John Vandenberg

Welcome to Simple English Wikipedia

Hi, John Vandenberg, welcome to Simple English Wikipedia! Thank you for your changes. If you need help, check out the Help section of Wikipedia, or leave a message on my talk page. Whenever leaving messages on talk pages, please remember to sign your name by typing four 'tildes' (like this: ~~~~); doing this makes your name and the date show up. Also, it helps if you write something in the box that says 'change summary' whenever you change an article. Below are some useful links to make your time here simpler. Happy changing! Peterdownunder (talk) 04:51, 6 November 2012 (UTC) Getting Started How to: change a page • write simple English articles • A guide for users of the English Wikipedia Getting Help Administrators • Ask for help from administrators Policies and Guidelines Neutral point of view • Verifiability Citing sources • What Wikipedia is not Copyrights • Image use policy • How to copy from another Wikipedia Spam • Vandalism • Deletion policy The Community Assume good faith • Be kind Community Portal • Simple talk • TASERING Announcements • IRC channels • Mailing lists Things to do Cleanup Other Useful templates • Stubs

Peterdownunder (talk) 04:51, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks mate! ;-) John Vandenberg (talk) 10:13, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

It's good to see you here :)--Peterdownunder (talk) 10:19, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Its good to finally be welcomed after four years, and double plus good for it to be by an Aussie who happens to be a sysop here. p.s. if you're interested in meeting up with Victorians, they are holding a meetup next month for the wmau:Meeting:2012 AGM. It would be a good opportunity to outreach to English Wikipedians, and maybe discuss about how WMAU could support Simple. ;-) Or you could organise a AGM teleconference venue in Ballarat and invite your neighbours. (if two Wikimedians attend, WMAU pays for the call costs). I know at least one person who would almost certainly make the trip to Ballarat from regional NSW "just because". We organised a AGM meetup in Bathurst last year, with attendees from all over NSW travelling six+ hours to get there. It would be neat to have a venue outside the capital cities again this year.

Back on topic, I hope to drop in here more often. I am (slowly) learning Indonesian, and it helps to write simple English versions before trying to translate to Indonesian. Has Simple Wikipedia found a vocabulary to use to standardise/restrict its content? John Vandenberg (talk) 10:58, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I have made it to a couple of Melbourne meetups this year. In regard to the vocab, this seems to go round in circles with little movement forward. I tried for a while to stick to the Basic 850 but that was almost impossible. I use the Wikipedia:Basic English combined wordlist as much as possible. User:Lwyx has made a Simple English dictionary which uses about 4000 words. This is available as a Firefox language which means it works as a spellchecker for non simple words. I use this as it makes writing so much easier. For example it has just highlighted couple, meetups, vocab, movement, impossible, wordlist, available, Firefox and spellchecker in this thread. There is still arguing about readability checkers such as the Flesch Kincaid scores. I use them quite a bit as they can measure progress made in simplifying an article. I have just read Flesch's book and even he says it is a rough guide only. However the project has made great gains and if vandalism is any indication it is being used by schools around the world. At the I am trying to make sure we have a good coverage of topics from the new Australian National Curriculum. --Peterdownunder (talk) 11:54, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Excuse me for butting in. Just thought I'd mention that science bods feel they must use some technical terms not on Simple lists, providing they are explained either a) on the page, b) via links, c) have pages of their own, or d) via wikt. The alternative would be to gloss over so much that the articles would not represent the topic properly. We agree that topics need simplifying, often a great deal; but still they should be accurate as possible. I'd like to see anyone explain Alternative splicing in the Simple 850 words, and still keep the science accurate... Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:52, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Please copy to enwp

Selamat siang John,

Can you please copy the following across to enwp:

• http://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jean_Dunn&oldid=4560141 to Jean Dunn

• https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Heidi_Bootle&oldid=4560235 to Heidi Bootle

• http://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Patricia_Holmes&oldid=4560254 to Patricia Holmes (diplomat)

If you copy the diffs as noted, it will include the templates which are currently on en.wp.

Terima kasih Russavia (talk) 04:07, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Done; {{DFAT-text}} is a great addition. Well found! John Vandenberg (talk) 05:56, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks John, could you do the following too please:

• http://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Greg_Wilcock&oldid=4562962 to Greg Wilcock

• http://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Louise_Hand&oldid=4562966 to Louise Hand