Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 88

Good sockpuppets

What should an admin do in this situation? A user is a vandal. He is blocked. He creates a sockpuppet. The sockpuppet does not do any vandal edits but instead accumulates a large number of good edits. A checkuser discovers he is a sockpuppet. Should he be blocked? --Chemicalinterest (talk) 17:39, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

If an account is made and is blocked for being a vandalism only account, and then a while later the same person creates a new account and begins to learn what Wikipedia is about and begins to edit constructively, I'm not sure a CU would ever look into it, as there really isn't grounds to run a CU... If a user is banned by the community it is a different story. If a Checkuser is suspicious of sockpuppetry and runs a CU and finds the person is the banned user the new account will more than likely be banned as well. If the user is already banned, then making a new account is just block evasion which is not allowed. Then again, I'm not a CU, and would usually leave cases involving sockpuppetry to them, as they are more than capable of finding out what is going on.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 17:54, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

The general idea is to block people for what they do. As long as an account does productive (non-controversial), ie. "good" edits, there is generally no reason to block that account.--Eptalon (talk) 18:00, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

As long as the user is not in the 2nd account while the 1st account is blocked then he is ok. But if the other account is blocked still then its sockpuppetry and the new account should be blocked. -DJSasso (talk) 19:14, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Even if they do good edits? --Chemicalinterest (talk) 21:11, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Even if it has good edits, and if they are a confirmed sockpuppet, they should be blocked regardless. A sockpuppet is a sockpuppet, which aren't allowed. I am referring to abusive sockpuppeteers. --Bsadowski1^{(Talk/Changes)} 22:22, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I will fully admit to purposely letting people edit when I know they are "socks" because they aren't doing anything bad (and are generally doing good things for the project). This is (as I'm sure you know) not a completely universal opinion and there are many who would say that they should be blocked on site because they are block evading since they got blocked for problems earlier. I tend to become more lenient as time goes on from the block and/or based on the specifics of the case. I also tend to (when possible) not even look at CU info so that I have plausible deniability if someone whines :) but I'll still defend it. I should also point out that if we can't tell who they are (even if we CAN through CU) it tends to be a lot more likely they are left alone. Sadly this is fairly rare, it is usually all too easy to see who someone is because they continue to do the same (generally problematic) changes. James (T C) 21:39, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I've done the same with accounts I know are socks but are now acting as good members of the project. fr33kman 12:36, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Echo what DJSasso said. Alternative accounts are allowed but you are not allowed to use them while blocked. When blocking, we are blocking the individual (or person) behind the account, not the individual account. Griffinofwales (talk) 22:05, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Except for general proxy blocks. In that case, we are blocking the proxy, not the person.  :) Jon@talk:~$ 22:19, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Correction: In that case, we're blocking everyone ;) Griffinofwales (talk) 22:22, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe this may comply with the answer you wanted. Hazard-SJ ^Talk 22:11, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

A few years ago, I created 3 or 4 vandalism only accounts(en.wiki) and when I created this account, I did not know anything about block evasion. It seems from some of the answers provided, this account should be blocked as well.... wiooiw (talk) 22:57, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

en is differnt than simple. Only matters if you were blocked here. -DJSasso (talk) 00:53, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

So if i realized this wiki existed at that time, and I created an account and it got blocked, this account should be blocked as well? wiooiw (talk) 09:58, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
No. If you were a vandal years ago, you get blocked. If you created a second account and in your mind "Ok, I understand Wikipedia now, I'll help out." And you make only constructive edits for the long term... I'll eat my hat if your blocked. There has to be some application of common sense. Our checkusers know this. Jon@talk:~$ 10:04, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

 (change conflict) I guess the point is that "blocks are preventative, not punitive". If a person creates socks for the purpose of avoiding blocks and continue disruptive editing, then there is no question that they should be blocked. If they are indef blocked and come back a while later to contribute constructively, then what does the blocking their new account accomplish? This is generally left to the admin's discretion, as it depends on each case and there are "no rules" on Wikipedia and policy is descriptive. EhJJ^TALK 10:12, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

(<-) Given there are very few active users, this wikipedia has an "event horizon" of a few months. In the light of this, it would probably be foolish to punish you, for things that you did a long time back, and that few remember. You have started anew, and seem to be a "good contributor" now, so punshing you would be foolish too. There ya go. --Eptalon (talk) 17:47, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Although I am not an admin, this is my opinion: You are not blocking the person that does the contributions, you are blocking the contributions. If they are good contributions, let the person be. If they are bad, block them no matter who they are. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 01:10, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Compare to en:Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2010_September_2#Good_sockpuppets. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 01:12, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Please be aware we are a very different wiki than en. We are forced to be harder on sockpuppets here because we need to draw good editors here and we have had a bad reputation in the past (which still pretty much exists) that we allow problem editors to do whatever they want. But as many people have said, if we don't know you are the other person, then you probably won't get blocked...but if we can pick out that you are that other person then you probably will end up blocked because chances are you are doing some of the same things that caused trouble in the past. Generally the rule of thumb if you want to come back and not get "caught" is to never again edit the same sorts of articles you edited in the past. -DJSasso (talk) 14:08, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

"See also" vs "Other pages"

Continues from here. πr² (talk • changes) 17:55, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking more of "Related pages" because it's more specific than "Other pages" and "Related" (Relation) is on the Basic English word list. Battleaxe9872 ^文/ _テ 18:17, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I like that. πr² (talk • changes) 18:21, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

OK with me. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:25, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Related pages is better as it does suggest that the pages have something in common, members of the same "family". Other pages could be taken to mean just that, it is another page. --Peterdownunder (talk) 22:47, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I think the same should go for "Other Websites" too, as their essentially the same. Battleaxe9872 ^文/ _テ 20:06, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

So we would now have "Related pages" and "Related websites". Good idea. --Peterdownunder (talk) 23:26, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

<-Take this back to ST please. Griffinofwales (talk) 23:50, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Done Moved back to Simple Talk for a more thorough consensus. Battleaxe9872 ^文/ _テ 00:06, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

You should have left the conversation where it is, its been linked to numerous times. If people haven't responded its because they either don't care or think status quo is ok. -DJSasso (talk) 00:20, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

+1 Jon@talk:~$ 00:33, 1 September 2010 (UTC) Other pages is fine. Jon@talk:~$ 00:33, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Personally I prefer related pages since I am being asked. Other pages is far to vague. -DJSasso (talk) 00:40, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Agree for the same reason as DJ. Griffinofwales (talk) 02:16, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's simple enough, and more specific. :) Yes, I think "related" is better. —Clementina talk 02:19, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

O.K, so that's seven votes for and one against. I'm sure that everyone has seen it and had the opportunity to comment on it. So, is that enough of a consensus change "See also" to "Related pages" or should it remain the same? Battleaxe9872 ^文/ _テ 13:58, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Change them as you see them would be fine. But I wouldn't start going through every page just for the purpose of changing them. That would lead to many less than useful edits. -DJSasso (talk) 22:02, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

2010 Canterbury earthquake

I would be delighted if we could get this onto the main page within the next 48 hours. Whilst it is highly unorthodox (that is to say, not allowed), could this be put into DYK without the required three days? The article needs some quick work but that's not an issue. sonia♫ 07:30, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I would like to see it up as a DYK as well. I think it needs to be expanded a bit though. --Bsadowski1^{(Talk/Changes)} 07:37, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Mmm... More haste, less speed. This is not an event of world significance; casualties few. Compare, for instance Indonesian tsunami or Turkish earthquakes. enWP page is changing all the time. Earthquakes are pretty common, especially if you will sit on the edge of a couple of plates. :)

But if you think there's a good DYK, do propose it. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:04, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Why? There is no rush and I don't see why we should push this forward to get it onto the main page. Either way (talk) 16:03, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality

Hello,

I recently viewed some articles here to find an appalling anti-Indian bias in many of the articles. Please sort this out, as it will mislead readers and could anger some people.

Thanks.

