ok, apologies for misreading your comment. --Ferien (talk) 15:53, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

@Macdonald-ross: Probably each of us has topics we think too much attention is paid to and other topics we think deserve more attention. I certainly do, although I'm not going to specify because I don't want to discourage article creation in general. I just keep reminding myself that everyone here is a volunteer and works on things that they're interested in (excluding people who aren't here to help build the wiki, of course). -- Auntof6 (talk) 07:15, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

@Macdonald-ross Who are some worthless trashy individuals? That's kind of rude. Nobody is worthless and all contributions matter. SoyokoAnis - talk 12:17, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

I do need to write more simply. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:44, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

@Lallint: To me, it feels like the community has grown quite a bit over the past year or so. Perhaps people are just becoming more busy. I don't think it's something to worry about a lot. People edit when they have time... Some people might be really active at some times and inactive at other times. There are certainly more people actively editing here than when I started editing a couple of years ago. --Ferien (talk) 06:12, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

@Lallint It doesn’t help with the Super Mario Effect either or just general a**hole admins. 2600:8801:CA05:EF00:51DF:31A:7008:FD44 (talk) 12:06, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't really have much time anymore for editing, what with school and other things. I have also lost a lot of interest editing and I think I might have burned myself out with Wikipedia too quickly. I probably won't be active anymore, just an FYI, MrMeAndMrMe_{Let's talk} 12:54, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

MrMeAndMrMe, even if you're not quitting editing altogether, I'd just like to say thank you for all the work you have done here, particularly all the help you offered at DYK earlier this year. --Ferien (talk) 22:04, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

IP Blocks in wikis

I have been blocked from editing when I log out by accident on this wiki, the English Wikipedia and the Spanish Wikipedia. I don’t know what “Long term abuse” is here, since I didn’t do anything to this website until I decided to make an account. Why are there blocks? SikiWtideI (Speak to the backwards police) 02:03, 27 October 2022 (UTC)SikiWtideI

@SikiWtideI It sounds like you are affected by a global block. It's likely that you're not the specific target of that block. Sometimes, IP addresses are blocked globally (that is, on all Wikimedia projects) because they have been abused (such as by making vandalism, disruptive editing, etc). You can read more about Long-term abuse on the English Wikipedia. — *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 02:12, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that happened to me once when I tried to log in at a university. All it meant was that someone at the university had been making trouble. It was nothing to do with me. I logged in on another network and it was fine. Darkfrog24 (talk) 11:38, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Request for Comment for a RfC template

The idea here

Basically similar to a rfd, but brings more attention to other issues that are not addressed by a RfD.

What if someone wants to remove a section (for reasons)? They can't just post a topic on the talk page, mostly because who is going to notice? That's the point of a RfC template. Angerxiety^{the ediot} (chat? ⋅ contribs to society) 05:50, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

No, that is exactly what talk pages are for (among other things). Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:40, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

This might be helpful because it could clarify when a discussion is open and when it is closed. Once it is closed, an administrator (or someone else) could decide on the consensus result, like an RfD. This would be better than many discussions in which discussion stops without a consensus being reached. That way the consensus decision could be applied when the discussion is over. Lights and freedom (talk) 20:00, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Research on how people use Simple Wikipedia?

Can anyone point me to research into how people find (or fail to find) Simple Wikipedia articles? Is there concern that people who would benefit from these articles don't know they exist, and/or discussion of how to improve this? Rosieredfield (talk) 19:26, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

I teach EFL (English as a foreign language) and ESL (English as a second language). Most of my students have been unaware of Simple Wikipedia until I tell them about it. After that, many of them regularly use it. Maybe talking it up at EFL/ESL conferences would help increasing its visibility. Kdammers (talk) 19:39, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

@Rosieredfield: Do you mean finding an article once they're already looking at Simple English Wikipedia, or finding Simple English Wikipedia in the first place? -- Auntof6 (talk) 22:01, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

The latter. Nobody I've talked to even knows that it exists. Rosieredfield (talk) 20:09, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

How about some ideas here for a project to get the word out? Kdammers (talk) 22:26, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

I talked to someone who'd experienced cognitive issues after a serious illness. I told this person that Simple existed and their eyes LIT UP! Darkfrog24 (talk) 11:39, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Based on the responses I gather that nobody knows of any research into how people discover that Simple Wikipedia exists. Rosieredfield (talk) 21:42, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Other language Wikipedias

Is there a quick and easy way to change to other Wikipedias from the home page or from 'My changes ' page? Kdammers (talk) 19:56, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

You could change the "simple" in the URL to another link like "en" or "es", but that's the only way I'm aware of. MrMeAndMrMe_{Let's talk} 22:31, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

@Kdammers and MrMeAndMrMe: You can use "In other languages" on the side of screen on the home page but that option isn't available from the "My changes" page. --Ferien (talk) 21:57, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

New discussion: adding documentation to Wikipedia:Categories

I've started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Categories#Documenting exceptions to 3-entry rule. Comments are welcome, especially from editors who have been around long enough to have seen what exceptions we've allowed to the 3-entry rule. -- Auntof6 (talk) 06:58, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

@Auntof6, am I allowed to make comments? Although I was there a long time as TTP but now I access through this account. Dibyojyoti^{let's chat} 10:24, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

@DRC-B5: Anyone is allowed to make comments. -- Auntof6 (talk) 13:39, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Page move needed

From Marc Spector to Moon Knight. Moon Knight already exists as a redirect to the television series. As with most super hero characters, their common name and page name is their superhero identity and not their "real" name. Spiderman, Batman and Superman, not Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent. Their "real" name is redirected to their better known costumed identity. The same would apply here. Wikidata agrees with this as most of the 37 pages on the subject are all at Moon Knight. No move button here and it is a move over redirect so help is needed 2600:8805:2719:9E00:E7ED:8D4D:457D:301A (talk) 06:20, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Makes sense to me, so done. --Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 07:38, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Changing Dinosaur page title

I want to align the title with En wiki, because theirs is correct. "Dinosaur" is not a taxonomic term and therefore should not be italicised in the title or text. Sounds silly, but I can't find a way of getting rid of the italics in the title. Help! Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:19, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

@Macdonald-ross:  Done I removed the "italictitle" template and now the title is not in italics. --IWI (talk) 11:22, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Ah, so simple! I could do with a few extra IQ points today. Thank you! Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:40, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Please add this

Add your template here stating that this is a globally banned user - Velimir Ivanović. Cheers. Sadko (talk) 15:51, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Sadko, replaced with {{locked global account}}. We could add a sock template here, and I don't oppose anyone else doing that, but I find it's generally best not to tag socks of globally banned editors. Thanks, --Ferien (talk) 16:12, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

It's fine, thank you. Best. Sadko (talk) 16:27, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Out-of-date sports templates

While processing Wikipedia:Requests for deletion/Requests/2022/Template:Naft Masjed Soleyman F.C. squad, I noticed that we had some association football templates that were out of date. They were "current squad" templates that had either zero or only one blue link. That made them look unuseful, but in fact they were made useful by just updating them.

This shows that we have a maintenance "opportunity" here. The templates for current squads need periodic updating. Some of the ones in question used Template:Football squad, which has "current squad" right in the heading. I don't know if there are other templates (for football or any other sport) that might need regular updating.

