Wikipedia:An English Wikipedian's guide

The Simple English Wikipedia has a different target audience and a smaller community. Hence, many things are different. Here's what you need to know to start editing (we call it changing) pages here:

Simple English

This Wikipedia is for anyone with limited English skills. That includes children, people with learning disabilities, people learning English, and those wanting to read articles in simpler English for any reason. Because of this, all language on this Wikipedia should be as simple as possible. If there are words you cannot simplify further, a useful thing to do is to link them like this: [[wikt:Wordhere|]] which will link it to its definition in Simple English Wiktionary. Before using this method, please make sure there is an entry in Simple English Wiktionary.

Some helpful pages:

• A guide to writing in Simple English
• Copying from the English Wikipedia

The way things work

Many of our policies and processes are similar to that of English Wikipedia. In fact, should there be a need to implement any policies that we don't appear to have a policy page for, we follow English Wikipedia, but as a guideline, never policy.

Here are some things that are different on this Wikipedia:

• Image uploads are not permitted here. Please upload to Wikimedia Commons instead. Fair-use images cannot be used on this Wikipedia.
• There are no portals here.
• If you are making many minor edits (called "small changes" here), please request the flood flag at the Administrators' Noticeboard to prevent flooding recent changes (new changes). Many users here rely on watching the new changes feed to revert vandalism, and a long stretch of minor changes makes this difficult.
• WikiProjects are usually created in the Userspace, rather than in the Wikipedia/Project space.
• Before creating a category, please be sure that there are at least three things ready to go into it right away. These can include articles, templates, and other categories. See Wikipedia:Categories#Is there a need for the new category? for more information.
• Stubs are managed differently here. We have very few stub templates and categories. See Wikipedia:Simple Stub Project for more information.
• We have a couple of different standard headings. Instead of "See also", we use "Related pages". Instead of "External links", we use "Other websites".

Quick deletion

Our Criteria for speedy deletion (which we call quick deletion) are slightly different.

• Note that A2 and A3 have been changed around.
• Articles brought from English Wikipedia with no signs of simplification, no {{inuse}}, and no attribution to their original location ({{enwp based}}) will be deleted.
• A7 has become our A4, and A6 is slightly different from G3. A5 is simple: Not written in English? Delete.

Did you know

Unlike the English Wikipedia, there are no strict rules about date or expansion for Did you know (DYK) here. However, articles must be neutral and accurate while maintaining simple language, and the hook must be interesting and sourced. Nothing surprising there. Also, articles can be nominated more than once, as long as the hooks are different and the time between each nomination is long enough - usually about four months.

Article Maintenance

We do not have a Requests for Page Protection Page instead, requests can be posted on the Administrators Noticeboard. We also do not use pending changes protection here. See the protection policy.

What Simple English Wikipedia is not

An excerpt from WP:What Wikipedia is not: Some special rules need to be used for the Simple English Wikipedia.

1. Simple English Wikipedia is not another English Wikipedia. English Wikipedia has pages written in hard-to-read English, for people who can read English very well. Simple English is not the right place to copy the same articles again using the same words. Instead, we write using simple words so that people from every language can read the pages easily and understand them.
2. Simple English Wikipedia is not just for people who can speak English. It is written in English, but we try to make articles simple enough so that people who are learning English can read it. If an article is here, it should be interesting to people around the world. We have many rules about what should and should not be kept in this encyclopedia.
3. Simple English Wikipedia is not a place for banned users to try to get unbanned from another website. Simple English Wikipedia is a separate Wikipedia in its own right. Note that the Simple English Wikipedia has a one-strike rule regarding blocked or banned users from other Wikipedias.
4. Simple English Wikipedia is not a children's Wikipedia. Children are part of the target audience, but Wikipedia is not censored and there may be articles or images that are not appropriate for children.

Red links

We usually keep red links in articles. When bringing over articles from English Wikipedia, take note of links that were blue there but have turned red here. Check to see if the linked content has a slightly different or simpler name here, or if the subject is covered here in an article with a broader scope, and correct the link if this is the case. If the content does not seem to exist on this Wikipedia, leave the red link in place. Red links help us know what articles we most need to create. They are used by automated tools to help us track and prioritize article creation on Simple English Wikipedia.

Need help?

• Simple talk serves as our help desk, reference desk, and village pump.
• For more specific requests, go to SPI (Requests for checkuser), AIV (Vandalism in progress) and the Administrators' noticeboard.
• #wikipedia-simple ^connect is our IRC channel.
• info-simplewikipedia.org is our OTRS queue/email.
• #simple-english-wikipedia is our Discord Server Channel.