--92.11.37.172 (talk) 19:42, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

This might have to do with the "Pakistan editor/IP". (ST archives, AN archives, Chenzw's essay, Jamesofur's opinion) πr² (talk • changes) 02:35, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

@92.11.37.132: You are correct. Unfortunately we have had for many many months now been visited by a person who has been systematically adding bias into these articles. I just blocked them today for another month. It's only ever an IP address so we try to use shorter blocks. We do try to revert as much POV pushing as we find but it's not always caught. Today you came and helped us fix some, THANKS! What we need are editors from both Pakistan, the disputed region of Kashmir and from India to aid us in the fixing, upkeep and expansion of these topics. Please feel free to continue to help and bring some people over to help. We are a friendly community and we act of rule-breakers quickly so it's also a nice place to work. Perhaps also think about editing with your username if you have one, or make a new on only for this site. Thanks! fr33kman 02:54, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Could 78.147.112.117 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) be the Pakistan editor? (geolocates to Manchester, redirects with article text like 195.195.131.164 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)) πr² (talk • changes) 16:07, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Not likely, his edits seem more balanced. -DJSasso (talk) 16:10, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Most of our articles about Pakistan-related topics were created by one (unnamed/IP) editor. This editor has also shown a certain "bias" towards the Pro-Pakistan side. We tried to clear the articles of such bias, but some may be left. This wikipedia has administrators and rollbackers, not "guards" controlling edits of a prisoner population. If you therefore come across an article with a bias, you are welcome to correct that bias. On a side-note: If you plan to be editing here on a more regular basis, you should also consider creating an account. --Eptalon (talk) 17:09, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

(←Outdent) Is 92.30.254.71 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) the POV-pushing Pakistan editor? 92.30.240.68 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) got blocked for doing (almost) the same thing. πr² (talk • changes) 15:50, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Category name

Suggested change I think that Category:Pages with excessive red links should be changed to Category:Pages with too many red links, because that name is simple. -Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:46, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

• Support —I-20the highway 20:59, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
• A good idea - --Peterdownunder (talk) 22:30, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Griffinofwales (talk) 22:30, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support πr² (talk • changes) 22:31, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
• Fine by me. Battleaxe9872 ^文/ _テ 22:39, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Changed per consensus. Griffinofwales (talk) 23:43, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Cyberbullying policy

Cyberbullying is getting bigger as an issue, as an educator I have had to attend several training sessions about it. I have written a proposal for a policy User:Peterdownunder/Cyberbullying. I would welcome comments on the proposal at its talk page User talk:Peterdownunder/Cyberbullying It is something we need to deal with. --Peterdownunder (talk) 01:32, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Excellent idea! In fact in some places it is a crime. fr33kman 01:45, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I have no problem with this at all, but wouldn't most, if not all of this already fall under WP:NPA? -DJSasso (talk) 18:25, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I think not- this is focused on attacks within article content that are not directed at editors. sonia♫ 20:21, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

In that case it would fall under Oversight policy #'s 2 & 4 or the like. Most of this is already covered in a variety of area's. That being said it would be good to put it in one place. -DJSasso (talk) 21:57, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

IMO, the current policies in place sufficiently cover everything. Putting it all in one place would be nice though. I suggest to keep it as an essay. Griffinofwales (talk) 22:30, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

History of the United States

Could somebody please finish the PVGA review? It's been a VGA nominee for almost two weeks and yet 80% hasn't been reviewed and no one but me has commented on it Purplebackpack89 21:15, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Block review

A discussion on how to handle a block review is being held at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Admins_reviewing_own_blocks, pleae do come and discuss. Jon@talk:~$ 08:43, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

What's up with AutoGeek?

I was running AWB on the wrong wiki. I have en masse reverted all the changes. —I-20the highway 20:29, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Off with his head. PeterSymonds (talk) 20:29, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

related websites

Sorry, I know I should have chimed in on the prior discussion, but related websites is a bad idea. It's fine to have "related pages" because that's with the same wiki, but related websites implies some relationship the external website has with WMF or Simple English Wikipedia. It's a very, very bad idea. fr33kman 23:49, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree. -DJSasso (talk) 23:53, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

 (change conflict)  I saw that earlier here, but thought it was something new, discussed here, which I haven't noticed. So I decided to just ignore the edit, but I agree with Fr33kman, this is not really a good idea. -Barras (talk) 23:53, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Fr33kman. wiooiw (talk) 23:56, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

So should we keep it as "Other websites", or change it to something like "Further reading"? Battleaxe9872 ^文/ _テ 23:55, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Leave it as is, that was what people wanted last time it was talked about. -DJSasso (talk) 23:58, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Yep, other websites is fine. There's no need to change this. -Barras (talk) 00:00, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. πr² (talk • changes) 00:21, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I didn't think of that. Good point, Fr33kman. I still like "related pages", but I agree "other websites" might be better if you look at it that way. I agree with your comments. —Clementina talk 02:42, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Fr33kman is, as usual, completely in the right. :) He always thinks about the global wiki instead of just small simple. I endorse with no objections at all. I've liked other websites, but I didn't think just my preference would be reasonable to state, but this is a good reason. Belle ^{tête-à-tête} 04:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

'Other websites' for me, too. Remember, too, that any registered user can and should take out any items under Other websites which do not clearly relate to the content of the page in question. Pruning is good gardening. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:51, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Email

Friends,

Due to a serious misconfiguration of my email server, if you have sent me email via the WMF sites over the past few days, I may not have received it. The issue is resolved and please do resend. Thank you, Jon@talk:~$ 21:04, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Chemistry articles

I am somewhat disappointed. I looked here and about the only edits I see are mine! Out of 724 active users, only I write chemistry articles. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 17:54, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

The number is misleading, we only truely have about 30 active editors. If that. -DJSasso (talk) 18:21, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Too bad. Not as much interaction as on en.wikipedia, where I hardly ever add stuff to chemistry articles. Just debates over there about things such as whether household bleach and vinegar make chlorine. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 18:24, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

(Though no article is perfect), you could look at it as your chemistry articles are so good, they don't need many edits done to them :) . Battleaxe9872 ^文/ _テ 00:42, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear your disappointment, dear Chemicalinterest. I'm afraid mostly none of our active users except you are very interested in chemistry. :) But Battleaxe9872 makes a nice observation. I personally think that it's a compliment, since you're the only one who knows all about those hard subjects in chemistry. I'm sure I couldn't find another user so diligent in those articles as you are. I'll try to help in spelling and linking and templates, even if I can't really work on the main facts. Your thoughtful editor, Belle ^{tête-à-tête} 04:38, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Hard? I do it as a hobby, as well as electronics. A few days ago I reduced copper(II) oxide with ascorbic acid to make copper(I) oxide. I also made a circuit that turns on a light when you press a button and slowly dims. It is used as a nightlight. Its not hard. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 11:16, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Lists, problems with

I see over half of the top 50 longest pages are huge lists full of red links. There are nine in the top ten. This includes some pages which don't actually have 'list' in title, but are one in fact. Most I've checked are text dumps from enWP, and scarcely worked on since. They are the devil to download, and pretty useless as a way to get to pages. Many of them go to an insane level of detail from the point of view of our wiki.
There is another way to approach lists. It is to cut them down ruthlessly to a minimum, using the notability criterion more severely. An example: when faced with the present inflated number of chess Grandmasters (over 1500), after some agreement on the talk page and elsewhere, the list was cut to those rated over 2700 (that's about 50) plus any others thought to be significant. The chess project has been helpful in providing a small support group.
An even more radical move would be to list only those pages we already have on a subject in this wiki. Thus lists could become 'List of our XYZ pages'.
What I'm suggesting is a Cut down overlong lists project. Macdonald-ross (talk)

Red links are good. Say it again with me, red links are good. For people interested in a subject they are a quick and easy way to know what is missing and what needs to be created. We can not use out own POV to make things smaller especially things like and others thought to be significant. That is very much POV editing. Either the players meet WP:N or they don't, if they don't you unlink the name. Arbitrary cut offs like you mention above are contrary to a number of policies. The list of grandmasters will need to be renamed to List of chess Grandmasters rated over 2700 now or you have an incorrect and misleading title for the list. -DJSasso (talk) 10:35, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I think Macdonald-ross is right. Red links are good, as long as there aren't too much. Some of the list articles are overfilled and whelming with red links. Perhaps we could cut a few unnecessary or not notable words out. But DJSasso has a good point... For people interested in a subject, red links are actually very helpful. I think what we need is a little more patience. There are still many chances that people may come and start editing. And then they would, naturally, begin fixing red links. So, let's just cut out the unimportant words. I hope that might help fix the problem. Regards, Belle ^{tête-à-tête} 10:51, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

