Wikipedia:Simple talk

Simple talk
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Lusatian – New Marchian dialects

I have started a discussion on Talk:Lusatian – New Marchian dialects. The German interwiki de:Lausitzisch-Neumärkisch is a redirect to the interwiki of North Upper Saxon. The talk page of the last mentioned page is de:Diskussion:Nordobersächsisch-Südmärkisch. It casts great doubts on the concept of Lusatian – New Marchian dialects. Kind regards, Sarcelles (talk) 06:40, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Language is a thing they speak. It is one of the ways to get ideas across. From where I live (no, not the northeast of Germany), I can tell you that dialects can be very localized (in the sense that about 10km away, the dialect is different). Also, some dialects have no written form, and esp. in German, there are many regional varieties (some as far away as Romania, Paraguay, Namibia,...). So if you think that this is not a valid entry we can delete it. On the other hand, the source cited is from 1970, over 50 years ago. Don't you think that in two generations, a language or dialect changes? - With the additional problem that likely no one records that change, as we are talking about a language that is mostly spoken, and not written down? - Note I am not a language scientist, and I live too far away from there to give first-hand evidence. Eptalon (talk) 09:21, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Lusatian – New Marchian dialects is a very unusual word. Though taken by me from scholarly literature, it hardly is used outside numerous Wikipedias. de:Diskussion:Nordobersächsisch-Südmärkisch#Unbekannte Dialektgruppe is a discussion of the term. It was not started by me. Peter Wiesinger: Phonetisch-phonologische Untersuchungen zur Vokalentwicklung in den deutschen Dialekten. volume 2. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1970 (Studia Linguistica Germanica 2), p. 343/344 has the following division of South Markish: 1. From Mulde river to the former Sorbian area. 2. The formerly Sorbian area from Ruhland-Finsterwalde-Luckau-Buchholz to about Lusatian Neisse river 3. a formerly Low German area in the area of Oder and Warta rivers. p. 341 has Osterlandish around Leipzig and Anhaltian around Halle and Köthen among the varieties of Upper Saxon.

Apart from redirects, this term is used in neither the other English-language Wikipedia nor the German one. Additionally, my search of both the English and the German term on Commons yielded no results. Sarcelles (talk) 11:21, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

 (change conflict)  Then it must be some sort of neologism only used on Wikipedia. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 17:28, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

@Sarcelles: If we delete it, or replace it with a redirect, where should that redirect go? - As I understand, it is/was one of the dialects spoken "around Berlin". According to DEWP, all of them have been replaces by a "more standard" variety from Berlin. Don't askl me, I am not a linguist. If I look up "lausitz", big cities there are Kottbus (100k), Görlitz (57k, 87k if you also count the Polish part (Zgorelec), Bautzen (38k). Eptalon (talk) 10:14, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

South Markish is another word. Sarcelles (talk) 04:08, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

would it be better to use South markish/Südmärkisch then? I am not a linguist, and in the 50+ years since that publication, naming can change too. Is there a recent (since 2000 or so) publication that uses that classification? Eptalon (talk) 22:03, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Blocking proxies

Why do people block proxies. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 07:17, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Please read m:No open proxies. MathXplore (talk) 07:20, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

I cannot use meta because of parental controls. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 16:28, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Just explain it to me in worde, why are proxies always blocked. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 14:57, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

m:No_open_proxies#Rationale says "Because MediaWiki (the wiki software) depends on IP addresses for administrator intervention against abuse, open proxies allow users to completely circumvent administrators. The use of scripts or unapproved bots allow malicious users to rapidly rotate IP addresses, causing continuous disruption that cannot be stopped by helpless administrators. Several such attacks have occurred on Wikimedia projects, causing heavy disruption and occupying administrators who would otherwise deal with other concerns." (oldid) Does this answer your question? MathXplore (talk) 07:19, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes.

So vandals circumvent blocks using open proxies.

But what is an "open" proxy. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 09:45, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

In this case "open" means "can be used by anyone". MathXplore (talk) 12:56, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

I noticed that we have a document like Wikipedia:Open proxies. MathXplore (talk) 07:45, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Your wiki will be in read-only soon

Read this message in another language • Please help translate to your language

The Wikimedia Foundation will switch the traffic between its data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

All traffic will switch on 20 September. The test will start at 14:00 UTC.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.

• You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Wednesday 20 September 2023.
• If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:

• Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
• We expect the code deployments to happen as any other week. However, some case-by-case code freezes could punctually happen if the operation require them afterwards.
• GitLab will be unavailable for about 90 minutes.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens. Please share this information with your community.

Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 09:24, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Oh no! Read-only!? Why??? 88.110.38.249 (talk) 09:35, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

The message explains why. the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. [...] Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. --Ferien (talk) 15:29, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Oh, but that does not stop it being scary. 88.110.38.249 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:29, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

How is it scary, may I ask? --Ferien (talk) 20:11, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

I like editing. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 06:57, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Pending changes protection on the administrator's noticeboard

Why is the page in question pending changes protected, the page is rarely, if ever, vandalised. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 15:06, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Pending changes protection doesn't exist on this wiki so that is impossible. --Ferien (talk) 15:28, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

So why can't I see my own changes after editing the administrator's noticeboard. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 16:24, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

I cannot see my edits on the administrator noticeboard, why is that. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 08:36, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

The issues you are having may be on your side. I have not seen you publish any edits to the admins noticeboard since before you posted this talk message. --Ferien (talk) 20:10, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Three identical templates

• {{See also cat}}
• {{Category see also}}
• {{Cat see also}}

I believe they should be combined into one as they fulfil the same function? Solidest (talk) 15:55, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Neptune is now a Very good article...

Hello all, I just promoted Neptune to the status of Very Good Article. It is aomng the best this community can create. Thank you to all who contributed... Eptalon (talk) 18:17, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Looks good. Bobherry Talk My Changes 18:18, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Template:Wikipedia policies and guidelines

Do you think this template could be adjusted to correctly list pages as guidelines, policies or neither? An explanation is on the talk page: Template talk:Wikipedia policies and guidelines Kk.urban (talk) 03:03, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

WP:TALK#CREATE

is there not a qd criteria for this? ஃ (talk) 20:03, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

ஃ, nope, because once talk pages are created, there is no need for them to be deleted. Deleting them could discourage users from recreating them and starting discussions in the future. I occasionally delete talk pages created by banned users, and of course ones that do not have a corresponding main page, but that is all. --Ferien (talk) 20:06, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

ok thanks ஃ (talk) 20:09, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Should there be a QD criteria for talk pages not having a corresponding main page, as the other case of talk page deletion is covered by G5. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 15:33, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

I think this is qd G8 ஃ (talk) 16:53, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

@Ferien Auntof6 deleted talk pages because of talk create. is this not okay? if it is okay I think this should be qd criteria ஃ (talk) 18:02, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn't do it myself, but of course, it's up to other admins to decide. I'll ping Auntof6 here if she wants to comment. It is worth noting that if it's the IP I'm thinking of, this is likely a case where talk pages were created for redirects that would probably never get comments, so it doesn't matter too much either way. --Ferien (talk) 18:35, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

OK no problem ஃ (talk) 20:47, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Hoax about leader of "Cabinet of ..."?

This country in particular, might need attention, in regard to who is the leader.--Please move this post 'to a better place', once it has been established, that the article has no mistake (or 'no longer' has mistake) that is damaging to Simple-wiki, about who is the leader of that country.--If this post was helpful, then fine. 2001:2020:309:5DF3:C44B:47E0:9749:EC2F (talk) 17:55, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

I'd recommend importing from enwiki and simplifying fr33kman 18:41, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Importing. Well, please take (another?) look at the complex English-wiki article. (Hint: "first deputy minister of ...", "second deputy minister of ...")--Additional recommendation: do not import any names, without checking the individual en-wiki articles, to ensure that the person is not listed there, as being previous minister.--Better yet: close this discussion here, and move it to relevant page. 2001:2020:331:F8AD:3CC2:D9A5:E884:1D00 (talk) 19:39, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

•  Done/ Done. (See simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cabinet_of_Afghanistan&oldid=9079414 ).--Regarding the En-wiki article: it seems that not all the incumbents, are correct.--Regarding the Simple-wiki article: no Hoax, however, our update is up to two months belated/'outdated'.--Can administrator (now), please close this discussion (and link to appropriate talk page)? Thank you in advance. 2001:2020:331:F8AD:3CC2:D9A5:E884:1D00 (talk) 19:24, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

New Template

Hey, can anyone tell me how to make a new template because I wanna make some related to 'bio-stubs'...!

And if there's any criteria like only administrators can make or other...? Faraz Sualeh (talk) 20:29, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

The question is very vague in that "how" to make a template depends heavily on what you want the template to do. Is it for navigation? does it need to just state something> does it react to parameters? does it do math? there are many many things a template can be used for. To make one, all of these things need to be looked at. The only constant is that they are put into the template namespace, but that is jumping the gun.