I'm just bringing this to people's attention in case there are people who would like to check our templates to make sure that they are up to date, and that after being brought up to date they:

1. Contain enough blue links
2. Are added to/removed from the appropriate articles

This might be a problem for us if we don't have enough people interested in working on sports articles. -- Auntof6 (talk) 08:55, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Invitation to attend “Ask Me Anything about Movement Charter” Sessions

Hello all,

During the 2022 Wikimedia Summit, the Movement Charter Drafting Committee (MCDC) presented the first outline of the Movement Charter, giving a glimpse on the direction of its future work, and the Charter itself. The MCDC then integrated the initial feedback collected during the Summit. Before proceeding with writing the Charter for the whole Movement, the MCDC wants to interact with community members and gather feedback on the drafts of the three sections: Preamble, Values & Principles, and Roles & Responsibilities (intentions statement). The Movement Charter drafts will be available on the Meta page here on November 14, 2022. Community wide consultation period on MC will take place from November 20 to December 18, 2022. Learn more about it here.

With the goal of ensuring that people are well informed to fully participate in the conversations and are empowered to contribute their perspective on the Movement Charter, three “Ask Me Anything about Movement Charter" sessions have been scheduled in different time zones. Everyone in the Wikimedia Movement is invited to attend these conversations. The aim is to learn about Movement Charter - its goal, purpose, why it matters, and how it impacts your community. MCDC members will attend these sessions to answer your questions and hear community feedback.

The “Ask Me Anything” sessions accommodate communities from different time zones. Only the presentation of the session is recorded and shared afterwards, no recording of conversations. Below is the list of planned events:

• Asia/Pacific: November 4, 2022 at 09:00 UTC (your local time). Interpretation is available in Chinese and Japanese.
• Europe/MENA/Sub Saharan Africa: November 12, 2022 at 15:00 UTC (your local time). Interpretation is available in Arabic, French and Russian.
• North and South America/ Western Europe: November 12, 2022 at 15:00 UTC (your local time). Interpretation is available in Spanish and Portuguese.

On the Meta page you will find more details; Zoom links will be shared 48 hours ahead of the call.

Call for Movement Charter Ambassadors

Individuals or groups from all communities who wish to help include and start conversations in their communities on the Movement Charter are encouraged to become Movement Charter Ambassadors (MC Ambassadors). MC Ambassadors will carry out their own activities and get financial support for enabling conversations in their own languages. Regional facilitators from the Movement Strategy and Governance team are available to support applicants with MC Ambassadors grantmaking. If you are interested please sign up here. Should you have specific questions, please reach out to the MSG team via email: [email protected] or on the MS forum.

We thank you for your time and participation.

On behalf of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee,

Zuz (WMF) (talk) 10:30, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Template:Broken wikt link

This template seems to screw up previews, causing the text to be red in the preview (As seen in Revolver (Beatles album), hover over the link to see the preview), instead of uncolored as it would be if you were to just normally link it. The only reason it exists is to add it to a category for broken Wiktionary links, but I see no reason in having this. I can't nominate it for deletion because the page is protected. Lallint (talk) 🍔cheesborger🍔 00:59, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

@Ferien I believe you were removing transclusions of this template a while ago, correct?

Currently there are 131 transclusions to this template. — *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 01:23, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Fehufanga, yes. A long time ago there was a bot that would automatically update and remove the template if there was a Wiktionary entry but that bot is no longer running so a lot of "broken links" built up that weren't actually broken. --Ferien (talk) 09:38, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

@Lallint: To respond to the original post, the text is supposed to be red to show that the page doesn't exist on Wiktionary. Crosswiki linking doesn't display whether a link is "broken" or not, and we use Wiktionary links a lot so I imagine this template was created to make the reader aware that a page doesn't exist, and the category helps editors find new Wiktionary entries we should create. There also used to be a bot that added/removed the template depending on whether the link was broken or not. --Ferien (talk) 17:15, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

French commune pages being created by an IP

An IP editor from switzerland appears to be creating French commune pages. Can someone double check to make sure this isn't GYH's bot running on an IP? Derpdart56 (talk) 19:30, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Derpdart56, which IP is this? --Ferien (talk) 21:59, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

The IP is 2A02:21B0:644D:B92F:78D6:7F59:F477:3FCC. @Ferien Derpdart56 (talk) 14:50, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Derpdart56, I had asked on IRC to see if it wasn't just me thinking this was block evasion, and as you think it is as well, I have gone ahead and blocked. --Ferien (talk) 17:13, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I need some assistance

Hello! I need help in my upcoming article "1st Provisional Marine Brigade", and I know the secret to making a good article, getting others to help you. It is impossible for me to make one good article that has no flaws, so I request that people start helping me in Here! Thank you! Yodas henchman (talk) 19:58, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

@Yodas henchman I've made some minor edits, but you should probably look at some of the other articles about similar topics and the MOS before writing an article this big. It's good that you created it in your sandbox though, instead of just creating it. With how long it is, if it gets simplified and wikified, it could easily be a good article. Also, on Wikipedia, you will notice a lot of editors are boring and professional. Don't feel intimidated, most of them are nice. Lallint (talk) 🍔cheesborger🍔 20:44, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, well thanks for the advice. I'm doing it like in this orderː

1. Make the text and stuff

2. Add references

3. Simplify some things

4. Add links

But either way thanksǃ Yodas henchman (talk) 18:13, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Another IP address problem

This is mostly for the CheckUsers here, but I accidentally must have logged out after a while by default and made some edits under this IP. Hope there’s no misunderstanding. It also seems that the global block is deleted? SikiWtideI (Speak to the backwards police) 04:11, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Need help on the Wikipedia app

I logged into the Wikipedia app, and joined the simple wikipedia in it, then I clicked edit on one of my pages and it used source editing and not visual editing, I tried to change it but I couldn't find any button labelled 'Visual editing', I need help to fix this on the app, or should I just delete the app and continue back in the web. Koqkpa (talk) 12:48, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

What platform are you using the app on? I'm not familiar with it at all, I'm just curious because I didn't know there was an app. -- Auntof6 (talk) 05:58, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

@Koqkpa I have used the app to edit before, and I think you could only edit using source editing and not visual editing. I would recommend editing on mobile web or desktop if you want to edit using visual editing. Jolly1253 (talk) 10:09, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Okay then, I'll delete the app and continue on the web page. Koqkpa (talk) 11:42, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Question

Who has the most edits on the simple wikipedia right now? Koqkpa (talk) 07:31, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

User:Ferien told me at special:diff/8464841 that I was the 5th person on this wiki to reach 100,000 edits. Although, I don't know how the edits were counted, and I don't see that kind of ranking. MathXplore (talk) 07:49, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Oh, okay. Koqkpa (talk) 08:34, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

@Koqkpa It would be hard to know how many people have a certain amount of edits. SoyokoAnis - talk 13:06, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

@Koqkpa https://simple.wikiscan.org/users has all the answers for you. — *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 13:08, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

https://simple.wikiscan.org/?usort=edit&bot=0&detail=0&menu=userstats for the edits if anyone reading is feeling lazy. Koqkpa, according to this page, Auntof6 has the most edits currently. --Ferien (talk) 16:18, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Oh okay I get it. Koqkpa (talk) 16:24, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Proposed featured article

Is Bradley Winslow FA material? It meets more than 6 criteria, but it's a bit short. However, Hermann Göring has 6565 Bytes of prose size, with most of its size coming from its very long infobox, and Bradley Winslow has 7241 Bytes. Lallint (talk) 🍔cheesborger🍔 13:29, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Well, I suppose I'd better say the obvious: Hermann Göring was one of the most important people in the world in WWII. No question about his interest to the readership. That can't be said of Bradley Winslow. Macdonald-ross (talk) 05:50, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

@Macdonald-ross That isn't a criteria of VGA's. Lallint (talk) 🍔cheesborger🍔 22:11, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Well, maybe it should be. Göring is a short article, but such an important person. We don't any longer see readership counts for pages, but I would reckon he gets 50 times the viewership of Bradley. I'd love to see Göring expanded. Guidelines are there to guide, not to be absolute rules. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:58, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Why is there a DRAFT?