While red links are good, a list with all red links isn't doing anyone any good. Lists should be short enough to load easily, but long enough and with enough "good links" to be informative. Griffinofwales (talk) 11:32, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Since POV was raised I must reply. The criterion for older players in the List of chess Grandmasters cannot be the same as modern players because the international grading list is a modern invention, circa 1970. On the page and its talk page is information which makes clear what the page contains. Older players are deemed notable by being world champions or challengers, or by reference works calling them 'grandmaster'. All biog pages have references supporting their notability. I was in no sense suggesting that anyone not notable should be put on any list. Nor did I say that red links had no function.
My idea is something like: for each of the longest pages, one by one, a small group looks at the page and tries to find an objective and defensible way to reduce its size. Look, with 30 regular contributors, many of whom have their own special interests, these over-long lists will not change unless something is done about them. But if someone thinks it's OK to have hundreds of red links on a page, well, they're welcome to their opinion. Perhaps it all hinges on how one sees the potential damge. I see the potential damage to Simple as a whole as quite real. There is something wrong with the idea that we should duplicate lists which are exactly the same as lists in enWP, when their lists are highly linked to articles. Macdonald-ross (talk)

Depends on what you consider harm. I didn't say you were suggesting that you should put people on the list that weren't notable. What I was saying was that you are deciding who is more notable than someone else. This is POV and decidedly not objective. How exactly is it harming the wiki that these pages exist? If anything its the exact opposite, it shows where our wiki is lacking and how things can be fixed. As for load times on pages, most of these pages have very minor load times (ie there are only 8 pages in total above what is generally the max size a page should be, and only 49 above the point considered ideal page size) so I don't really see that as an issue as there are almost no pages on this wiki considered too long by wiki standards, and the red links as I say are good. Cutting out people from lists is a loss of information and harmful to a wiki. -DJSasso (talk) 12:37, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Date of creation simple.wikipedia

Hey! I tried find information when Simple Wikipedia has been created, but nowhere I can find this information. Last place where this information has been removed is here. If it is true date, maybe you should add this information to Wikipedia:Simple English Wikipedia and Wikipedia:About? Leinad (talk) 23:50, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

The first change made on this Wikipedia was this one. Griffinofwales (talk) 00:19, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Hehe... Old IDs is not reliable source, in past years MediaWiki wasn't enough perfect. For example compare English and Catalan dates of IDs (it looks that Catalan is older :P ). I hoped you have a "wiki-dinosaurs" who can remember the date ;-) Leinad (talk) 00:46, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Would this be of interest? πr² (talk • changes) 00:49, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm... strange. On December 18, 2003 Simple.wiki started using MediaWiki, but it's not clear that this is date of creation. In 2003 someone wrote "September 18, 2001" and this information existed till 2008 - is it possible that you had hoax by 5 years? Leinad (talk) 01:04, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

"Simple English Wikipedia was started in 2004."[1] πr² (talk • changes) 01:12, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Edition made in 2008. I'm sure that "2004" is a hoax ;-) Leinad (talk) 01:21, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe that September 18th or 19th, 2001 is the correct starting date (depending on your timezone). You can find edits by this wiki's founder from September 19th. A lot of new Wikipedias were started around this time. This post in the mailing list archives says there was going to be more of a focus on the international Wikipedias from September 2001 onwards. Archive.org has a copy of this wiki from October 2001. This page on archive.org says "last edited 18 September" and it looks like that may have been this wiki's first article. This wiki was still using the UseMod software when I started editing here in 2003, so old IDs and even user contributions are not reliable. UseMod didn't store all revisions, and not everything got converted when the wiki finally moved to MediaWiki. Angela (talk) 02:28, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Moving pages

Why am I no longer allowed to move pages? How do I regain this right? DrKay (talk) 07:22, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

The "right" to move pages is a right given per page. If you are a new user, it takes a few days of edititing to become "autoconfirmed". In addition, certain pages (like the Front page) are totally protected against moving. Similar rights can be given for editing certain pages. In addition, a user can be "prevented" from editing any page, eg. as part of a block. Also note that this is Simple English Wikipedia, which is different from "regular English Wikipedia". If you edited there before, and now started editing here, you will be considered a "new user"--Eptalon (talk) 08:19, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I've been registered for over a year on this wiki, and I've previously moved pages, but now I cannot. The "move" tab has disappeared from the top of the pages. It looks like the userrights have been altered. DrKay (talk) 09:05, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Right, I've figured it out. You need 10 edits in mainspace before the move tab appears. This must have been changed since I was last here. Thanks. DrKay (talk) 09:16, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that was recently changed. Sorry to inconvenience you. You can also request which pages should be moved here and someone can do it for you, until you have 10 mainspace edits. EhJJ^TALK 11:59, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Twinkle acting weird

Resolved. Template fixed. EhJJ^TALK 00:45, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Alright, so when Twinkle notifies someone of a qd, the message

“

Quick deletion of smiledonator This page is not needed. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 16:54, 27 September 2010 (UTC) Battleaxe9872 وکیپیڈیا 21:54, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

”

Always shows up (here, here), but it doesn't show up with welcome messages (here). It might be my signature, but I've seen it happen with other users as well. Any ideas? Battleaxe9872 کییا 22:28, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

That is kinda strange. Could you tell us how you are running Twinkle (as a gadget vs in monobook.js), whether it's customized, and which browser you are using? I don't think your signature could do that much damage, because the links you've provided are VERY odd. EhJJ^TALK 23:09, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I think this has to do with the Unicode characters in your sig. I don't know why Chemicalinterest's sig is there. πr² (talk • changes) 00:00, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

EhJJ fixed the Chemicalinterest part. πr² (talk • changes) 00:42, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

 (change conflict) Yeah, needed to think about it, but the answer was actually quite obvious. Chemicalinterest made a change to the template the Twinkle uses (see here). I've reverted the change. Twinkle was working correctly but using a faulty template. Thanks for letting us know. EhJJ^TALK 00:45, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Rollback must not be used to remove good-faith changes by other users. If the tool is used wrongly, it will be quickly removed by an administrator. Actually, I don't know why I added it to that page. I thought I was adding it to an IP's talk page. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 11:11, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

inactive administrators

This is a notification that there is a proposal to change the criteria of the inactive administrators policy. The discussion is located here. Please comment there. Thanks, Griffinofwales (talk) 22:45, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Please note

2010 Wikimedia Study of Controversial Content: Part Two contains the following (from today's enWP Newsletter):

2. That, therefore, no changes or filters be added to text on current Wikimedia projects to satisfy the perceived needs of children.

3. That, however, the Foundation investigate the creation of a “WikiJunior” version of the Wikipedias, aimed at children under the age of 12, either as a stand-alone project or in partnership with existing and appropriate educational institutions.

Simple 'crats might make contact with this project, and remind them that we actually exist! Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:42, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

We aren't catering to the needs of children per se, we're catering to the needs of people who struggle with English.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 11:00, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, people must remember that our being better for children is a side effect of what we do at this project, the main mission is actually ESL learners. This is why we constantly reject trying to quantify how young an age group we should be writing for. We always say we are writing for children, but our actual mandate when created was ESL people. The fact we are easier to understand for children really is a side effect. WikiJunior is the project that actually aims at children. -DJSasso (talk) 10:41, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Proposed good/very good articles

Could someone please take a look at the articles for a review? :) There are articles in the GA Reviewing especially which have lingered there for weeks past the due time. It's been over two weeks since Gettysburg Address has been nominated, and so far there's only been one comment - and as for Pilgrim's Progress and The Lightning Thief, they've been nominated in August and are still open. I'd close them, but I've already commented on both. I would be very grateful if someone could take a look at some of the articles there. Sincerely, —Clementina talk 03:18, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

WikiJunior

I note that the report on the 2010 Wikimedia Study of Controversial Content is recommending the establishment of “WikiJunior” versions of the Wikipedias, aimed at children under the age of 12. How does this fit with the Simple English Wikipedia? Aren't we in danger of massive duplication of work here? Lumos3 (talk) 10:47, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