As to who can make one - There are no limits there. At first, the template should be worked out in the persons userspace to be certain it works as expected before being put into the template name space. It would also be a good idea to get outside opinions on the template before releasing it to ensure it is a good idea and there is a use for it.

depending on the technological needs for the template, the creator may want to limit what they personally are qualified to work with. For example, I have some experience with many parts of template creation but others (LUA) are beyond me so I do not work on templates that need those aspects. Pure Evil (talk) 22:00, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

thanks for the info btw it's just to state something... like the following:

{{sports-bio-stub}}

{{Template:User citizen India}} Faraz Sualeh (talk) 05:38, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

@Faraz Sualeh: As far as bio stub templates, or any stub templates. be aware that new stub templates need to be approved before being created. We don't keep as many kinds of stub categories here as English Wikipedia does. -- Auntof6 (talk) 06:19, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Oh i see and what about Template:User citizen ..... (Country name) there are many templates of various countries that are not available like I need a template of Yemen🇾🇪 but it's not available so I wanna make so how can I...? Faraz Sualeh (talk) 15:34, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

@Faraz Sualeh: You can use an existing template as a pattern. If the template you want exists on English Wikipedia, you can copy it from there or ask the admins to import it for you. -- Auntof6 (talk) 18:08, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Okay thanks✨ Faraz Sualeh (talk) 18:50, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Linking dates

Back some time (over a decade past) is was decided that we would no longer link dates - neither year (1023) or day (13 October). Was an exception to this practice made for the chronological pages (ex. 2013 or August 1) as on them, all the dates, in either day or year format, are linked? Pure Evil (talk) 21:49, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

As I remember it, it was for years and dates (I've slept since then mind you) fr33kman 22:04, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, those have been exceptions. Our guideline says this

"Wikilinks: It is not necessary to add wikilinks to all dates, like this: "[[25 March]] [[2004]]" or "[[February 10]]"). Only add a wikilink if you think the reader will find useful information at the date-related article you have linked to."

Enwiki's guideline at en:WP:DATELINK gives more detailed information. Part of it says:

"However, in intrinsically chronological articles (1789, January, and 1940s), links to specific month-and-day, month-and year, or year articles are not discouraged."

I think the day articles are intrinsically chronological.

Hope that helps. -- Auntof6 (talk) 23:16, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Well said! That's how I remember it as well. fr33kman 23:32, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

So there is no actual opinions. Neither actually says anything. Our MoS says to link if you think is is a good idea so anyone can link any date anywhere if they think it could be useful. And En's words of wisdom are that they are not saying to not do it. They are not saying is should be done, only that they are not saying they are against it.. that useful. Neither says it is an exception to the way things are done, only that it is not disallowed to be an exception.

I could have sworn we formed the consensus to not link dates but the MoS states that is not the case - it is entirely a matter of personal choice under all circumstances. Pure Evil (talk) 00:55, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

I guess since it's just hypertext in the end we might as well link what you want. Just so long as there are not more links than less links in the final version. I guess it's link if the result is a blue link, don't link if the result is a red-link. Or ... once again, the guideline is "do what you want" Surprise, surprise lol. fr33kman 01:57, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

I just tend to favor picking a stance and sticking to it yet these guidelines do not pick a side. Even as guidelines are only suggestions on how to do something which probably should be followed, I think they should actually suggest something.. as such Pure Evil (talk) 22:43, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Proposed wording change

What I suggest is to adjust for the following itea:

• Generally speaking, linking dates should not be done unless such a link provides important information for the article. This applies to both years and days but not to specially named days (April Fools day, St Patrick's Day, etc)
• chronologically based pages are except from this. Dates on these pages are normally linked.

Short, simple, do not do this, do do that. If further consensus is found to add other exceptions, that is easy to do.

This does not seem to change what our policy was intended to be. It also adheres to what the En. policy pretends to be, but it states directly what should be done or not done rather than remain very vague. Pure Evil (talk) 22:43, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Soft redirect to Wiktionary

The page Snitch is a redirect to Harry Potter, but that's not the most common meaning of the word. Can I make it a soft redirect to Wiktionary? Kk.urban (talk) 19:07, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

No, a redirect to Wiktionary would not be appropriate. If we have other articles that use the word a disambiguation page could be made. Otherwise keep it as it is. We're an encyclopedia not a dictionary. :) fr33kman 19:18, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

What are the chances that if somebody searches "snitch", they're looking for something in Harry Potter? I think it's pretty low. But there are no articles here to disambiguate. So the redirect is harmful. Kk.urban (talk) 19:22, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

If I create a disambiguation page, somebody will probably delete it. Kk.urban (talk) 19:23, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

If you think that the redirect is harmful then bring it to RfD but a link to another project is definitely inappropriate. fr33kman 19:23, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Something tells me soft redirects to wiktionary have been done before. I may be thinking about enwiki. Can't find it at the moment, but I thought it may be worth putting that out there. --Ferien (talk) 20:33, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm positive they have but I think it's wrong to do so. fr33kman 20:35, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree that soft redirects to Wiktionary aren't a good idea because:

• They hide red links that can help us see what articles we need.
• Many English words have more than one meaning and people in our target audience could have difficulty figuring out which definition in the Wiktionary entry applies.
• It makes readers have to go to another site to understand the article.