Wikipedia:Drafts/Bash_(Unix_shell) is apparently a draft. That’s weird and drafts don’t exist. Could there be drafts in this wiki? SikiWtideI (Speak to the backwards police) 02:47, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

@SikiWtideI: There is no draft space here. The system probably sees it as being in Wikipedia space. -- Auntof6 (talk) 02:59, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

@SikiWtideI Yep, drafts definitely do not exist here. So I had went ahead and moved the draft to the userspace for future editing. Thanks for telling! SoyokoAnis - talk 04:27, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

@SoyokoAnis: You might want to let admins do that kind of move, because 1) it leaves behind a bad redirect and 2) it belonged to another user. I deleted the redirect this time, but feel free to ask the admins to do them in future. -- Auntof6 (talk) 04:45, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

@Auntof6 Ah okay. Thank you! SoyokoAnis - talk 13:16, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Visual editor for school gateway

I've been simplifying the school gateway a little bit more and noticed the visual editor doesn't seem to be available there, just source. Especially in the Wikipedia:Sandbox, it would be helpful. Visual editor really makes contributing more accessible and would help students and teachers. Can this be changed? Gotanda (talk) 01:12, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree, but en:WP:VisualEditor says that VE is not enabled for talk, template, and Wikipedia namespaces on enwiki and the same seems to be true here. Lights and freedom (talk) 01:17, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

@Gotanda You can always add veaction=edit to the URL. That enables Visual Editor regardless. SoyokoAnis - talk 01:19, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

For example:

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SoyokoAnis?veaction=edit SoyokoAnis - talk 01:19, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

That is a good tip! Thank you, but it is unliklely that newbie student (or teacher) editors will know that. Making the sandbox more difficult to edit than an article is a big obstacle, I think. Maybe itt will get implemented eventually. --Gotanda (talk) 02:12, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Geobox templates have been deleted

As per a discussion on the (now deleted) talk page of the Geobox template, the Geobox template and all related templates have been deleted. All uses of them in articles were replaced by infobox templates. There are still a few uses of them on user pages. I decided not to update those because enwiki, where the geobox templates were deleted a few years ago, also has some user pages that still use the templates. If the users who own those pages even want to work on their pages again, they can be updated at that time. -- Auntof6 (talk) 15:09, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Research Project: Simple English Questions For You

Hello! I am a master's student working on a project regarding the use of Plain Language, which I believe is a similar concept to Simple English. As the people behind this offering I am wondering if I could ask some questions to someone on this forum regarding Simple English, if you have any statistics on the usage of the Simple English Wikipedia, and how the process goes for translating a page into Simple English.

If this is another forum or channel you'd like me to direct my questions to, or other contacts in the Simple English space please let me know.

If you'd be open to answering some of my questions, I posted some exact questions on on my talk channel and we can discuss there. Thank you for your help :) Primarysorcerer (talk) 20:32, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes! There is an IRC channel for the Simple English Wikipedia. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:32, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

There is also a channel for Simple English Wikipedia talk on the Wikimedia Discord, if you wanted another place that could work for talking about it. 🤘🤘 DovahFRD (talk) 01:50, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

@Primarysorcerer And there is always the option of talking through talk pages or email. Whichever, you prefer. SoyokoAnis - talk 04:27, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

It seems that's what he meant by "talk channel." I've already given my versions answers to his survey there! But my experience here has been so different that I think more people would be essential. We all know that famous science expression: "Your samples are small, your standard deviations are high, your conclusion means nothing, and you should feel bad!" Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:30, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Primarysorcerer, who are you and where are you doing your master's? You can absolutely set up an alt account here: one for research (real name and transparent affiliation), one for editing. However, your university should be requiring an informed consent agreement from research subjects (if they are not, that is a problem, and you should do it anyway). Research subjects should know where and how their responses are being used and how to contact the researcher. --Gotanda (talk) 10:18, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

If you are interested in statistics for this project, we have Wikipedia:Statistics and [1] (from stats.wikimedia.org). MathXplore (talk) 07:45, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Join the Movement Charter Regional Conversation Hours

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki.

More languages • Please help translate to your language

Hi all,

As most of you are aware, the Movement Charter Drafting Committee (MCDC) is currently collecting community feedback about three draft sections of the Movement Charter: Preamble, Values & Principles, and Roles & Responsibilities (intentions statement).

How can you participate and share your feedback?

The MCDC is looking forward to receiving all types of feedback in different languages from the community members across the Movement and Affiliates. You can participate in the following ways:

• Attend the community conversation hours with MCDC members. Details about the regional community conversation hours are published here
• Fill out a survey (optional and anonymous)
• Share your thoughts and feedback on the Meta talk page
• Share your thoughts and feedback on the MS Forum:
  • Preamble
  • Values & Principles
  • Roles & Responsibilities (statement of intent)
• Send an email to: movementcharterwikimediaorg if you have other feedback to the MCDC.

Community consultation hour for the Sub-Saharan Africa region will take place this Friday, November 25, on Zoom. It will be translated into French language. The conversations will not be recorded, except for the section where participants are invited to share what they discussed in the breakout rooms. We will take notes and produce a summary report afterwards.

If you want to learn more about the Movement Charter, its goals, why it matters and how it impacts your community, please watch the recording of the “Ask Me Anything about Movement Charter” sessions which took place earlier in November 2022.

Thank you for your participation.

On behalf of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee,

Zuz (WMF) (talk) 11:59, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Hotcat on mobile simple wikipedia

How to use Hotcat on Simple wikipedia website in a mobile? I use a mobile so that is why I am asking. Koqkpa (talk) 05:40, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Koqkpa, I don't think you can use HotCat on mobile. --Ferien (talk) 16:36, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Oh. Koqkpa (talk) 02:57, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi Koqkpa, I use the desktop version on my mobile for Hotcat. Rubbish computer (Ping me or leave a message on my User talk) 20:13, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Oh, thank you, I can do that. Koqkpa (talk) 02:33, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Lake Como advertising

An ongoing issue has been the creation of articles about the Lake Como area that are about subjects that are not notable and come across strongly as advertising. There are of course subjects in the area that are notable (the lake itself, mountains, rivers, etc) but tourism sites and hiking paths are most often not notable.

For the most part, many of these articles could be quick deleted as advertising but the line on what is blatant in that regard is iffy. A4 most often does not apply as the subject , while completely not notable, does not fall into the extremely narrow requirements for that rule.

Given how often this seems to occur, I would suggest seeking a community approved decision for the quick deletion of any newly created Lake Como article that an admin deems to be not notable and pretty much pure advertising. This would obviously not include things such as major geographic fixtures (like mountains in the area) and would be left open ended for the admins to decide. They could always be put up for undeletion  is a user feels there was an error or reason reason dispute. As it does not seem most users would object to article such as this not being notable and admin are chosen in part for the communities faith in them generally making the community accepted correct call, this could help limiting the creation as those editors would know that an admin could decide to quick delete based on this president of community decision. End result 99 correct deletes that don't need to waste RfD time and 1 that would need to go through Request for Undelete seems to be a plus for the community.

