Wikipedia:Simple talk

Simple talk
	This is the place to ask any questions you have about the Simple English Wikipedia. Any general discussions or anything of community interest is also appropriate here. You might also find an answer on Wikipedia:Useful, a listing of helpful pages. You may reply to any section below by clicking the "change this page" link, or add a new discussion section to this page. Please sign and date your post (by typing ~~~~). Please add new topics to the bottom of this page. Please note that old discussions on this page are archived periodically. If you do not find a discussion here, please look in the archives. Note that you should not change the archives, so if something that has been archived needs discussing, please start a new discussion on this page. Some of the language used on this page can be complicated. This is because it is used by editors to talk to one another, so sometimes we forget. Please leave us a note if you are finding what we are saying too hard to read.
Are you in the right place? See WP:ANI to speak to an administrator. See WP:RFCU for CheckUser requests. See WP:OS for oversight. See WP:RFRB to request the rollback feature (which administrators can grant). See WP:VIP to report vandalism. Add this page to your list of watched pages —    change

Twinkle Problem

Twinkle no longer logs my QD's when I have it checked to do so. --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:44, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

That doesn't look like an issue with Twinkle - I was not able to reproduce the issue when I enabled QD logging manually. Please check your browser configuration, as well as the browser's JavaScript console (Google this) for any errors when/after you attempt to tag an article for QD. Chenzw  Talk  12:15, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Seems to be working now. Twinkle always sometimes works and sometimes doesn't for me. --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 23:47, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Chenzw Am I supposed to wait until Twinkle is finished the dialogues on the box, before I close it? Maybe that's why it's not logging.... --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 22:22, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

WP:WAM

Hello all, just a note that this year Wikipedia Asian Month will be starting soon. Do read through the rules in the page and we hope to see you participating. Do leave any of the organizers a note if unsure and happy editing. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 16:18, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Do note that for now the server is down, so for people wanting to submit their pages there is a need to wait, likewise we cannot judge. I had feedbacked to the international team for it. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 16:53, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Hoaxes/test pages/machine translated content created by anonymous editor

I would like to call attention to contributions from the following IPv6 range:

• 2600:387:0:900:0:0:0:0/60 (talk • contribs • CA • deleted contribs • nuke contribs • logs • filter log • block user • block log)
• probably related block performed by Operator873 - 2600:387:0:800:0:0:0:0/60 (talk • contribs • CA • deleted contribs • nuke contribs • logs • filter log • block user • block log)

Over the last 3 weeks or so, the IP range has been inserting what appears to be subtle vandalism in the form of random es interwiki links and/or links to newly created TV channels (supposedly). I say "supposedly" because the content on those new articles are nonsensical/indicative of machine translation efforts, and in some cases I am unable to validate the existence of those channels - some have been deleted as obvious hoaxes, and some by virtue (vice?) of lack of intelligible content, have been deleted under QD G1.

I hope to have more pairs of eyes on the newly created articles - caution should be exercised as some are legitimate TV channels with somewhat legitimate content on the article (e.g. UniMás (Latin America TV channel)), though they will need cleanup. Notability is not dependent on the state of sourcing (or lack thereof) in our version of the article. Chenzw  Talk  13:39, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

I've checked the 2600:387:0:900:0:0:0:0/60 range and it doesn't appear the user in that range is related to the target I took action against. I nonetheless agree the edits from this range are problematic. Operator873^talkconnect 16:01, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-45

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• You can no longer read Wikimedia wikis if your browser uses very old TLS. This is because it is a security problem for everyone. It could lead to downgrade attacks. Since October 29, 2020, users who use old TLS versions will not be able to connect to Wikimedia projects. A list of browser recommendations is available. All modern operating systems and browsers are always able to reach Wikimedia projects. [1]
• There is a new automatic tracking category available: Pages with non-numeric formatnum arguments. It collects pages which use the {{formatnum}} parser function with invalid (non-numeric) input, e.g. {{formatnum:TECHNEWS}}. Note that {{formatnum:123,456}} is also invalid input: as described in the documentation, the argument should be unformatted so that it can be reliably and correctly localised. The tracking category will help identify problematic usage and double-formatting. The new tracking category's name can be translated at translatewiki. [2]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 4. It will be on all wikis from November 5 (calendar).
• Administrators and stewards will be able to use a special page (Special:CreateLocalAccount) to force local account creation for a global account. This is useful when account creation is blocked for that user (by a block or a filter). [3]
• The Reply tool will be offered as an opt-in Beta Feature on most Wikipedias on November 4. This change excludes the English, Russian, and German-language Wikipedias, plus a few smaller Wikipedias with special circumstances. You can read the help page and the troubleshooting guide for more information. [4]