Better options, IMO:

• Link to an appropriate article here, if there already is one.
• Create an article here.
• Use different, simple words in place of the linked term.
• Leave the term redlinked.

Just my thoughts. -- Auntof6 (talk) 00:09, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Officially there are three though there are likely many more that do not do so properly and so are not tracked. Category:Redirects to Wiktionary tracks those linked by the template but that seems to only be used 3 times so far. side note: there is also a cat (with matching template) for terms that need to be moved to wiktionary. Pure Evil (talk) 21:25, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Bot job

Category:Taxoboxes with an unrecognised status system contains.. well the name say is. the cat has 270 some entries. The list is almost exclusively cases with IUNC 3.1Q listed as the system. Problem is that the system does not recognize that system. I spot checked several of the articles on En and each one was 3.1 which the system does accept. The change is simple for a bot or similar:

 replace: | status_system = IUCN3.1Q   <== what we have)
 with:    | status_system = IUCN3.1    <== what En says it should be)

there are a few articles in the cat that have other system name issues that will need a hands on approach but this will do most of the heavy lifting. Pure Evil (talk) 22:23, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, either a bot or other semi-automated method would be best. I don't fancy doing 270 manual edits by myself but if we could arrange 3-4 editors I'd be willing to do it manually. fr33kman 01:01, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

I've done the 'A's. Need help or a bot. fr33kman 01:10, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Windows Home Server

Should we delete the page since it is a disambiguation page without any relevant articles existing on this wiki?- FusionSub (Talk page) (Contributions) 10:51, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Modified version of Twinkle.

• user:기나ㅏㄴ/test.js
• Wikipedia talk:Twinkle#Patch for contributions page revert bug

A few weeks ago on Discord, I raised an issue about the simplewiki-Twinkle bug. First, I fixed the problematic twinkle rollback on the user's contribution page. Today I fixed a few things about the error message when reverting. See the second link for more information. I tested it on test2wiki, but more testing is needed. Until mediawiki:Gadget-Twinkle.js is fixed, please test my fix to make sure there are no errors. Please paste the following code into Special:MyPage/common.js.

mw.loader.using(['mediawiki.util', 'jquery.ui']).then(function() {
	importStylesheet('MediaWiki:Gadget-morebits.css');
	return mw.loader.getScript('https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Gadget-morebits.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');
}, function(err) {
	console.log(err);
}).then(function() {
	return mw.loader.getScript('https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:기나ㅏㄴ/test.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');
}, function(err) {
	console.log(err);
});

You will need to turn off Twinkle in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. I hope my fix is helpful to SimpleWiki:) Thank you --ginaan(T/C) 15:34, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

DYK Queues

I would like to propose that we add an eighth queue. The holding area currently has about 3-4 queues worth of hooks, and this number is increasing more than it is decreasing. We need another queue to hold some of these hooks. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:35, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Why do you need another queue? Instead of that you could update it more often when there are more hooks, and at the current speed when there are less hooks, without needing to post here every time the speed changes. So either 2,3, or 4 times a month depending on available backlog. As long as 4-5 queues remain full at all times, it shouldn't be a problem. Kk.urban (talk) 16:42, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

That sounds like a very good idea! So, to clarify, the admins would update it faster when the backlog is bigger? That makes sense. QuicoleJR (talk) 17:14, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, exactly! Kk.urban (talk) 17:35, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

It's increasing because I'm back ... yeah! fr33kman 16:45, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

To be honest, I'm not even sure we need a seventh queue - it was originally created for a daily DYK system but we would likely never have enough editors for that idea. Instead, the frequency of DYK can be increased, as Kk.urban says, although it's important to increase the frequency gradually so we don't burn through all our hooks. Having too many hooks in the holding area is a good "problem" to have IMO, as it gives us plenty of hooks to cover a variety of topics in the specific queues. --Ferien (talk) 19:38, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

DYK update frequency...

Hello, at the time of this writing, there are 46 hooks in the holding area. Given that per "release" we get 6 hooks, this means that we curretly have hooks for 8 updates. What would you think of a weekly update of DYK hooks? Eptalon (talk) 15:31, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Realisation

I looked at my talk page's history, and I saw an edit war reverting falsely reported claims that I was a blocked proxy. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 18:13, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn't call 3 vandal posts with quick reverts on 2 separate days "an edit war".. Pure Evil (talk) 21:40, 24 September 2023 (UTC)