This would not be an addition to the quick deletion rules. It is more an acknowledgement by the community that an admin could use to validate making the call as either housekeeping or IAR (or pushing it, "similar to previously deleted articles") This will most likely be shot down as concensus is nearly impossible here and most admins have issues with making a decision on their own (Better to ask for forgiveness than permission), but it all needed to be tossed out there. Pure Evil (talk) 19:17, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

I have blocked the IP addresses related to this as an identified LTA. This should help with the cleanup for now. — *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 23:56, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

CopyPatrol now on simplewiki

Following the discussion at Wikipedia:Simple_talk/Archive 145#CopyPatrol for simplewiki and phab task T318032, https://copypatrol.toolforge.org/simple is now live!.. and has actually been for quite a few days already. For those who might not know what CopyPatrol is, it is a tool that can be used for finding copyvios onwiki. Simply login using your Wikimedia account and if you believe that the revisions you are shown are copyvios, follow the instructions on Wikipedia:Copyright problems. --Ferien (talk) 22:36, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Over-specific categories

It's hard to believe we have a category "English blue-eyed soul singers". Isn't this insane? Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:34, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

@Macdonald-ross: Just to be clear, "blue-eyed soul" is a genre of music. I don't think the category means that the singers have blue eyes. -- Auntof6 (talk) 09:56, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Eventually I got this. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:00, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Neutral opinion needed

Rather than edit war, I need an outside opinion on the article California Attorney General. Another editor made changes which involved removal of the list of past post holders and moving the infobox from the start of the article. I reverted the change, updated the infobox to match en.wiki's infofox so the info was up to date and did some minor tweaks for style and info. The other editor reverted those changes back to their own version saying it made it look more updated and formal. As it does not look more formal and it is better to be updated rather than look updated, I feel it needs to be reverted back.

As this is leading to the road to edit warring, I ask that someone else make the call as to whether to revert or not. Pure Evil (talk) 23:13, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

The infobox should be at the top of the article. It is entirely appropriate to include a list of people who have held the position. I have undone the other user's changes. -- Auntof6 (talk) 00:36, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

How to make a Category

How to make a category in Simple Wikipedia? (Example: Category:Example). Koqkpa - TALK 10:39, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:Categories. MathXplore (talk) 10:41, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

@Koqkpa: You can make categories by simply searching for them, and then creating them. Please make sure that it has at least 3 pages included, otherwise it will be deleted. Cheers, Hockeycatcat (talk) (changes) 10:42, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

@Koqkpa Another simple way to add or make categories is using the HotCat extension in preferences. At the bottom of every article there should be a section for adding catagories. Hope this helped! Happy editing! SoyokoAnis - talk 13:20, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you so much. I now atleast know that how to make Category :). Koqkpa - TALK 10:52, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories is a good guideline the subject. It covers the topic on when a new category should be created and how it should be named. The 3 entry minimum is strongly suggested but there are times it is ignored (it is just a suggestion after all). You should read the section dealing with changes to the guideline on the talk page. These is information there about the common exceptions. One thing to remember is to check that a category does not already exist but has a different name.

As to how to physically create a category, the easiest way is from a red link. These are created on articles that are placed in categories that do not exist or Special:WantedCategories. The easiest way to do this is to edit one of the pages you are putting into the category and adding the category to the existing categories on the page. (or at the very bottom of the page if no categories exist) This will create a redlink to the category. Click it to go to create the category. Add an explanation on what the cat is for. It is often a good idea to include a link to articles that help define the category. Next, add links to whatever parent categories the new category falls under. There should be informtion on all of this on the WP:Categories page. --Creol(talk) 00:47, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Rollback confirmation

Is there an option I can use on mobile where I have to confirm a rollback before doing it? I keep accidentally pressing it when my phone glitches. Sorry and thanks in advance, Rubbish computer (Ping me or leave a message on my User talk) 14:04, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi, found it in preferences fortunately. Rubbish computer (Ping me or leave a message on my User talk) 14:06, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Three new good articles..

Hello, I just promoted the articles Bradley Winslow, Georg Philipp Telemann and Bob Dole to the status of Good Article. Congrats to all those who helped... Eptalon (talk) 10:13, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Congrats everyone! :D --Ferien (talk) 16:13, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure there was a consensus for Telemann or Dole. Lights and freedom (talk) 17:24, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

@Eptalon Are you going to mark the nominations at WP:PGA as promoted and archive them? Lights and freedom (talk) 18:38, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

my honest reaction Lallint (talk) 🍔cheesborger🍔 00:32, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

@Eptalon Bob Dole did not have consensus to promote. It had quite the opposite, actually. Is it possible to demote a GA solely based on lack of consensus? Lallint (talk) 🍔cheesborger🍔 14:10, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Hello Lalint; we are talking about a good article, and not a very good one. When you look at how many of those got promoted, and when the last of these promotions took place, you will probably say that the whole thing is dormant/failed its purpose. When I looked at the Bob Dole article, I had the impression that generally, it was in good shape, so I promoted it. Remember, no one writes perfect articles? Eptalon (talk) 21:13, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

You promoted an article that only you supported the promotion of. You can't just promote an article just because you thought it was a good article. It needs consensus, which it was clearly lacking, having the opposite. I don't mean to sound rude, but I'm pretty sure it needs more than just one person to promote the article. I do agree that it meets GA standards, but there were some unaddressed issues. Maybe the standards for "consensus" are in the core of the earth on simplewiki. Lallint (talk) 🍔cheesborger🍔 22:15, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

I was quite strongly opposed to the promotion of Bob Dole for very good reasons and made that clear in the discussion. This idea that the articles can be fixed after promotion obviates the whole process. The nominator had a habit of proposing multiple articles with many factual errors that required careful checking. This places a burden on other editors. --Gotanda (talk) 01:11, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Just spent about half an hour checking a few refs and statement and found several issues. See the article talk page and my edit summaries. That is just for starters. Re this, "so I promoted it. For the issues that are left: they can be fixed later. Note that this is only possible, because we are talking about good articles." Fixing after promotion is not part of the GA promotion process. --Gotanda (talk) 10:15, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Starboxes

I have an another question, How do people use starboxes, I really do need to know about how to use starboxes. How to use starboxes? Koqkpa (talk) 04:20, 18 November 2022 (UTC)(Divided to a new section, MathXplore (talk) 04:23, 18 November 2022 (UTC))

@Koqkpa Do you mean Barnstars? Barnstars are a way to show WikiLove to another user. Unlike the English Wikipedia, there isn't a button that allows you to quickly give others Barnstars. For more information, please read here. Happy editing! SoyokoAnis - talk 04:33, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

No, I don't mean about Barnstars, I know what they are, I mean this Template:Starboxes. Koqkpa (talk) 04:52, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

@Koqkpa I've researched and it appears they are infoboxes for astronomy articles. SoyokoAnis - talk 13:16, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

How to use them? Koqkpa (talk) 01:42, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

@Koqkpa Well typically, you would add the template to any article if it needs it. I've never seen them used before. SoyokoAnis - talk 13:46, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

A note of caution. En boxes on astronomical topics are often far, far too complex for our purposes. They use professional terminology for what is usually a postgraduate topic (most astronomers take a physics or maths degree at undergraduate level). The addition of boxes which would not be understood by our readership runs counter to our remit. After all, readers with knowledge in the area can always go to English wiki, can't they? Remember that astronomy is not generally taught below postgraduate level. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:52, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