Future changes

• A discussion has been restarted about using a Unicode minus sign (− U+2212) in the output of {{formatnum}} when it is given a negative argument. [5]
• In the future IP addresses of unregistered users will not be shown for everyone. They will get an alias instead. There will be a new user right or an opt-in function for more vandal fighters to see the IPs of unregistered users. There would be some criteria for who gets the user right or opt-in. There will also be other new tools to help handle vandalism. This is early in the process and the developers are still collecting information from the communities before they suggest solutions.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:09, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Amber Heard and Johnny Depp

The articles Amber Heard and Johnny Depp need to be reviewed for BLP violations. I know there's a contentious issue but I don't know what the facts are. Naddruf (talk) 17:52, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Simple English

Hello, Should Userpages, and non-encyclopedic pages be in Simple English? --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 02:00, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

That partly depends on what you mean by non-encyclopedic pages. Ideally, everything here should be in simple language, but in practice we're more lenient with some things. Anything that people might see when they're only using content should definitely be in simple language. That includes articles, text in categories, pages in the help and Wikipedia namespaces, text that's displayed by templates, and possibly other things. That, IMO, is the minimum.

As far as pages used by people who are doing more than just reading content, those pages should also be in simple language. That could include talk pages (for all namespaces), template doc pages, and possibly other things -- even documentation text in templates and modules.

With individual user pages, I'd say that's up to the user. Keep in mind that using complex language there might discourage some users from communicating, but the user page isn't where active communication happens.

When it comes to talk pages, that's probably where we're most lenient. Using complex language there would make it harder for some of our users to participate. In a discussion between only two particular users on a user talk page, what matters may be only that those two users understand each other. On pages like simple talk, the admins' noticeboard, the various discussion pages, etc., it would matter more. I wouldn't flag a page or warn a user for complex language there, but ideally everything here should be in simple language. Not sure that's helpful, but ask more questions if you want. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:35, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Wiki of functions naming contest - Round 2

Hello. Reminder: Please help to choose the name for the new Wikimedia wiki project - the library of functions. The finalist vote starts today. The finalists for the name are: Wikicode, Wikicodex, Wikifunctions, Wikifusion, Wikilambda, Wikimedia Functions. If you would like to participate, then please learn more and vote now at Meta-wiki. Thank you! --Quiddity (WMF)

22:10, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

How many edits do you need to get to be an admin?

Hello, I'm Astronomyscientist124. I would just like to know how many edits you need to be an admin because I would really like to be an admin here.Astronomyscientist124 (talk) 19:07, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

@Astronomyscientist124: There is no clear count, you must do a large number of good edits over a number of months. However, adding false information to articles as you did at Eddie Van Halen is not a good way to go about becoming an administrator, to say the least. --IWI (talk) 19:43, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Hello there, we are a small Wiki. Admins are users the community trusts to do certain things (such as deleting articles, closing requests for deletion, and similar). Please don't get into counting-mode, there is no set number of edits. Also note, that users have their own editing style, some do small edits, others do larger ones. If you are an active member of the community (several edits a day, to articles), and you have been active for six to nine months, you have a realistic chance to be granted the admin flag. See the full list of criteria. The last who tried was ImprovedWikiImprovment; his request showed that in general, people support him to become an admin, but he did not reach the 75% support required by the guideline. My first request failed miserably (back in March 2006), the guideline wasn't there yet. At that time I had been an active editor for about half a year. My second request was successful, in November 2006. At that time I had been active about a year. Also note: You don't need adminship to be a good editor. There are many good editors here who aren't admins; still they do a good job. In short: Stop the bean-counting, do good edits, work actively with the community, and about 6 to 9 months after you started you can try to your first request for adminship.--Eptalon (talk) 20:10, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Use of QD A4

This has been happening every now and then, so I think this is a good time to reiterate what QD A4 is about:

• Is about people, groups, companies, products, services or websites that do not claim to be notable. This includes any article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, product, service or web content that does not say why the subject is important. If the article says why the subject is important, the article is not eligible for A4 deletion. If not everyone agrees that the subject is not notable or there has been a previous RfD, the article may not be quickly deleted, and should be discussed at RfD instead.

