Primarysorcerer

Simple Language Editors?

Hello! I have some questions for you regarding Simple English Wikipedia. Answers and insights into any of the following are helpful:

How many users use the simple english wikipedia?

How did you get started with simple english? Why is Simple English important to have?

What is the process for translating a page into simple english? How do you do it?

What is painstaking about this process of english to simple english translation? What tools (if any) do you use?

Do you know of any other projects on wikipedia to make pages in other simple languages (e.g., simple german)? Primarysorcerer (talk) 19:53, 16 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) 10:21, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

My specific experience is a bit different from the others'. I got blocked from the English Wikipedia (long story) and had to go to other projects to contribute. It is a long and painful story. SEWP has a specific policy stating that this project is not for blocked English Wikipedia users to go to prove themselves and so get unblocked, so I can only imagine that there used to be a problem with blocked-on-en.wiki editors doing that. All I can say is that I did well here. I made the decision that every single edit I made here on SEWP had to be first about SEWP and its readers and if it also helped me out with my other problems, that would be good side effect. Early on in my time here, an admin proactively informed me of SEWP's WP:ONESTRIKE policy, but other than that, my block status on en.wiki has only rarely even been mentioned here. So my interest in Simple English started because of that.

Why is simple English important to have? The two obvious audiences are 1) English language learners and 2) kids, but there are also two not-so-obvious audiences. 3) People who looked at the Regular English article and went "WHAT the?! Oh no no no this is way too complicated. I'm outta here!" In fact, there is a debate on en.wiki about whether every article should be written to be accessible for everyone or whether it is okay for some articles to be too complicated for some readers. SEWP is the obvious solution to that problem: Make a Simple English companion article for every complex subject and make it obvious that the companion article exists. 4) Adults with cognitive issues. I know someone who has been struggling with chronic disease that gives them brain fog, and when I mentioned that SEWP existed, their eyes just lit up. They were thrilled that there was a place they could go to catch up. Given that COVID-19 can give people long-term cognitive issues, SEWP might turn out to be more important than we thought.

Not everyone here on SEWP makes translations/counterpart articles the same way. I realized early that it was much, much easier for me to write in Simple English if I didn't do a translation. Most of my original articles, even the ones that already had en.wiki versions, are written from scratch. When I see the en.wiki version and it's already using just the right word, I can't help but think, "Ah, I could never replace that word! It's just right!" but when I write the article without an en.wiki text first, I find that coming up with alternate ways to say things is almost easy.

I use my gizmo! When I was helping with the Wiki Loves Women article writing contests, I used an online complexity checker to assess readability: [1] Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:51, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

I am going to keep this short and concise to answer your questions in a simple matter.

1. There are currently 1,248,157 users as seen on the Statistics page but only 1,084 (including you and I) are active members also according to the statistics page.
2. Similar to the user above me, I was blocked on the English Wikipedia for sockpuppetry. In order to get myself unblocked from the English Wikipedia, I had to follow the instructions stated for the Standard offer. I made many good contributions here and eventually was unblocked from the English Wikipedia. Ironically, I barely use the English Wikipedia and prefer to help edit here instead due to the many issues and lack of editors other projects have.
3. (Continuation of 2.) Like many other projects in the Wikimedia Foundation, we need different language encyclopedias and the Simple English Wikipedia happens to be one of them. A main purpose of this wiki is to help young children, people who are new to the English language, etc. You can read more about it here.
4. There are many ways to translate articles. You can use the Content Translator or you can simply completely remake an article from another project with more simple sentences and words.
5. It's painstaking to have to completely revamp the article and with the Content Translator unlike others due to the lack of use and editors it does not have the same features as other projects.
6. Yes! There is the Simple English Wikitionary(which is a translated version of the English Wikitionary dictionary). We also have Simple English Wikibooks with many textbooks and resources in Simple English. Not to my knowledge, do we have any other languages.

I hope that answered all your questions, good luck on your wiki journey! Happy editing! SoyokoAnis - talk 04:41, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

It depends on what you mean by "use". Read-only statistics are usually published by the WMF, but I'd estimate the average editor count is perhaps 50 per day.

I found it in the languages box. I think it's useful both for English language learners and for people who want something explained without jargon.

It's not usually called "translating" and more "simplifying". This process usually involves trying to eliminate Complex English using BE 1500. Some people say it also means making the page simpler as in shorter and not as complex with tables etc, other people say it's just about the language.

Trying to simplify certain concepts especially when they are repeated. Plus some words are just unavoidable. Sometimes you can either use them anyway or link to Simple English Wiktionary (which is the only reason it even exists). One tool that exists is xkcd.com/simplewriter but I haven't used it in a while.

There aren't currently any other Simple languages. Simple English is barely surviving as it is. Infact, out of the 4 Simple English wikis that have ever existed, two of them have been closed. Simple English Wikibooks and Simple English Wikiquote are no more. The only ones remaining are Simple English Wikipedia (that's this!) and Simple English Wiktionary (only exists because Simple English Wikipedia heavily relies on it-- much more than the English Wikipedia). And people aren't too happy about the Simple English Wikipedia, and there have been many proposals to close it. These proposals usually revolve around the way the project is being ran, though, not the concept of Simple English. I think other Simple languages would help people, but sadly they're not going to happen anytime soon, if ever. Naleksuh (talk) 04:43, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• As SoyokoAnis points out, there are 1,248,157 users and 1,084 "active" members. However I find that there are 30-40 people around who you'll see on noticeboards and making lots of edits in Special:RecentChanges.
• I had an account on the English Wikipedia for a while, and while looking in the other languages section on wikipedia.org, I noticed Simple English, and liked the idea of it. I think this Wikipedia can be useful for a lot of people whose native language isn't English.
• I will usually start off with an article from enwiki and try simplifying it from there. I don't translate the whole article, maybe 50% of it at the very most. I use BE 1500 to simplify the article and then https://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp - ideally articles should be grade 8 or less.
• There is Simple English Wiktionary, as others have pointed out, that exists to help Simple English Wikipedia and it only has entries for English words. There are plans for a Simple French Wikipedia – m:Requests for new languages/Wikipedia French Simple 3 – but I'm not sure how much progress has been made on that.

Thanks, --Ferien (talk) 12:14, 19 November 2022 (UTC)