I beg to differ. I took astronomy in a junior college. For those who may not know, in the US, a junior college is a college that is only for the first two years after high school, so definitely pre-graduate level. -- Auntof6 (talk) 09:59, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Interesting, but it remains true that the En boxes do not suit our readership. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:33, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Need proofreading and feedback

Hello, I recently reworded and added to the article Byzantine Empire, proofreading and feedback would be appreciated. Thank you very much. — Fancy Refrigerator (talk) 17:24, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Template:Tools

{{Tools}} is only linked by two template pages and a userpage, but if it's going to exist, it should probably be made appropriate for this wiki, right? Lights and freedom (talk) 23:26, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

@Lights and freedom: I'm not sure this is what you meant by "appropriate for this wiki", but I just updated all the links to redirects pages to point to the pages we have here. -- Auntof6 (talk) 00:02, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

That helps. There are some welcome templates that are different than enwiki, or they have different titles. Some templates don't exist: thanks, no-license, no-source, and fringe theories, while other templates are more widely used here, such as complex. Cfd, Ffd, Mfd, Tfd, and PROD don't exist here. WP:Dashboard, WP:Request directory, WP:Department directory, WP:Noticeboards, and WP:Tools don't exist here. Essays, WikiProjects, and Recent changes patrol do exist, but the information is at different places. In the news, Picture of the day, Selected anniversaries, and Today's featured article don't exist, but Featured articles in general do exist.

(I also noticed that Simple English is apparently the world's most spoken language. Interesting, even if not really meaningful.) Lights and freedom (talk) 00:18, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Simplifying United States

It would be great if editors could look at United States to see how we could simplify it without losing important information. It's fairly complex in general, but I would prefer if the problems could be discussed and solutions proposed before people jump in and oversimplify things. Please keep the conversation on the talk page. Lights and freedom (talk) 03:58, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Cain

I think this article needs some rewriting / copyediting for clarity. Gingermead (talk) 20:04, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I need opinions!

So for the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade, I want to basically make it either a GA or a VGA. Will it qualify for one of them or is there stuff to be fixed, if so then let me know or fix it yourself.

Thanks, Yodas henchman (talk) 17:45, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

I tore into the open section and listed the issues on the talk page. It looks a bit harsh. It is a fairly decent article but when going for VGA standards, there are a ton of little things that will always need attention. This caused me to not hold back. Pure Evil (talk) 03:19, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Alright thanks for the help!l Yodas henchman (talk) 16:09, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

VOA Special English Word Book

See the message at Wikipedia talk:VOA Special English Word Book. Should we update the page? Lights and freedom (talk) 06:40, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Reminder to provide feedback on the Movement Charter content

Hi all,

We are in the middle of the community consultation period on the three draft sections of the Movement Charter: Preamble, Values & Principles, and Roles & Responsibilities (statement of intent). The community consultation period will last until December 18, 2022. The Movement Charter Drafting Committee (MCDC) encourages everyone who is interested in the governance of the Wikimedia movement to share their thoughts and opinions on the draft content of the Charter.

How do you share your feedback?

Interested people can share their feedback via different channels provided below:

• Fill out a survey (optional and anonymous, accessible in different languages)
• Share your thoughts and feedback on the Meta Talk pages:
  • Preamble
  • Values & Principles
  • Roles & Responsibilities (statement of intent)
• Share your thoughts and feedback on the MS Forum:
  • Preamble
  • Values & Principles
  • Roles & Responsibilities (statement of intent)  
• Send an email to: movementcharterwikimediaorg if you have other feedback to the MCDC.  

If you want to help include your community in the consultation period, you are encouraged to become a Movement Charter Ambassador. Please find out more about it here.

Thank you for your participation!

On behalf of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee,

Zuz (WMF) (talk) 13:39, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Nidžo Radoznalac translated from the Serbian version without attribution?

I noticed Nidžo Radoznalac has a very similar sentence and paragraph length as sr:Nidžo Radoznalac, and realized it was very likely a translation, but not attributed. I'm not sure how this wiki works so I don't know how to indicate it was translated. Could someone take care of that? RPI2026F1 (talk) 18:35, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

I added a line, of attribution. Eptalon (talk) 19:18, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

I cleaned up the article. I reformatted it and linked terms as needed as well as add categories. I did clear out the lower part as it came across as original research or self promotion (the series creators writing about their own actions and reasons rather than facts from independent sources.) No clue on the notability of the whole thing. There was almost no independent sources to work with so I do question if it is notable or even real. This in no way is me endorsing the article or subject, I just worked with what was presented here. Pure Evil (talk) 21:45, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Doubt regarding GA and VGA

I would like to ask whether the article Interlingue is more suited for a Very Good Article or for a Good Article as I see it is a very complete one. --Caro de Segeda (talk) 08:24, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Non-user?

"User:Technische" has only subpages as User:Technische/1 or /2; or /3. The language on these pages is not English. I would suggest deleting these pages, and notifying him/her that all our pages must be in English. I think we should not allow subpages anyway unless they are related to an orthodox page. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:32, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Our user page guideline does not require that subpages be related to some other page.

A user subpage in a different language could be allowed, such as if the user is working on a translation that will become a page here, and possibly for other reasons. It wouldn't be allowed if the person is using it as a web host, or to create something that will be used elsewhere (even for a different Wikipedia).

A user subpage can also contribute by helping a user's work here in some other way. The guideline has a non-exhaustive list of such ways. Other ways it doesn't list are .js and .css pages, which I suspect don't fit the idea of being related to an "orthodox page" (not sure what you mean by that).

In any case, Simple talk is not the place to request deletion. -- Auntof6 (talk) 18:39, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

First of all User:Technische, /1, /2 and /3 <- so people can see what is being talked about easier.

Normally, I would be against most meddling of pages in the User space. The fact that there is no user page has no bearing here. Note that I have no user page. This does not mean a keep mentality though. This user has no edits outside of these 3 user subpages. They have provided no useful actions to the wiki in any way. While not grounds for removal, the lack of being helpful does not encourage people to be lenient. The big question is "Could these pages be helpful to the wiki?" To start, they are written in Vietnamese and translate pretty well. They all are about a singer named Bích Phương. They seem a cross of pop culture news article and encyclopedic. They are far from Simple. They have had a lot of word done to them and show no hint of fitting in here if the language was translated, these do not look like they could be intended to be used here. All told, it look more like web hosting. Pure Evil (talk) 21:21, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

To be clear, I wasn't saying that these specific user pages should be allowed. I was saying that some of the rationale given isn't valid. -- Auntof6 (talk) 21:34, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey 2023 opens in January!

Please help translate to your language

Hello

The Community Wishlist Survey (CWS) 2023, which lets contributors propose and vote for tools and improvements, starts next month on Monday, 23 January 2023, at 18:00 UTC and will continue annually.

We are inviting you to share your ideas for technical improvements to our tools and platforms. Long experience in editing or technical skills is not required. If you have ever used our software and thought of an idea to improve it, this is the place to come share those ideas!

The dates for the phases of the Survey will be as follows:

• Phase 1: Submit, discuss, and revise proposals – Monday, Jan 23, 2023 to Sunday, Feb 6, 2023
• Phase 2: WMF/Community Tech reviews and organizes proposals – Monday, Jan 30, 2023 to Friday, Feb 10, 2023
• Phase 3: Vote on proposals – Friday, Feb 10, 2023 to Friday, Feb 24, 2023
• Phase 4: Results posted – Tuesday, Feb 28, 2023

If you want to start writing out your ideas ahead of the Survey, you can start thinking about your proposals and draft them in the CWS sandbox.