Please note what the deletion criterion says (emphasis mine): "If the article says why the subject is important, the article is not eligible for A4 deletion". QD A4 is not a mechanism for the nominating editor to say "the subject of this article is not notable". Determination of whether something is notable or not lies exclusively at RfD. I have also previously written a mini-essay about A4 here. --Chenzw  Talk  13:11, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

• This is quick deletion, so we need a pragmatic solution: If there is an article, and I suspect the person (..) is not notable/shouldn't be in this Wikipedia, I should be able to determine this within a few minutes; Things that indsicate this may not be the case: The references linked/other websites of the article mostly point to social media sites; When searching for the title on google, there are no relevant hits in about the first two pages of search results; there is a Wikipedia article in the searchresults, before there are real content (not social media) hits (always within the first two pages or so). So we do need a QD criterion to cover such cases (currently, mostly handled by A4). Note also for an article with sources, it should be possible to determine eligibility, without looking at the sources in detail: So: I have some person, there are two links to what look like newspaper articles, therefore, the person is likely notable. --Eptalon (talk) 14:41, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
  • The bottom-line is that we cannot use A4 to justify such cases where we suspect the person is not notable. If the article claims that the subject is notable, and that claim is credible (per EN definition), then our current policy only permits discussion on RfD, not a summary deletion via QD. If there were sufficient editor resources I would have suggested a PROD-like system, but that's not exactly possible over here. Chenzw  Talk  15:38, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
    • I agree that A4 should not be used for such cases in its current form. It is clear however that some users circumvent this fact in order to get a free one week advertisement that will show up in google while we discuss it. A solution in my view should be made to prevent this, although I am not sure what that should be. --IWI (talk) 15:44, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
      • Something I had in my mind for very long, but often I forgotten when I was onwiki (I think about wiki sometimes in real life), why not to address the concern IWI have, we __NOINDEX__ all RFD articles. This will ensure we keep these spammy but with some claims of notablity articles at RFD with 1 week to discuss, while at the same time we deny them free promotion. An alternative is to do what en does, those non partrolled articles will not be indexed, where here it still could. QD/RFD articles should never be marked as patrolled in anyway.Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 16:08, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
        • I agree, QD A4 is often misused, but often for the right reasons as pointed out by Eptalon and IWI. I also think we need a practical solution. Using NOINDEX as suggested above, could be a start, but it still leaves us with more work (going through numerous RfDs) than is desirable, especially within a small community. This may mean rewording the QD A4 criterion, for example. I think we are unlikely to lose many articles of quality based on the fact the system already allows for two users to check the article for notability before deletion (as long as it is tagged as QD A4 by a non-admin user, and not just deleted). Maybe we should reinforce this by amending the guidelines to say the articles does not appear to be notable enough for inclusion on Wikipedia (and maybe if you disagree, please take it to Deletion Review, etc, etc.). I also suggest adding that Administrators must also tag articles for A4 for another sysop to check, to make sure two editors always get to check whether it qualifies. Any doubts or disagreements would see it sent straight to RfD. --Yottie ^=talk= 17:42, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

  Going through RfD, and tagging all rfd's with noidex is only part of the solution. As poited out above, we need a QD criterion, where we can flag/delete articles that fail a basic 5-min notability check. And no, I don't want to go through RfD for each of those.--Eptalon (talk) 10:05, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

  What does this 5-min check entail, and under what circumstances do articles get their notability discussed at RfD instead? Chenzw  Talk  10:29, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

  As pointed out above, any one of: 1) First two pages of google hits are essentially social media sites 2) The first Wikipedia page google lists is before the first page of non-social media content. 3) If there are references to other websites in the article, most of them are to social media sites (or portals where people present themselves as looking for work, such as linkedin). Google search is done using the article title. --Eptalon (talk) 12:09, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