There is a thread about this two sections up. Simple English is aimed at ESL people mainly, because of this we don't target people under the age of 12 specifically because that would make the writing patronizing to people that are older, even if they are trying to learn english. However, as a side effect of writing simpler for ESL people, we are generally easier for children as well. Writing specifically for people under the age of 12 would be much different than what we do and is taken care of by WikiJunior as you mention. -DJSasso (talk) 12:47, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I edit the Wikibooks version of Wikijunior and it is fitted for this (although words could be simpler). Frozen Windwant to be chilly? 19:21, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Biographies of living people

We really should be more diligent about using references for biographies of living and recently deceased people.--The Three Headed Knight (talk) 16:50, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Of course we should. The world should be at peace too. Did you mean this just as a challenge to the editors or did you have some specific ideas for improving that? PrincessofLlyr ^talk 17:05, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I meant it to be a gentle reminder to the editors. It may also require that we be more proactive when we find these edits. Either revert or preferably add a reference to the edit.--The Three Headed Knight (talk) 18:44, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Handling medical takeover of English WP

20-Sep-2010: I will be focusing on putting some broader, medicine-related articles on Simple WP. As if there weren't enough problems already, as you might know, many articles on enwiki are being converted into a "doctor's view" of the subject. It's as if "Hair" will cease to be a concern of fashion or cultural trends or barbershops, and instead, all hair-related articles on English WP will be rewritten for medical concerns such as hair-follicle pathology (illness), listing only major symptoms and treatment of hair diseases. The final straw, for me, was the enwiki renaming of "Diaper rash" as "en:Irritant diaper dermatitis" (on 10-Sep-2010 after many similar renamings). In the U.S., many medical doctors have an attitude problem, which they don't see as POV-pushing, but instead, the hospital system typically worships doctors by high salary, fame, and keeping nurses and med-techs to "stay in their place" as inferior underlings. Does anyone know of any formal complaints of that medical takeover on enwiki, or have other editors noted they are coming to Simple WP to save broad-minded articles from becoming POV-funnels for medical data? Some enwiki article revisions from 2008 might still contain broader views of medical-related topics, so those writings could be simplified for use here. I think it is good that medics are adding details on enwiki; unfortunately, they seem to be axing any prior article contents which are not shown in medical encyclopedias, so issues such as hygiene, laundry or house design are likely to be axed as insignificant trivia which clutters a doctor's reading for hospital concerns. To recap the problem in a nutshell, by paraphrasing U.S. General George Patton, "Compared to War  Medicine, all forms of human endeavour shrink to insignificance". It might be very difficult to stop doctors from replacing articles as "Medi-pedia" texts. Therefore, perhaps there should be a guideline for Simple WP to warn about keeping medical-related articles as broader in scope, than the narrow view of some doctors. Anyone have other thoughts about this? -Wikid77 (talk) 13:47, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Technically, I don't see the problem, the example you link to above, is what it should be named. Articles should be specific, and since there can be multiple pages on related information, the information like fasion that you mention can fall on a page about the fashion surrounding hair. That is basically how wikis work. I also want to make note, that while we don't replicate all blocks that en.wiki makes. I do notice you have been blocked for POV and POINT editing. I would caution you to not continue that here because it will only end up with the same result. -DJSasso (talk) 13:54, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I think we need to consider that even if our disclaimer does say that the medical information we have should not be relied on,many people will probably turn to wikipedia for such information. In our case,most articles should be at the "common name" of the problem, with a link from the medical term to the common name. Most people looking for information about heart attacks will do so under its common name (bad example, article is at "myocardial infarction"), and not the medical term. Add to this that this "environment" is more demanding, because most people will also have problems with the vocabulary. Similarly, very few people will be interested in the exact mechanism of action of a given drug or hormone. Of course, such info can be added to the article, but there is again the problem mentioned before: Most people here have a limited vocabulary, English may not be their mother tongue. In addition, to my knowledge we lack most of the fundamental medical articles. We may not even have editors with the right background in the position to write such articles (and not simply "translate" them). --Eptalon (talk) 18:51, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

I will say this...I do think there is too much of a medical and technical emphasis in many WikiMedia projects. For example, the Vital Articles and the Expanded Vital articles...the section on dentistry had some fairly complicated dental concerns, but it didn't have Toothbrush and Toothpaste. That's not right Purplebackpack89 17:30, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

confirmed

I think that, now with the firm 4 days and 10 edits, some users may need this right.

The right would be granted by an administrator.

Frozen Windwant to be chilly? 03:02, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

It shows up on the list of user groups, but only stewards can grant it currently. πr² (talk • changes) 03:03, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Why would we want to give it away? The purpose of that guideline is to make sure our rollbackers meet that experience criteria.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 11:16, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, if one needs to edit a semi-protected page and can't be autoconfirmed yet, yes. Frozen Windwant to be chilly? 12:49, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

4 days & 10 edits isn't that difficult, combined with plenty of users to edit, I don't see the need. Griffinofwales (talk) 13:04, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I was just bringing it up. Frozen Windwant to be chilly? 13:07, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

OpenSearch

Some of our sister projects have OpenSearch enabled, so that an in-browser search plugin is automatically suggested when they visit the project. I'd like to get the same up and running here. Would anyone object to that? sonia♫ 13:25, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Can you point to one that does? I don't really see the point of it so I would like to actually try it to see what it does. I personally dislike webpages that suggest such things so seeing it in action would help. -DJSasso (talk) 13:48, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Commons does. It's not a particularly intrusive suggestion; it looks like the circled arrow to the right. We already have the capability: here. It needs to be fixed so it doesn't say "Wikipedia (en)" and then enabled by the devs, I think. I made a little Firefox plugin with the same capability, but it's somewhat hard for your average reader to find. Enabling the autodiscovery would hopefully mean that visitors who like it will be encouraged to use our site more often. sonia♫ 13:58, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh I see what you mean, its not an actual pop up suggestion. Yeah I have no problem with that then. Just tried it out on commons, and it works well. -DJSasso (talk) 16:57, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. - EdoDodo ^talk 09:46, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Not sure how much effect this will have, but it seems like a good idea and hopefully it'll help our site. :) So..why not? —Clementina talk 05:18, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Dead end pages list

Since Special:DeadendPages hasn't been updated in nearly a year and almost all the pages on it have already been fixed, I decided to generate an updated list of dead end pages (pages with no wikilinks) using the Toolserver. I'll be working through some of it (there's only a hundred or so articles) but help is of course welcome. The list is at User:EdoDodo/DeadEnds if anyone would like to help out . - EdoDodo ^talk 19:26, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Sounds lovely, thank you! :) I'll see if I can do anything to help later, though this area isn't my best. —Clementina talk 05:20, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

The list should be weeded: some are redirects, some are deleted pages, and some do have links to and fro. Macdonald-ross (talk) 05:49, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

As far as I see none are redlinks, and although I haven't clicked every single one there shouldn't be any redirects and I haven't noticed any. - EdoDodo ^talk 14:30, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Simple word

Does anyone think "abundant" is a simple word? wiooiw (talk) 02:56, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not a Basic English word, and it's not commonly used, so..no. :) Is there a special reason for this question? —Clementina talk 03:57, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Thankyou for your comment. :) I'm unsure if the second sentence of Red billed Quelea is clear. wiooiw (talk) 04:08, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

It is now, I think. Macdonald-ross (talk) 05:50, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

New section addition to main page

See Talk:Main_Page#Section_on_Main_Page_for_new_articles. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 15:03, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I added my mild opinion. :) Kindly, Belle ^{tête-à-tête} 00:21, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

• Budweiser --> Budweiser (disambiguation)
• Budweiser (Anheuser-Busch) --> Budweiser

First off, it's a two-pronged disambiguation, which means it needs to redirect to the more common of the two, per EN:WP:DISAM. Also, he American beer is most definitely the primary topic. It is much more well known worldwide, and is the only article that is not a stub. I had made one of the moves myself, but Mercy had undid it, claiming it was point of view Purplebackpack89

Well since its been objected to, I won't do it immediately. Start a request for move discussion on the talk page of that page. And after a couple days I will move it to consensus or not move it. -DJSasso (talk) 18:05, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps a small note: "Budweiser (Arnheuser Busch)" is not very common in Europe; When Europeans talk about "Budweiser", they mean the beer from Budweise (Budweiser Budvar/Budweiser Czechvar) most of the time. There is a third beer from Budweis, but to my knowledge, this isn't common outside the Czech Republic.