We are grateful to all who participated last year. See you in January 2023!

Thank you! Community Tech, STei (WMF) 12:59, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

New Create Page Farhan Rana Rajpoot

I want to make Farhan Rana Rajpoot page! So I want you all to help me. Farhan RR Official (talk) 16:05, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Self-ads

User:Zedzy/Greg Maluma is evading existing guidelines by using the forward slash to publish a blatant advert. I don't know whether this is covered by our rules, but if not it should be. Macdonald-ross (talk) 20:58, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

It says it's a draft page, and it was just created. Shouldn't we give a little time before deciding a userspace draft isn't helping the wiki? -- Auntof6 (talk) 21:30, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Romani language names and terms

I should never give Romani languages names or terms to wikipedia. Yet i see what is happend. Terms like Dasikane (Christian) or Xoraxane (Muslim) Roma should only hold by us and not given to outsiders. Oh Devlam forgive me. This was a big sin. Yet I really can understand when our Elders allways said: Gadje Gadjensa, Rom Romensa (Gadje with Gadje, Roma with Roma). Nalanidil (talk) 23:31, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

It is not a sin. Think of it way: If you are talking to someone in Romani or to someone who is very familiar with the people and culture, you would use the Romani terms for things. On here, you are dealing with people in a form of English. In this, it is best to use the English terminology for things as that is the language that is being used. On de.wiki and ja.wiki, you would use the German and Japanese terms respectively. Some terms do not have a version in each language and using the native language is the best (and often only) option but if a version of the term exists in the language being used, you should try to use it if possible. --Creol(talk) 17:33, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Hello @Creol, It was clearly shown to me that it is not wanted, and I better not write anything anymore. Because everything is changed and if I then say something about it, I'm the bad guy and I'll be banned. I think the mentality between us just doesn't fit, too different opinions and ways of thinking. Nalanidil (talk) 19:39, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Infobox simplicity

Because (at least I believe) a lot of our infobox templates are from enwiki, there are a few complex terms and phrases in them that could definitely be changed out for simple ones. Just skimming through templates, 'occupation' could go to 'job', 'preceded/succeeded by' in govt. worker infoboxes to '[position name] before them/[position name] after them', etc. It may also be simpler to remove the word 'chronology' (ex: [band] albums chronology) from album/song infobox modules, since it would just be a complex & confusing term for what is otherwise just showing the albums/songs before and after the one on the page. I don't trust myself changing templates around myself, but didn't know if this was a topic that has already been brought up. 🤘🤘 DovahFRD (talk) 16:21, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

I think this has been brought up before. It's a good idea. The issue is that we periodically update the templates from enwiki, and the changes would have to be done all over again. We'd have to remember what changes were made, and we'd need someone who felt confident in making them. -- Auntof6 (talk) 20:50, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree absolutely. I used to simplify the infoboxes on pages I edited, but what happened was that eventually a later version was brought over from En wiki, and my simplifications were just a waste of time. Of this early work, the best example was the simplification of the infobox on Saturn. This was originally almost insane in its complexity. I had user:Osiris to help me, now no longer on the wiki. Unfortunately the simpler version we created is now overwritten. I still make minor adjustments to some infoboxes, despite it being of only temporary effect. I think the infoboxes are one of the great weaknesses of this wiki. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:05, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

On a similar subject, the terms "discography" ("Albums and songs") and "filmography" ("Movies and television") should probably also be addressed. Pure Evil (talk) 18:10, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Are we doing a good job?

A little while back, an editor asked about research on making Simple English Wikipedia (SEW) more visible. This led me to look other research on SEW. I found something depressing: " Evaluating lexical coverage in simple English Wikipedia articles: A corpus-driven study", 2017 (https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=3yhBDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA146&dq=%22simple+english+wikipedia%22&ots=q7t-ELnRn4&sig=2YDegKwykjQJJdcMuhTU1IO3VhI ) in particular gave us a negative rating, arguing from a statistical analysis of the encyclopedia's corpus that our lexical range is not much less than that of the English Wikipedia. A more recent article, "Is Simple English Wikipedia As Simple And Easy-to-Understand As We Expect It To Be?" (https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3439231.3439263), also faults us, saying "that simplification operations made during the production of Simple English Wikipedia in many cases do not follow the patterns of the professionally simplified corpora, thus casting doubts on adequacy of using Simple English Wikipedia as training material for automatic text simplification systems" (abstract). What thoughts do You have? Kdammers (talk) 21:27, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

There are several factors contributing to too-complex text:

• We have no way to ensure that people write in simple language, or even that they know how to. In my view, this is partly because one of Wikipedia's tenets is that everyone should be able to edit, so we can't vet contributors.
• This wiki is aimed at readers whose English is not advanced. (That could be people whose first language is not English, children whose English just hasn't reached a certain level yet, people with learning disabilities, and possibly others.) When those people try to also write here, a couple of things can happen. One is that they often think that, since they don't know much English, then whatever they know must be simple. That is not necessarily the case. The second is that since they're still learning, their grammar is sometimes not good, and they make grammar mistakes. Clear, grammatically correct writing is crucial when writing simple English. These editors have excellent intentions, but some are just not able to write they way that's needed here.
• Many editors don't realize that it's harder to write in simple language than to write without restriction. Some don't have a good feel for what's simple and what's complex, which you really need to write in simple language.
• We have a small number of regulars here, so we sometimes try to recruit more people to come and help. But people don't understand the things that are different here--not only that the language should be simple, but also all the other things that we do differently (such as the things on that list I created). Editors come here to help, but sometimes get frustrated and don't stay.

Those are my thoughts, just off the top of my head. (That's an example of non-simple writing -- an expression that wouldn't be clear to many people just learning the language). -- Auntof6 (talk) 23:14, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

A key factor is that we can't control who writes pages. If a research project takes our pages at random they will find all sorts of badly-written stuff. Obviously we concentrate on topics which we think are important. But it's an open system: anyone can write here, and they do. I don't think our science pages do a bad job of simplifying language. Any system which is open to whoever who wants to write is bound to collect all kinds of cruft. It is not the idea of simplification at fault, it is the openness of the wiki. Professional wikis are not open; we are. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:57, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

The researchers did not take a random sample. They used the entirety of all articles. Pretty easy to do. That causes some potential difference between what they are measuring and what we think is being used. The thousands of bot-created stubs for places put words like municipality (not very simple) and commune (not simple) way up in frequency here.But, we have other more significant problems:

• We do not rein in bad actors soon enough and do not remove their "contributions" after they are banned in the belief that some mythical editor will improve them afterwards.
• We actively promote articles which are not that simple, setting bad examples.
• We do not use software tools which could automatically highlight infrequent words. These should be built in.
• We do not flag complex articles often enough. There seems to be a culture that such flagging clutters up the wiki. It has been characterized as "drive by" tagging. Complex articles hang around and any new editor sees them as the norm and does likewise.

Gotanda (talk) 23:29, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, we have a higher standard for saying "too much work, might as well delete" than the English Wikipedia, which is often concerning. However, there are a good amount of instances where it helpful, though for BEANS reasons I'm not going to name those, haha.