  Such a test will unfairly penalize subjects which do not have reliable sources readily available on the Internet. I am opposed to granting administrators expanded powers in summary deletion, especially in light of how frequently A4 is abused, as well as your history in prior RfDs (such as Wikipedia:Requests for deletion/Requests/2020/Alan Walker and Wikipedia:Requests for deletion/Requests/2020/Brandon Rogers (YouTuber)) where a BEFORE test and cross-referencing against the EN notability guidelines should have at least avoided a hasty claim of "questionable/no notability". Chenzw  Talk  12:24, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

  Thanks a lot for your opinion; can you propose a better test, that is doable in 5 minutes, and that has little to no false positives? - Note that we do not require English-language references. --Eptalon (talk) 12:36, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

  I do not think this is a matter for QD at all. It should go to RFD, or a PROD-like system. Chenzw  Talk  13:35, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

  Let's do PROD then. Just have the Proposed deletion page work in the same way as RfD with a shorter discussion time. --IWI (talk) 14:20, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

  Issue is what is the difference between PROD (and how exactly it works) and sending to RFD and no one comments and then an admin deletes? Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 15:55, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

  For this wiki, no difference, really, since it has more or less been tacitly accepted that those kinds of RFDs can be handled in a PROD-like manner. However, if we anticipate more PRODs in future, it would be worth moving them out of the main RFD page, to avoid clutter, and let the PROD template(s) do their magic with automatically categorizing the articles. Chenzw  Talk  17:43, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

  Our Rfd system is our prod system. It does double duty. When something is nominated and it gets no votes it gets deleted like prod on en.wiki does. Lately I have seen a couple get extended for some reason but its always been that case that we treat Rfd's that don't get any votes as Prods that can be soft-deleted. -Djsasso (talk) 13:11, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

":┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Stupid question: Suppose there's an RfD, and after the week there are no votes, then it gets deleted, by default. We don't need prod, or another ruleset. We sipmly need to adapt the RfD/Qd templates to include a noindex tag...--Eptalon (talk) 02:53, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

A4 should definitely not be extended in scope. It is already overused as it is. Far too often I have to reject A4s or undelete articles deleted under A4 that don't qualify for it. The entire reason it can't be used in the way suggested above is to protect articles on subjects where sources in English are not easily found. An article existing for a week of an Afd is not going to dramatically (or even slightly) help someone who is just trying to get a publicity jump. No one is looking at Simple Wiki articles and going wow X person is famous. They just aren't. NOINDEX isn't really necessary at all because in the length of time an Rfd is up it generally isn't going to matter, our traffic is such that being indexed for a week is very unlikely to help someone at all on the off chance that google even manages to index it in that week. -Djsasso (talk) 13:03, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

I often see simplewiki among the only google results in some spam articles. It is simply the case that they can easily end up high in google. NOINDEX is a good idea. --IWI (talk) 13:35, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong I have no problem adding NOINDEX. I just don't see that it really makes a difference because being in google results for a couple days isn't really going to help anyone because someone would almost definitely have to already be looking for that person on google to find it. -Djsasso (talk) 13:45, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps it would remove the motive and reduce spam? --IWI (talk) 19:28, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Shall we implement the _NOINDEX_ now as this discussion is very stale and this seems to be the only solution with consensus. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 18:33, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

RFA

• Please note a RFA is open for discussion --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 02:43, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages

On this wiki, a lot of disambiguation pages were copied from English wiki, so they have a lot of red links. For example, Trump has 5 blue links and 28 red links. I've heard that this is recommended so we know which articles need to be created, but I don't agree that it's helpful here. If this is meant for editors, there are probably more important articles to work on than all the articles with "Trump" in the title. If someone decides to create the article The Trump (horse), for example, they can add it to the disambiguation page after they create it. If this is meant for readers, they would benefit from blue links to English wiki more than red links. I think we should discuss if these red links are serving a useful purpose. Naddruf (talk) 19:11, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

I definitely disagree. Articles might link to the disambiguation page when they should link to one of the entries that would be red. In such cases, the link in the article should be changed to link to the appropriate entry, even if that entry is red. Those red links, as you say, indicate that the redlinked article is needed here.

Linking to enwiki is problematic in several ways, even on a disambiguation page. The enwiki article is likely not in the kind of simple language that our readers are looking for. We lose the indicator that we need the article. If the article is ever created here, we are left with links to enwiki that should be to the local article.