In March 2009, Anheuser-Busch lost an appeal against the EU's Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM) decision to reject the registration of Budweiser as an EU-wide trademark for beer for Anheuser-Busch. The court pointed out that Budějovický Budvar had proven that it had been using the trade mark during at least the five years preceding the publication of Anheuser-Busch's application for a Community trade mark. The decision also covers malted non-alcoholic beverages (such as non-alcolohic beer).[6] On July 29, 2010, Anheuser-Busch also lost its last-instance appeal against this decision.

This means that Anheuser-Busch may not register the name Budweiser as an EU-wide trademark for beer. In Germany and Austria in particular, only Budějovický Budvar is allowed to use the trademark Budweiser. (from en:Budweiser_Budvar#Trademark_dispute)

These are of course just thoughts...--Eptalon (talk) 19:22, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Urgent

Someone please urgently edit the pages: Incubator and Incubator (Wikimedia). There is no information in the first and missing notably in the second. Please help! Thanks! Hydriz^{[Discussions needed]} 10:10, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you on the former, but honestly don't think the latter is notable at all. Even on enwiki it redirects to the main Wikimedia Foundation page and has only one line in a table. sonia♫ 10:22, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

If you don't think it is notable, then go ahead! Request and it will soon be gone, that is, if the request passes. :) Warmly, Belle ^{tête-à-tête} 10:29, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Uh... Bella, I RfDed it already, and I believe Hydriz was the creator. sonia♫ 10:36, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh, okay. :P Belle ^{tête-à-tête} 10:50, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I understand that the regular English Wikipedia has the page redirected to the main Incubator website. But I wanted Simple English to be different from them. Many people urge using Simple English Wikipedia as simply copying from English Wikipedia and simplifying it. But I want to have new ideas here and treat this Wikipedia as an independent language. But if many people agree with deleting this article, I do not have any objections. Hydriz^{[Discussions needed]} 11:01, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I highly commend that sentiment. But whilst I do feel that this encyclopedia can have better coverage of things than the English Wikipedia, we still have notability guidelines that I am concerned this article does fall short of. Thank you for your efforts, nevertheless, and please do not be discouraged. sonia♫ 11:29, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

No worries. I can still help create other articles and help fight vandalism, which has became a big worry here. Hydriz^{[Discussions needed]} 13:56, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Country portal

Hi, I just noticed that there isn't any country portals(like Portal:Malaysia), unlike the English Wikipedia. Why? Wouldn't it be good if we had these portals? Hydriz^{[Discussions needed]} 14:02, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

We don't have portals here (or even the namespace). πr² (talk • changes) 14:03, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Why not? We should have them since there are many articles about different things of the different countries. Hydriz^{[Discussions needed]} 14:15, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Because we do not have enough active users to maintain decent articles on all the countries, much less an entire portal. Griffinofwales (talk) 14:50, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

But will this idea be coming soon? Once there are much more decent articles on the different countries? I badly wish to have one and run it. Hydriz^{[Discussions needed]} 14:57, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Soon is when we have enough users. At the rate we're going (not to be pessimistic), come back in 3 years. Griffinofwales (talk) 14:58, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Haha. But can we like create our own portals? Hydriz^{[Discussions needed]} 15:18, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

You can create a wikiproject. πr² (talk • changes) 15:24, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Within your own userspace. This Wikipedia does not have a Portal space. Griffinofwales (talk) 15:25, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

But we can just immediately create a Portal namespace. I tried it on my own wiki. Hydriz^{[Discussions needed]} 15:33, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

There is no consensus (now) for a Portal namespace. If there was, you could file a bugzilla:. πr² (talk • changes) 15:34, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Can't we just create Portal:Malaysia without going through all these trouble? Hydriz^{[Discussions needed]} 15:37, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Bug report filed at Bugzilla. Adminstrators, please exclude this discussion till this issue has been settled. Hydriz^{[Discussions needed]} 15:47, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

No and No. No consensus exists for the space, and no, we will not allow you to create a portal just because you want to. Go work on getting Malaysia to VGA instead. Griffinofwales (talk) 15:56, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay then. I will just hope for the day when Portals are allowed in Simple English Wikipedia then. Hydriz^{[Discussions needed]} 16:03, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

(<-) Perhaps from another prespective: How many Malaysia-related articles exist here? - Is it worth creating a portal for the (probably) less than 10 articles? - I could name other countries with more articles, but they also do not have a portal. --Eptalon (talk) 17:17, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I am using Malaysia as an example. I am doing Singapore articles. I am also creating a WikiProject Countries. Currently, I am appealing against the block on the account that I do this WikiProject. Hydriz^{[Discussions needed]} 17:19, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Most wanted

I had a look at the most wanted article list. It looks like it was last updated 4 months ago. I recently did a calculation: Suppose a bot would get one page every ten seconds, thisw bot would need about 7.5 days to go through all (roughly 65k) articles we have. It would therefore be possible to run such a bot once to twice a month, which would give us more accurate data on the "most wanted" articles.

I wonder how such tasks are handled at other wikipedias, and who would be responsible for developing such a bot, if none exists. --Eptalon (talk) 12:38, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe you can do it that way, you have to take it from dumps which only happen every few months. I believe having a constant pull on data like that would be overusing resources. Then again bot policy does allow for writes to happen every 5 seconds, but I don't know that it actually says how fast you can read. -DJSasso (talk) 13:15, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I believe this could be done with a database query on the Toolserver. I'll see what I can do. - EdoDodo ^talk 15:18, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

The basic idea would be to get the data updated, about once or twice a month. --Eptalon (talk) 19:05, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

It would be possible to have my bot keep an updated report, see this sample edit for how it would look. For some odd reason links with the WP: shortcut are not understood correctly. I'll look into that, but anyway that's the general idea. The query is quite a light one (it runs for less than a minute) so it shouldn't be a problem to run it several times a month, or even weekly. Would there be consensus for having my bot maintain this, and if needed other, database reports? - EdoDodo ^talk 16:58, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

The fact that "Telecommunications of Nasal Sprays from Venus (9*6=42)" is at the top of the list of most wanted pages may also seem like a mistake, but it is in fact correct as it seems it is used in the signature of a user. This could be avoided by excluding links that originate from non-article pages from the list. I'm not sure if the old list included links from non-article pages or not, but I'll go with whatever consensus decides would be best. - EdoDodo ^talk 19:53, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I have found out why WP: shortcuts are appearing as most wanted pages. It appears this is because the WP: namespace did not previously exist and the place where links are stored has not been completely updated yet. It will get fixed whenever an edit is made to one of the pages that links any of the WP: shortcuts, so for the moment the links will stay in the most wanted pages but with time they will all disappear. Doing a 'null edit' (pretending to make an edit but saving the page without making any changes) to all of the pages would fix this, but it's really not that critical. Anyway, what are people's thoughts on having a bot keep the reports up to date? - EdoDodo ^talk 20:26, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

(<-) Basically what we need to keep track of:

• Only Article space (not even Article talk space), nor Wikipedia/WP:Talk, nor Template:/Template talk:, nor obviously User:/User talk:
• Lets say only the top X articles (x=100,250,500). As seen by the current log (Of July) that cut-off point seems to be between 40 and 50 links.
• Other interesting reports could be: Top 50 (or so) articles with the most edits; top articles that were edited by the most people; top users with the most edits (per month)

But I think before we go any further, we need to agree that an "up-to-date" (monthly) most wanted list would be a good thing to have. --Eptalon (talk) 21:21, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Currently the report is set up to show all articles with more than 40 links to it, however I'll be happy to change it to the top X articles. - EdoDodo ^talk 05:44, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Sample report for most active users this month is up. I'll work on your other suggestions later. - EdoDodo ^talk 06:18, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I personally would not want to see a most active user list maintained. I think it would add to the facination too many people here have with editcountitus. -DJSasso (talk) 16:50, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd suggest that the "most active" list should a) exclude users with "bot" in their username, but more importantly: b) state only the user and not how many edits they've made. So, we could have the top 20/50/whatever number of (most) active users, sorted alphabetically, as this would decrease the benefit of making many small edits (as we've seen countless times before), but still show who's "active". EhJJ^TALK 19:09, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