I don't think that study is in any way surprising. Our content oversight isn't particularly great and our capacity to rewrite complex pages, which is by far the largest task to do here, is limited. Many pages made by new users do nothing but create future simplification work for experienced users, which very often simply doesn't get done. Vermont 🐿️ (talk) 04:09, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

If anything our standard should allow more deletions. Nothing is lost. Readers can go to the main Wiki and run it through deepL or Google translate if need be. Frankly, I think often deletion is clean up--or it should be. Better to be a smaller, but truly simple, subset of EnWP than an expansive mess that frequently never gets addressed. --Gotanda (talk) 05:25, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

I think it might be helpful to review our deletion criteria at some point, or possibly to create some sort of draft space to move content needing intense simplification out of mainspace. Yes it would be an increase in bureaucratic function, which none of us want, but it would allow us to hide bad content from mainspace that our current rationale for is just that someone will fix it eventually (and which rarely happens). Vermont 🐿️ (talk) 14:35, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

I would suggest changing the policy that deletion is not cleanup, so that articles could be deleted at RfD if they're too complex. If nobody votes in the RfD, the article would be automatically deleted after a week. However, users should be careful not to nominate too many marginally difficult articles, as that could lead to pointless discussions that don't delete the article. Lights and freedom (talk) 19:58, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Deletion is not cleanup is not a policy. However, it is something that a lot of the community agree on. For your example with complex articles, I don't see why the article couldn't be quickly turned into a stub, if it is so complex that it is worth deleting. That is what a few editors do with potential A3s. --Ferien (talk) 20:10, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Current example in progress: New editor arrives. Only edits a single article that they know all of the things about and wants to include them, especially one or two hobby horses. Is cautioned. Persists. And, we have a long rambling, non-encyclopedic essay to be reworked. --Gotanda (talk) 22:52, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

And, here is another example of the same process. Anyone can edit this wiki, but not everyone can add anything they like to it. We need to intervene in these sooner and more directly. --Gotanda (talk) 01:55, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Here is my response to this:

• If you want to assess the quality, try hitting "show any page"; 10 times, and see what you get (or 50 times, or 2356 times). Most of the articles will likely be short, and be in a miserable state (missing references, flagged as problematic for years).
• There's no general agreement in this Wikipedia what constitutes "Simple English". There's no agreement about using word lists (and if so, which ones). As soon as you start writing about serious scientific subjects, a word list will do you no good.
• So, any study that takes a number of randomly-chosen articles, and then runs some automated tests (like sentence length, use of certain words in a word list, etc) will give us a bad rating
• A valid test setup would likely be: Take n articles which both exist on EnWp, and SEWP, and present them to a number of non-native speakers of English. Then let them take a tests; this will let you judge if the EnEWP article is easier to understand or the SEWP one. However, since this will need real people, which will want something for their participation, and which will also be picked according to other criteria (amongst others: little/no prior knowledge of the subject), this is unlikely to happen.
• Don't forget, this is a project run by volunteers, currently between 10 and 20 editors (as in: more than one mainspace edit a day, not counting admin actions or edits in talk/user talk).
• Also note: many of our editors only edit in a very limited range of subjects; for IP-editors mostly 1-2 subject areas
• We have little/no influence on who edits, and what the edits are. With very few exceptions, anyone can edit pretty much any article, and unless these people do things which are easily seen as vandalism/non-constructive, these edits will stay.
• Many of the articles I edited 5-10 years ago, are pretty much still in that state.

So, what can be done to change this?

• More regular, long-staying editors: If we are talking about 30-50 people editing regularly, this would be a huge boost
• Revive the community-reviewed articles (GA/VGA), and did you know?
• Be less picky about the subjects you edit: No one cares if the subject may be controversial, if all you do is fix some spelling mistakes, and clarify one or two sentences, that's ok.
• If you happen to plan a study, plan it wisely, and disregard articles, which haven't been touched in years. Also take into account that this is a small wiki, and no matter what you do, the manpower of the people to change or improve articles is much more limited that those of other wikis.

Yes, I know, the picture I give is not a beautiful one, but it is a honest assessment of what I think this community is. Eptalon (talk) 14:23, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Regarding this: "So, any study that takes a number of randomly-chosen articles, and then runs some automated tests (like sentence length, use of certain words in a word list, etc) will give us a bad rating." Hendry and Sheepy are quite clear that they used the entire corpus of SEWP, not just random articles. That is why the massive volume of low quality stubs alters the vocabulary profile.

This, "unless these people do things which are easily seen as vandalism/non-constructive, these edits will stay." is a choice. We could have higher standards for what is "non-constructive," and I think we should.

This "Don't forget, this is a project run by volunteers" is a frequent appeal in any volunteer organization that needs to change if they are not meeting their stated goals as well as they would like. I have heard it a hundred times, "I didn't do X because I didn't have time. Don't blame me I am just a volunteer." If we as a group do not have enough time to make simple articles, then we need to make other changes such as wasting less time on deletions and wrangling about accommodating the edits of a single user pushing a point (btw What ever happened to deppty after they wasted all of that time and energy?) --Gotanda (talk) 23:31, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I'll perhaps give a second answer, to at least cheer some of you up:

• Yes, we are doing a good job, we are doing the best job that we can, given our resources (mostly manpower). Most of the editors here are very motivated, and they change this wiki and improve it.
• We have little influence on who edits, and except for blatant vandalism/POV_pushing there is little we can do.
• If you re-sized EnWP to our editor base, we'd likely do a better job than enwp, motivation-wise.
• There are issues, but they have been there a long time, and are well-known. Little has been done to resolve these, in the past.

So pick one of the two of my answers, either this one or the other one. Eptalon (talk) 14:31, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I'd also like to add that this Wikis reader interface has recently changed and seems to be more difficult to read and edit for non-registered users. Whenever I sign in, the interface changes back to the previous regular Wiki format. But when I sign out it changes to a completely new format. I am not sure if this is good for readers or encouraging to non-registered contributors. Although I am not a regular contributor and reader, I still think this new reader interface is unnecessary and not very reader-friendly. But I'd like other people's opinion on this.--NadirAli (talk) 21:32, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Names

I'm confused, see the discussion https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_deletion/Requests/2022/Didicoy. As far I Understand, all articles with foreign names have to be reinterpreted in English words? eg. yörük in turkish nomads? or Vallahades in Greek Muslims etc.? Strange enough that english speakers use Greek names instead the offical Turkish Names about any Turkish Citys, Islands etc. Nalanidil (talk) 18:09, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Articles should be in the most commonly recognized English language name where possible. Delineators like (1935 movie) may be included or the most unambiguous term used {Television programme or series rather than show as show has many more common uses).. There will always be exceptions. In this case, there is no English term that applies so the original word would be correct. This is most common with locations (Germany vs Deutschland) and is often used for peoples, but it can be seen in many topics. Pure Evil (talk) 21:31, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

@Pure Evil, no comment to you. I feel sorry for you. You're consumed by hate. I call people like you energy vampires. Nalanidil (talk) 15:38, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

And yet you commented to me two times.. Since you do not want to comment to me, the solution is simple. Stop commenting to me. That is, if you are capable of not causing drama for the attention. Pure Evil (talk) 21:07, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Movement Charter: End of the community consultation round 1

Hi everyone,

On behalf of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee (MCDC), we would like to thank everyone who has participated in our first community wide consultation period on the Movement Charter.

People from across the movement shared their feedback and thoughts on the content of the Movement Charter. If you have not had the chance to share your opinion yet, you are welcome to do so by giving the drafts a read and filling out the anonymous survey, which is accessible in 12+ languages. The survey will close on January 2, 2023. You are invited to continue to share your thoughts with the MCDC via email too: [email protected].