Finally, other Wikipedias are considered to be other websites. (If they weren't, we wouldn't have the requirement of attribution when we copy from there.) Links to other websites aren't supposed to be in the body of an article, per Wikipedia:Links to other websites. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:35, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

While Naddruf points out a legitimate question of whether we need a disambiguation page just because enwiki has it, I don't think linking to enwiki is the answer. People come to Simple because they want Simple English. They already know the English Wikipedia exists and has more articles than this one does. I think the "think of Simple English as a separate language" model works well here. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:26, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

I also disagree with Naddruf as 99% of people will not add a new page to the disambiguation page, thus meaning that the page will not be effective. Red links are not only left so that we know what to create, but also so that they will have incoming links when created. This is why we have DAB pages with all the possible pages for that word or phrase. --IWI (talk) 09:35, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Red links also help the readers in tell them a subject they be looking for is missing. And as someone mentions above, the vast majority of article creators never think to add the links to the disambiguation pages when they create an article. It is very important to us to have red links on disambiguation pages on this wiki. -Djsasso (talk) 22:36, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Requesting Comments for my enwiki block request.

Hi all, I would like recommendations and suggestions for my unblock request for enwiki on the linked page's talk page. I understand this is not directly related to the wiki, however I hope that you all may assist me. I will remove this if requested by an admin.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

User:Fnafpuppetmaster/Drafts/EnWiki Unblock Request

rollingbarrels (talk) 03:14, 9 November 2020 (UTC).

Project Wiki needs a designated space for people to ask questions about navigating the disciplinary system. A buddy and I proposed one a while back, but it didn't take off. Good luck with this. Being blocked on enwiki suuuuuuuuuuuucks. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:50, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

IAB management console

Hello, I will like clarification of the usage of IAB management console to analysis a page, we have consensus here to deploy the bot and use the console to analyse a page. Basically is manually typing into the console the page we want to archive and then the bot will run to add the sources link to the internet archive site and a link to the archive will be added to the page. This is to prevent linkrot. I will like to clarify the usage of this function as there is bot editing (but using our usernames to be published). To be clear, I had did some of these edits and will like to clarify is it ok before going on further. This is semi-automated (something like reFill, enter a page and it will run). First of all, is it okay to run the bot to analyse a single page here on simple? If no, sorry for making the mistake. If yes, what will the frequency be, in zhwp the guidelines is no more than 5 / min, what shall be the rate here? Thanks much. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 11:58, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

The FAQ of the bot on meta seems to support such use. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 12:46, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

It isn't technically you running the bot so it isn't an issue. You are just requesting an approved bot to do it. You aren't actually the one running it so to speak. -Djsasso (talk) 22:31, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Djsasso for the clarification. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 13:44, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Is Hong Kong a city-state?

This one IP keeps referring to it as such and I don't know anymore.Derpdart56 (talk) 15:28, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Technically it has special status within China. It sounds like a NPOV issue. --IWI (talk) 15:38, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

No will be the answer, it is a special autonomous zone (SAR) within People Republic of China (PRC), city yes, state no, autonomous zone yes. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 15:54, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

As far as I can tell the only other Zone with that status is Macao. It used to be a dependency of Portugual (Hong Kong was of the UK). So, yes, it probably has some autonomy. If that autonomy is different from another Chinesec city about the same size is another matter.--Eptalon (talk) 17:53, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-46

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes

• You can see reference previews. This shows a preview of the footnote when you hover over it. This has been a beta feature. It will move out of beta and be enabled by default. There will be an option not to use it. The developers are looking for small or medium-sized wikis to be the first ones. You can let them know if your wiki is interested. [6]
• From November 16 the categories will not be sorted in order for a short time. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the internationalisation library. They will use a script to fix the existing categories. This can take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [7][8]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:50, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Simple Stub Project#Singer-stub

Hello everyone, I request you to give your opinion on the creation of new stub. --Saroj Uprety (talk) 16:00, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Corpora Size

Good afternoon! Can you tell me the size (number of documents or pages) of the Simple_Wikipedia Corpora? As a study essay, I must build a searcher engine, and I was told to chose a big set of corpus to test it. I chose Wikipedia for the variety of subjects, of course.

Thank you!