If others agree that this would be useful, I'll be happy to do it. - EdoDodo ^talk 19:35, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Most edited articles Anyway, is there consensus to move all of these reports to the Wikipedia namespace and have my bot keep them all up to date? In my opinion a number of them would be quite useful. - EdoDodo ^talk 15:39, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I think it would be useful, but I am just one of 30. Btw: the most edited would likely also make sense per time period (ie. the month we have for the others)--Eptalon (talk) 16:27, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I'll change it to that. Most edited articles in the past month allows people to see articles that are actively being worked on and improved, which could be useful, but in all time it really isn't very much use. - EdoDodo ^talk 15:48, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I do think it would be useful to maintain the "most wanted" articles, while keeping in mind that they are overly influenced by templates and thus the results can end up being rather obscure. It would help us fill in the "Most wanted" section of the template under "New changes" as some of the listed articles are created and thus must be replaced - I was trying to do this the other day and was having trouble finding good items to replace. I do agree with Djsasso that it may not be particularly useful to do it for users. Kansan (talk) 18:14, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree that a number of the reports aren't very necessary. I suggest we just go back to the first idea of having just the Most wanted pages with regular updating, as it is the most useful. We can discuss having other reports later, but they are all far less needed. - EdoDodo ^talk 18:47, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The most wanted pages list was being updated by my bot, albeit infrequently as the database query takes up to a day (in the worst case scenario) and to minimize server load. If someone wants to take over the entire job of updating the most <...> lists, I will be glad to hand over the source code. Chenzw  Talk  06:47, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Strange, when I tested my bot the query only took a few minutes. I'm fine with taking over the task, but have no objection to you continuing the task either. Either way works for me, as long as the lists are updated regularly. - EdoDodo ^talk 08:18, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

New WikiProject - WikiProject Countries

Hi guys!

After much discussions, the portal namespace was rejected and I was encouraged to use WikiProjects to have so-called portals. It is called WikiProject Countries

You are encouraged to take part! Just maintain it well and it would be all right.

Our aim: To make Wikimedia Foundation be able to allow the portal namespace to be installed in Simple English Wikipedia.

Have fun! Hydriz^{[Discussions needed]} 17:44, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I think they meant make a user page in your userspace. Don't create a user just to be a wikiproject. The whole point is we don't have seperate wikiprojects. We just put pages in our own userspace that others can use as talk space for wikiprojects. -DJSasso (talk) 23:32, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Hey Hydriz! How about adding your Wikiproject to the existing Geography Wikiproject? The topic of your project shows great similarities to this one. The project however islargely inactive, but be bold and bring it back to life! Cheers, The life of brian (talk) 09:49, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

How? I am happy to, but I am unsure about how to do so, can you guide? Hydriz^{[Discussions needed]} 12:40, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

CSS problem for template Cite News

The template {{Cite news}} generates the news article title as an html link. It also outputs the html url address. The url is wrapped in a set of <span class="printonly"></span> tags. This is to display the url only when a printable version of the article is produced. On enwp, MediaWiki:Common.css has a class printonly with attributes display: none;. Simple seems to be missing this class. The result is the raw url link is also displayed in the reference section. For an example, check Indianapolis Motor Speedway, reference link number 10, and compare to en:Indianapolis Motor Speedway, reference link number 10.

It also appears that the other cite template on enwp use the same printonly class. On simple, it look like only news, book, journal, and mailing list use the class. Should the templates be changed, or common.css can be updated?--The Three Headed Knight (talk) 04:37, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

If you undo my last edit to that template I think that will remove the problem, I made the same change to other templates but they were reverted because of the problem you mention. Looks like this one wasn't. But I would rather a fix along the lines of fixing common.css -DJSasso (talk) 19:00, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I would rather see the common.css updated also. What do we need to get this done? --The Three Headed Knight (talk) 21:16, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

UTC Live clock

Resolved. Script and MediaWiki:Common.js updated. Chenzw  Talk  08:10, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Can someone change the code of the UTC Live clock gadget so that it works on vector skin? English Wikipedia has done it, and now we need someone to import it over here. Thanks! Hydriz^♠♣♥♦ 10:55, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Done, unfortunately our MediaWiki:Common.js is breaking stuff. I will be updating that with EN's version soon. Chenzw  Talk  11:05, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Can't we just copy what En has? Hydriz^♠♣♥♦ 11:08, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

It does work on Vector for me... -DJSasso (talk) 11:40, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I imported, last year, Friendly's UTC clock. It's at User:Bsadowski1/friendlyclock.js. --Bsadowski1 19:26, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

The clock works on IE for me but not on Fx4. sonia♫ 04:41, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I have it working fine for me on Firefox. Hazard-SJ ^Talk 04:48, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Yup, everything has been imported and seems to be working fine, so I will mark this as a {{resolved}} for now. Chenzw  Talk  08:10, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh dear. Mine still can't work. I am running Google Chrome. Hydriz^♠♣♥♦ 12:48, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

UPDATE: Now mine can work. I had to personally import from English Wikipedia to my user subpage. Hydriz (talk) 13:29, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Load times

Is anyone else experiencing long load times for pages? It may just be me, but just to make sure. It makes it quite difficult to edit when it takes 30 seconds to load any page. Normandie ^Talk! 11:18, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I am also experiencing the same issue here. But it is more for the English Wikipedia. I don't get long load times here at Simple English Wikipedia. Hydriz^♠♣♥♦ 13:06, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I was experiencing it too. It was sporadic. I think it is the WMF network. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 23:56, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

It takes a long time to load page to me, too, but only when I use Internet Explorer. When I edit with Apple Safari or Mozilla Firefox, it loads in less than a few seconds. I suggest you download a new internet server. :) Warmly, Bella ^{tête-à-tête} 05:28, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

{{Citation}}

Resolved. Woot, looks like this is fixed across the board, hurrah... The Rambling Man (talk) 18:09, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Why does {{citation}} have bare URL's for the |url parameter? I heard that bare URL's are not recommended in VGA's. Thanks, Chemicalinterest (talk) 13:18, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Bare URLs are undesirable full stop. That's one of the reasons for actually using a citation template. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:24, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The citation template uses bare URL's! There is a problem with it. That is what I am trying to say. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 13:28, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm saying "displaying" bare URLs is always undesirable. See ongoing discussion at the enwiki Village Pump. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:31, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

See the first section on this talk page. The templates and most likely Common.css are broken and have been so for atleast a year or more, a couple of us have tried to fix it a few times but none of us seems to have the skill. -DJSasso (talk) 13:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I did an import on the thirteenth of this month, where I also imported one revision of certain templates; see the import log for details. As it turned out, the "import" feature is not too "intelligent" - not to say completely dumb. This broke a number of templates, which I "fixed" by undoing my "import" on these templates. Of course, if the template did not work before my import, it will also not work after I undid my import. Formulate it a bit differently:

• Automatically importing templates attached to a content page may break the templates that are already there--Eptalon (talk) 13:56, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, it was broken long before what you did. I tried to fix it a few months back and someone else tried to fix it a number of months before that. This isn't something new. -DJSasso (talk) 14:10, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

No, well perhaps some advice from enwiki may help us solve it. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:33, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. Bypass your caches on each page where you currently see bare URLs within the citation templates, and it should be fixed. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Yup looks good. -DJSasso (talk) 14:39, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requested pages

Maybe this should be grouped by topic rather than by letter. Many things in Simple start are not very interactive for ESL speakers. Any suggestions before I make a mess? --Chemicalinterest (talk) 21:27, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

At the moment, the list is "very short"; one option may be to clarify each entry; some entries already have "impressionist painter" or similar. Splitting this list by subject area will pose two problems:

• Many more or less empty categories
• A requested page could be part of more than one category, do we list it more than once?