What’s next?

The Movement Strategy and Governance team will publish the final report with a summary of the feedback received in January 2023. It will be shared with the MCDC and the communities via different distribution channels.

After receiving the final report, the MCDC will review the suggestions and communicate the changes by providing an explanation on how and why suggestions were or were not adopted in the next versions of the drafts. There will be additional ways to engage with the Movement Charter content in 2023, including early feedback on a proposed ratification process and new drafts of different chapters in the second quarter of 2023.

We invite you to sign up for the MCDC monthly newsletter, which will be delivered to the Talk page of your choice. Monthly updates are available on Meta to stay updated on the progress of the MCDC.

Interested people can still sign-up to become a Movement Charter Ambassador (MC Ambassador) to support their community. MC Ambassadors Program will restart accepting applications from both individuals and groups ahead of the next round of consultations in the second quarter of 2023.

We thank you for your participation, time, and effort in helping to build the charter for our movement!

On behalf of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee

Zuz (WMF) (talk) 10:02, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Names

I wondering myself, why in English, unoffical Greek name are used for places, peoples etc. who are located in Turkey? As example: Gallipoli ??? The correct name is Gelibolu !!!

Places and People in Turkey must named with there official Turkish names. But the lobby of the Grecophile is too strongly represented in the english wikipedia. Nalanidil (talk) 13:28, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

As I said in the talk page, we use more well known names. Angerxiety 13:31, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

which one? still old Greek terms ???. That is not ok.

The official Turkish names have long been known. Thus, the official Turkish names should be used. But there were and are discussions about this in the English wikipedia. Nalanidil (talk) 14:26, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

This is Simple English Wikipedia, so we do things simply. The common English language name may be derived from Greek, but it is the name when using the English language, just like Cologne or Munich. It is simple to use these common names. --Gotanda (talk) 04:27, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

How can it be simple to use a Greek name instead the official Turkish names? Nalanidil (talk) 20:44, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

The most interesting point I see here is you call it Turkey and not Türkiye. Türkiye is the official Turkish name. You use to English name of the county when you are asking why we use the English name of the peninsula. For other examples, Germany and Japan - not Deutschland and Nihon/Nippon. You obviously know that we use the common English title or you would not have used the common title for the country. This makes me wonder why you ask the question when you already know the answer. Side note: English tends to draw mostly (not exclusively though) from Europeans origins so using the Greek root is rather common in English place names.Pure Evil (talk) 20:23, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

@Pure Evil, did you understand English?? your answer is out of the Topic.

I asked why Greek terms, names are used in english instead the offical Turkish names for Places, people etc., would you say that in english Greek names instead the official Turkish names is more common?

This was the first and last statemant, that I made to you. I feel bad Aura very dark Aura comes from you, as your nickname told. Nalanidil (talk) 20:40, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

@Nalanidil: The comment in your last paragraph is inappropriate. Please do not make this kind of comment here. -- Auntof6 (talk) 21:00, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Ok @Auntof6, but this users name in english means the absolutly bad isnt it? pure evil means the bad, the asolutly bad. And I cant and I didnt want answer a user with such nickname, I didnt feel me well then. Nalanidil (talk) 21:19, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

@Nalanidil: If you don't want to talk to a user because you don't like their user name, then don't talk to them. It might be best to ignore what the user name is and just respond to what they wrote. -- Auntof6 (talk) 21:33, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

@Auntof6, yes you are right. Sorry for my comment about this users name. Nalanidil (talk) 21:34, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Let me repeat what I said. English tends to draw mostly (not exclusively though) from Europeans origins so using the Greek root is rather common in English place names. For example, the word "Turkey" in English is from French which drew from the Latin. The Turkish name is not used in place of the English name. The English name of many places in Turkey come from Greek roots. In SE, the most commonly used English word is used. The official name of a location in another language is expected in that language, the most commonly recognized English name is used here. An more often than not, the Greek based name is the most commonly recognized name for most places in Turkey.

As to my name. Evil is not bad. It is closer to selfish. My actions are about what my goals are and I don't really care about how that affects others. I rarely take others into consideration, fulfilling my goal is what matters. Others only matter when it helps me achieve my goal. Here, my goal is to make the wiki. That is not a bad thing, My actions have never been "bad". The just disregard others (extremely often) when trying to better the wiki. I do what I think is best for the wiki and don't really care how others feel about that. Pure Evil (talk) 17:57, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

@Pure Evil Forget it, No comment to you anyomre...

saying to use the more common name in another language is not an argument. You could spread the official Turkish name here via Wikipedia and contribute to the fact that the official Turkish name is known. Nalanidil (talk) 15:38, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Donostia is a well-known city, in Spain, except that in English (and Spanish) t does indeed have another name; the city of Tokio ceased to exist in 1943-45 where it was replaced by a conurbation of I think 20-30 cities. This is Simple English Wikipedia, and using a common English name for a thing is common practice here. Note also,we common have articles on animals pr plants on their common English name, and redirect from the binominal one. Let me perhaps finish by sayin that the current king of France is bald. Eptalon (talk) 23:15, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

the current king of France is bald. Pure Evil (talk) 00:58, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

It is a reference to the essay On Denoting, by Bertrand Russell, published 1905. It was a very influential piece of philosophy, of the 20th century. In it, Russel asks himself, what is needed for a good definition/description. Annyway, we we had this discussion (about redirects for foreign-language placenames) before. Eptalon (talk) 08:43, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Not welcome

Some people are not welcome, I see. Like me. It's because of the different mentality. We cant together. We cant understand us. It is exaclty as our Elders told us: Gadjo-Gadjensa, Rom-Romensa (Gadjo with Gadjo, Rom with Rom). All the sources I given are not accepted, there are much pages here in simple english don't have a single one, but accepted and not deleted. No matter what I do, it's always wrong in your eyes. If I then say a word against it, I'm the bad Guy and will be blocked. Only a few users are nice and on my side. But the majority despises me, hates me, and are very selfish. It was my fault that I thought i can improve Articles or create Articles. But it doesnt care me anymore. The main reason why I left Simple English Wikipedia are especially the User @Pure Evil, but also @Gotanda and unfortunately the Admin @Auntof6 who I trust this Admin before, but now I was wrong. Nalanidil (talk) 20:29, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Hello Nalaidil, no one hates you. We are here to create an encyclopedia. Thank you for the many articles you created; if people point out issues with articles, this is about the possibbiliy to improve the article, it is not about saying whoevver created/edited the article did a bad job. Blaming someone may be very satisfying, but it generally doesn't help with solving the underlying problem. Eptalon (talk) 08:55, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

@Eptalon, any single page I created or any Article I improved with Sources are allways deleted or changend in a way that its not funny anymore, as example: Camel Wrestling, I created this Page, as the Heritage of the Yörüks, but now ALL is changend. Yörüks never metioned in any letter. You must understand, that the same game against me, was in the German and English Wikipedia. As far I give any comment, then I was the bad guy and got a Block. While other Articles have no single source is stay without Problems, only mine is changend allways. If I or other Users wrote anything about Muslim Roma or Turkish Culture and Events, everything its changend by this Grecophile Lobby. This Grecophile Lobby in English Wikipedia is too much present. Nee, nee Lass es gut sein...Für mich hat sich Wikipedia erledigt. Es hat keinen Sinn. Viele Menschen hier sind sehr böse... Nalanidil (talk) 14:56, 17 December 2022 (UTC)