Julio Bruce julio_bruce@hotmail.com

You can see the statistics for Simple English Wikipedia at Special:Statistics. -Djsasso (talk) 17:01, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Confirmed user

Is there a "Confirmed" user right or a way to be manually autoconfirmed so that I don't need to keep filling out captcha requests after I try to submit edits. Because I want to keep editing but I have to wait another 4 days before I get autoconfimed. I have 1900 edits on en.Wiki. Thanks, Terasail^[Talk] 18:14, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

There is Wikipedia:Confirmed users, needs a crat to grant, WP:AN will be better but here seems okay too as we are so small @Terasail:Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 18:18, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

 (change conflict) @Terasail: According to this and this page we do. I'm not sure whether an admin can grant it or if it needs to be a crat. --IWI (talk) 18:19, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Needs a crat, see my latest edit to the info page. :) Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 18:20, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

@Camouflaged Mirage, ImprovedWikiImprovment: Thanks, I just posted a request on WP:AN aswell. Terasail^[Talk] 18:28, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

As I posted on the other page we don't typically give that out as we consider editing there somewhat separate from editing here. -Djsasso (talk) 20:04, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Hakodate

• How can I put in the Wikimedia Commons link, in the other websites section. It doesn't seem to be working for me --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 20:57, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

  Done. Just copy paste en version? CM-Public (talk) 21:28, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

That never came up to me. Thank you for fixing it! --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 21:29, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

No issues, happy to help as always CM-Public (talk) 21:31, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Special:CNReporter

What is the point of the special page Special:CNReporter? It's just a special page that blanks your screen. --FdPATgg 😃 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 05:51, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

• See this Explantion on PHAB --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:45, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Most viewed articles

Is there a way to review the most viewed articles? I found this when I looked in the archives, but it appears to not be working right now. DoSazunielle (talk) 21:14, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

@DoSazunielle: There is a tool named pageviews which shows the top viewed articles.-Jinoy Tom Jacob (talk) 18:19, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Moving Yahadut HaTorah HaMeuhedet to United Torah Judaism

This party does not use the name the page uses. It uses a different name in English, which is United Torah Judaism. MatryoshkaNL (talk) 20:03, 15 November 2020 (UTC) (I do not use Simple English Wikipedia, sorry if this is not fully inSimple English)

Doesn't matter, mot of us understand regular English. I will move the page, if you can provide a reference (reliable source) for the English name...--Eptalon (talk) 20:06, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Moved the page to its new name--Eptalon (talk) 21:45, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

QD tagging of new articles

I know that Twinkle has saved everyone a lot of time and effort when QD tagging articles, however it has led to some ridiculous situations such as at here: User talk:90.224.198.255. While editors may wish to do so, it is not mandatory to inform the article creator about their page being tagged.

I ask that editors please do a little bit of due diligence and use the usual vandalism warning templates where appropriate, instead of blindly accepting the Twinkle defaults. Spamming {{QD-notice}} is not useful, especially so for anonymous editors who may not actually be vandalising. Note that {{QD-notice}} does not really point to supporting resources, unlike {{uw-create1}} or {{firstarticle}}. Chenzw  Talk  12:23, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Is there an option to turn this off then in TW? --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 01:02, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

@Thegooduser Untick the "notify the page creator" option on the top of the TW CSD menu when notifying deletions. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 14:02, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-47

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• Listings on category pages are sorted on each wiki for that language using a library. For a brief period on 16 November, changes to categories will not be sorted correctly for most languages. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the library. They will then use a script to fix the existing categories. This will take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [9][10]

Changes later this week

• If you merged two pages in a namespace where pages can't redirect this used to break the merge history. This will now be fixed. [11]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 November. It will be on all wikis from 19 November (calendar).