In short, a few keywords behind the entry are probably the easiest solution for now. --Eptalon (talk) 10:01, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I created User:Chemicalinterest/Articles needed for science related articles. It is still in the making. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 15:24, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposed move

IMO, Wikipedia:Announcements should be moved to Wikipedia:Milestones because the page does not have announcements on it; it has certain milestones in the past. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 21:13, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Well those were the announcements. There just hasn't been any recent ones. The page is for announcing milestones. -DJSasso (talk) 15:21, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

Please move Fur Trade to fur trade, unless such capitalization is correct here. Fred Bauder (talk) 22:38, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

 Moved Griffinofwales (talk) 22:39, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism

Does anyone care about how much subtle vandalism there is here that goes undetected? (Not everyone places obscenities all over every page.) I wonder why there isn't a stronger effort to deal with the non-blatant vandals, given that the ones who use foul language, which is trivial to detect, are an easy catch. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.26.141.78 (talk • contribs)

We do actually care, but as you say, it is difficult to spot at times. So if you have information about such vandalism, you can tell us, and we will act on it; you are of course also welcome to create a user account, and start fixing the errors yourself. --Eptalon (talk) 19:30, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I would say as a wiki we are actually one of the better ones at catching everything that comes our way. Unlike english wikipedia where alot slips through. -DJSasso (talk) 11:28, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The IP was blocked as one of the ones causing massive amounts of vandalism. He was referring to an edit made that can be classified as "subtle vandalism". I reverted it. Griffinofwales (talk) 13:18, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Ahh I see. -DJSasso (talk) 13:41, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

WikiLeaks

Since WikiLeaks has become a hot topic over the last days I feel it's a good idea to explain a chat I had with Mike Godwin (the WMF lawyer) about how to use WikiLinks in our articles. We should not quote or cite a WikiLeaks document directly due to legal problems that could occur. If you are planning on using some of the newly "released" information from WikiLeaks the way to do it safely for us is to quote or cite a third party who quotes or cites WL. So, if I wanted to include information about the claimed shooting of an 8-year-old girl by a British soldier, which is one of the events WikiLeaks claims top secret documents show, then I would quote or cite the Mail of Sunday article's treatment of it and what it said, but not the WikiLeaks document directly. fr33kman 14:57, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

move

Please change Gerald Walker (rapper), to simply Gerald Walker (talk)

I moved this to a new section. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 22:30, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Sorry, neither article exists so we cannot move it. Are you on the right encyclopedia. This is Simple English Wikipedia, not English Wikipedia. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 22:30, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

still here...

Been busy, just checking in. Jon@talk:~$ 09:14, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Glad to hear that. :) Warmly, Bella ^{tête-à-tête} 12:25, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

New to Wiki

help would be appreciated :) Cheecheemeranga (talk)Cheecheemeranga--Cheecheemeranga (talk) 08:56, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

You can check out Meta's help. Hydriz (talk) 08:25, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Checking in

Yup, I'm been busy with other things. Frozen Windwant to be chilly? 23:52, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

VGAs

Wow. It's been a while since I popped by, but to see that WP:PVGA has had 11 edits since the beginning of September is shameful. Is this Wikipedia ignoring the idea of promoting good content? Are editors here not asking for help in making decent articles? There are a number of decent editors, most of whom are contactable by email, and it takes maybe 20 minutes to look at some of the candidates for GA/VGA.

If this Wikipedia continues to fail in producing reasonable quality articles, and persists in being a chatroom, I suggest the Wikimedia Foundation switch it off. If you guys want to keep it going, make it useful. I remember the days when one GA/VGA a month was minimum, now it's a rare event and that, frankly, is pathetic and a waste of the resources of this charity. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:41, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Another thing that concerns me is that of the comments on the PVGA, 90% of the article wasn't dealt with. Almost all the comments were on the lead (which was the worst part) and technical concerns, while leading the body (AKA the important part) untouched. That's even more pathetic. OK, I busted my butt on that PVGA and really want it to make the grade, so little COI there, but seriously? Purplebackpack89 00:23, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Can we get a total of 10 improved articles (GA and VGA) till the end of the year? --Eptalon (talk) 11:15, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

You are too pessimistic. I can commend User:Macdonald-ross as one of the biggest contributors, besides me, of course. :) User:Purplebackpack89 also does some good contributions. User:Frozen Wind also does some good edits. I could name a few more, but I am sorry to say that I hardly ever see User:The Rambling Man creating new pages. You may disagree with this, but I believe you have no right to complain about other people's laziness unless you do hard work yourself. WP:NPA may or may not apply here. I am commenting on content by the contributor. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 00:00, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

As I mentioned on your talk page, I don't think going through the GA/VGA process is the best use of my time, personally, but it doesn't mean I haven't done a lot of article work. The same could be said for most users here. Kansan (talk) 00:15, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

• I honestly do not like that comment at all. I dislike the tone, and it seems like a threat. I do agree we need to continue to write good articles, however we are all only volunteers and threatening with the closing of a project because it isn't meeting your standards is just not called for. The other simple projects where shut down per inactivity. Simple wiki is very active, and nominating it for removal would just waste the Wikimedia foundation's time. We are all volunteers, and some of us don't have the time needed to sit down and write a VGA. Writing a VGA or a GA is not easy, and it takes time and dedication. I encourage everybody to write and good article, even you TRM, however I would appreciate that you not threaten the project in such a manner.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 00:42, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
• I agree that it's wrong to call out other editors for not participating; but I also think it's pathetic that an article that isn't that far off basically stagnated for a month on the VGA table. Not everybody need believe in getting articles to milestones, but everyone should believe in making better content Purplebackpack89 01:59, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree we need to write good articles, but using threats doesn't make me want to write articles. It actually scares me away from writing articles. If we are going to work together to write good articles we need to get a long and be constructive. Threats of closure are not constructive in any way.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 18:45, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

The idea behind proposing an article for a given flag is that the community as a whole can work on making that article better. Editors can also work alone, in their corner, improving articles, but the idea of posting it is to get some kind of "peer review". Like with all texts, at some point in time "text blindness" settles in, so this peer review is necessary. As to the current articles talked about I can ocmment about general things at best, because I have little knowledge on the subject. --Eptalon (talk) 10:26, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Well anyway, I posted zinc for WP:VGA and copper(II) sulfate for WP:GA. Feel free to rate them. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 15:12, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

• Rambling Man, as someone who is pretty new around here, I find it really disheartening to see somebody proposing pulling the plug just because of not enough VGA/GA work. That totally ignores all of the incremental improvements going on in many other articles. Yes, 5,000 of the pages are football stubs, but I try to ignore that. I have no interest in another social network and don't see anyone using this as a substitute for Facebook. I consider working on Simple part of my work as a language teacher. Ted (talk) 08:09, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello everyone, just a quick pop in to thank you for at least reacting to a comment I made. The so-called "threat" was nothing other than a suggestion that this Wikipedia focus on making a little quality content rather a ton of mediocre content. My nudge at Facebook was to remind folks that this (or associated IRC) is not a place for smalltalk and chat. I know wholeheartedly that we're all volunteers (if you doubt it, check my total contributions to the charity across this and en-wiki) but a Wikipedia which fails to produce "good" content is a useless one. I'm sorry but 5,000 stubs on footballers is all very well but how useful is it to the "simple English speaker" or the "school child" at which this Wikipedia is aimed? Eptalon and I have not agreed wholeheartedly on too much in the past, but the one thing he has always advocated is a minimum "set of excellence" (Eptalon, forgive my paraphase, and feel free to correct me), in other words, a set of articles which we can use to show "simple English speakers" or "school children" that this is a useful website. I've seen some decent subjects go through to PVGA/PGA but there's no real interest here in getting these articles to an excellent state. I'd love to spend more time helping articles get to GA/VGA (and I know I'm slack, I made 8 reasonably easy VGAs out of our total of 38) but until there's a groundswell of interest in doing this, there's no point. If anyone (and I mean anyone) nominates a GA/VGA, and wants a review, email me. I'll do my best. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:34, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello everyone. To perhaps sum it up, we do have two "standards" for "better-quality articles". Both a "Good Article" and a "Very Good Article" allow to showcase what this Wikipedia community is able to produce. What we should have ideally is "a few" articles going through either process. All I as able to contribute to was the process. I cannot force anyone to follow the respective process, and I also cannot (and do not want to) force people into following the process. What I see is that this wikipedia still has many "lousy" articles (compare rice to its EnWP counterpart to see what I mean). As to your comment, The Rambling Man, it can only agree. The prolbem is that without a community of editors that work on articles to improve them to the respective standard, we will not get to the point where we can tell others: Look, these are the 100 articles that show what is possible to do with "Simple English" (Don't ask what the remaining 64.900 articles look like.) In short, do not hesitate to ask for a review, I'll do what I can. --Eptalon (talk) 20:10, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Greetings, TRM, I haven't seen you for a while around here and glad to see you now. I'm very sorry to disappoint you in our poor lack of VGA/GA work, but I don't think that should lead to "switch[ing] off" the whole community. Besides that, we do much more things than just persisting to use it as a "chatroom" - it's just that there are not enough pages and references to fill in the VGA list. However, I'll try my best to work on the page. I understand your belief in how important nominating and getting articles to become better is to you, as you're one of the once most hardworking user to toil on the project. Because I'm much too unintelligent and dim-witted for VGA work, I usually dwell more over GAs. You can see my recent activity in GAs by this edit, where I left a fairly long list of criticism. I can't guarantee it is any help, but I do want to let you know that the GA/VGA project is not completely collecting dust. Thanks for bringing this subject up on Simple Talk, though. :) Very sincerely, Bella ^{tête-à-tête} 05:22, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Don't mean to annoy, but in respect of your opinion I left a list of comments here as well. Hoping to satisfy in the least, Bella ^{tête-à-tête} 09:00, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

A proposal and some questions

I've been giving this whole discussion some thought and have an idea. I'm still pretty new around here, so apologies in advance if this has already been discussed. I've started to act on my idea already anyway, so if anyone else cares to join in, please!

One problem as I see it is how to best use the scarce time and resources of editors on GA/VGA. I agree with Kansan that often I'd rather work on getting a greater number of articles up to a usable standard than trying to carry each of them through the vetting process.

But, as TRM said there is some value in "a minimum 'set of excellence' … in other words, a set of articles which we can use to show 'simple English speakers' or 'school children' that this is a useful website." We can't make all of the pages excellent, but it might be a good idea to prioritize some articles that visitors are more likely to see and to read. If a new visitor's first experience is a GA or VGA, that would be great.

Here is an example. According to the Telegraph UK, [Twitter] was the 13th most visited page on enWP in 2009. Twitter on Simple ranks 1111 according to these stats[1]. The Twitter article on Simple was a stub and a GA on enWP. To me, that indicates that time spent trying to get content from enWP and simplifying to create a GA here is worthwhile. More visitors may read it.

Of course, a lot of the energy and dedication to create a GA or VGA will come from editors' personal interest and they should follow that. I think I'll keep working on some obscure music pages as well. But, if the idea is to get a set of top quality articles to show the world, working on what web users seem to want would be a good idea too.

I've gone ahead and simplified the intro from enWP and added it to the Simple article for Twitter. I'll work on some other parts later, but if anyone else cares to, the infobox needs work and these sections remain to be done:

1 History 2 Overview 3 Finances 4 Technology 5 t.co 6 Reception

So, my questions. Does anyone else think this is a worthwhile approach? If so, is there a way to get better stats? For example, which of the top 100 good articles visited on enWP are stubs on Simple? Or, even more directly, which of the most-visited articles on Simple are still stubs?

Thanks, Ted (talk) 01:52, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I think there are different possible approaches we can take:

1. Look at some hopefully up-to-date page-view statistcs. This will tell us what people look at the most. If we improve any of those articles, the visitors will be more likely to see a "better-quality" article.
2. Propose a set of articles ourselves. Editors will likely propose articles that fall into "their area of interest". They will therefore be more likely to help improve the article. The set of articles can (but need not) be based on school curricula.
3. Agree on some "broad theme" of articles to improve in a given time period, eg. "Arts, of the last 300-500 years". Articles about a composer, like Georg Philipp Telemann, or a painter like Vincent van Gogh might in the long run catch more hits than articles like the Iran-Iraq War or the First Indochina War, and definitely more hits than Twitter, as these are more likely to be covered in a curriculum.

What we must do is probably to find a mix between all three approaches:

• If we focus too much on the first, we will sooner or later need to improve sexuality-related articles. If I look at what the "regulars" edit, such articles are quite low on the list; they are loved by vandals though.Another problem may be the different audience: The EnWP audience is different from the SEWP audience.
• The second apporach will probably mean a lot of arguing what articles should be part of the list. I have written a few articles which I will likely never see ascend to GA or VGA, because the subject of the article is too specialized for our small community.
• The third approach bears the problem that work on GA/VGA takes a lot of time. Would you want to spend the next two months with one broad "theme", which you may not even be interested in?

Statistics as the "top 100 articles" which are VGA/GA-equivalent on en and not VGA/GA here may be interesting, as well as "100 most visited stubs/articles below a given size (5k)". Collecting such stats would mean that a specialized bot need to be developed.Before acting, it would be interesting to know what the other regulars think. --Eptalon (talk) 10:04, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Eptalon. Thanks for the thoughtful responses and the information too. I don't know anything about bot creation or the system that makes SEWP work, so even if others agree, I'd have to ask someone else to contribute their time and effort to make such a bot. I whole-heartedly agree that a mix of approaches is best. There are just so many pages that need improvement, I wanted to see where I could do the most good. Too much of anything and an approach based on rules would be a failure.

• You're right that it would be pointless to be bound by hits and just edit sexuality articles or the latest celebrity scandal. Maybe Twitter is just a passing interest for people, but I had to start somewhere ;-) Editors would always have to use good judgement in connection with some stats to help point them in a useful direction.
• The second approach of setting a list for editors to follow would lead to disagreement. But, maybe that is what each of us does for ourselves and that seems to work just fine for improving articles. As much as I hope The Heartbreakers will someday be a GA, I very much doubt anybody else cares.
• And the third of setting a theme would leave people out or could bore people. On the other hand, creating a coherent group of GAs would be great. With the "Make a book" function, teachers and students could really get a lot out of it.

So, we won't really know until we can see some numbers, but I suspect the "100 most visited stubs/articles below a given size (5k)" might give people a useful direction. Knowing your work will be read by many can be a very motivating force. It couldn't hurt anyway. Comparison between EnWP and SEWP is comparing different audiences, but I wonder how different they are? School age children might be very different in what they need, but adult ESL learners maybe not so much.

Anyone else have thoughts on this? Thanks, Ted (talk) 01:02, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

One more thought! Using the stats page[2], I found that The Beatles is the 269th most visited page and is also a bit of a mess--marked as complex and in need of clean up. It needs help for sure. (There must be some Beatles fans on SEWP, right?) Maybe a bot that could identify frequently visited pages tagged as needing wikifying or simplification would be one way to identify articles that are especially worth spending time prepping for GA. Just a thought. Ted (talk) 01:44, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Dear Ted, I'd love to get a set of our better Simple articles. :) It's something I've wanted for a long time as well. Eptalon's comments are also insightful and interesting. Hmm...what about, instead of our most-wanted articles, we focus on some of our most important articles? It would be of interest to both children and ESL readers, I think. My editing in science/medicine/sexuality will most probably be very limited, but I'd love to help with articles around art and literature, especially people—they simply fascinate me. :) Speaking of which, I'll go see if I can help in Vincent van Gogh. Love, —Clementina talk 12:57, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

We should improve articles according to this list (slightly out of date), of course. Albacore (talk) 13:11, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Clementina and Albacore. Both of those lists are really useful. They would be even more useful if editors could get some information about the status of each article linked in the list. If editors could quickly know which of those articles needed the most attention, it would be great. For example, if the articles in the "Vital" list that were stubs were marked as such, that would help. Likewise with the stats info. But, both lists are good places to start. The stats page showed me Human rights ranked at 70, and Vital gave me Jorge_Luis_Borges with just some clicking around. Both of these would be interesting and really valuable to work on, I Think. Anyone else find something interesting on those lists? Thanks, Ted (talk) 10:56, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to boldly try to assess the quality of the "Vital" articles, roughly using the system I've seen on the English Wiki talk pages. I think it's seriously important that we focus on these articles. I'm new here, and what struck me most was the amount of poorly written articles on minor subjects and the lack of good articles on some really major subjects. Why? (talk) 21:39, 28 October 2010 (UTC)