Future changes

• The Community Wishlist Survey is now open for proposals. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals from 16 to 30 November. You can vote on proposals from 8 December to 21 December.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:37, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

The Future of SEWP

Hi. After browsing through the list of Admins, I see we only have 18 admins, and a few of them are inactive, so that leaves with an actual total of about 15 admins. Most of the 15 admins, are fairly active, some semi-active, but not inactive. We won't have the same 15 admins forever, and there might come a time where we run out of a sufficient amount of Admins, due to the lack of size of Editors here. If we do come to a point where this happens, what steps are we going to take? What actions will be carried out? Will the stewards act as temporary Bureaucrats and Admins? I invite everyone to start planning now, so if this does happen in the future, we can refer to this plan we make today. --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:31, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

I am not sure if there is a point in making plans here. Global sysops/rollbackers and stewards can step in if this wiki doesn't have a large enough community to handle abuse, as with most other small wikis. Chenzw  Talk  02:28, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Would the wiki shut down, if there was a lack of active users (admins) here for a extended period of time? --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 02:30, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Not necessarily. There are plenty of other wikis with very few active users. Chenzw  Talk  02:32, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Is that when Abuse Filter can start giving out blocks? --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 02:36, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Abuse Filter can start giving up blocks anytime, there just need community consensus to allow admins to activate the block feature. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 08:50, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
So far, some abuse filters prevent a user from performing an action; in some cases, they throttle the speed, at which pages can be created/changed. To my knolwedge, there's currently no abuse filter which blocks the user. As to the number of admins: There are several smaller wikis, which do not have their own admins. In this case, "global sysops" or stewards handle the requests that admins usually handle. As to the number of admins: Note that we require some level of activity from our admins; accounts which do not have this level of activity will get their flag removed. I have to say though: In the time I am around, we never had the problem of running out of admins. --Eptalon (talk) 09:01, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@Eptalon Our abuse filter here on simple doesn't have the function of blocking, in some other projects, after community assent, the filter can be configured to allow blocking. In projects like meta, we blocks some spambots via abuse filters and some LTAs too. If there is consensus here, we can turn the featue on. The rate of false positive isn't that high but to be honest, I don't think simple needs a blocking abuse filter yet. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 09:55, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

What do we do with all these geo stub pages?

We have a bunch of location pages that have "X is a Y in Z" format, and that's kinda sad, so I have an idea: attribute and simplify from en.wiki. I suggest doing this for these pages as they really have nothing on them, aside from a sentence, maybe an image and a stub. Thanks, Derpdart56 (talk) 15:27, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

The general consensus is that such places are notable. Look at Arab, Alabama (just a random pick): About 7-7.5k population, in what looks like the rural United States. What can you say about such a place (thats not in the article yet)? - Even if I were born there, and had lived there all my life, there's probably not much to add. Canaan, Connecticut has about 1.500 people (also random pick). So where can we add something? - The idea is not to "get them all", but to get reasonable articles with room for improvement. US cities with a population in the hundreds, or perhaps low thousands are likely not what you can use to write long articles about. --Eptalon (talk) 18:03, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes even cities that size can have lots written about them. And yes those articles should be expanded. But they are notable and perfectly acceptable to be there in their current form as Wikipedia has no deadline for when that expansion has to occur. -Djsasso (talk) 13:06, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Delete Arthur Page

Can someone delete the Tropical Storm Arthur page? I accidentally moved something there and now it is blank. CodingCyclone (talk) 22:18, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@CodingCyclone: Actually, that looks like it would be a good disambiguation page. What if we just change it to one of those? --Auntof6 (talk) 03:16, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

@Auntof6: Done! CodingCyclone (talk) 04:35, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

@CodingCyclone: Um, no, it wasn't, but I just changed it to a dismbiguation page. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:45, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

@Auntof6: Sorry, I'm new to all of this. Thank you! CodingCyclone (talk) 18:46, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Arthur

Hi, I'm back. Could someone help me simplify Tropical Storm Arthur (2020) or provide a peer review? I would like to get it to Very Good Article. Thank you so much! CodingCyclone (talk) 19:24, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm whacking away at it section by section, but my native tongue is Snooty English, so I've made it simpler, but another go-over could help. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:34, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

@Darkfrog24: Thank you! CodingCyclone (talk) 18:42, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Muted

• If you were to accidentality mute yourself from emails, can media wiki, still send password resets, once you log out? --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 03:21, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

  @Thegooduser Should be able. If you mean mute is to say no one can send you emails, then it's okay. Password resets are override the muting system. (i.e. not an user email you but the system itself) Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 09:06, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

List of current senior officers in the Royal Air Force

This list copied from En will give us the same headaches as other lists have. It will get forgotten and need updating. We can control this by removing the less important sections, and limiting it to the top categories. A first step would be to delete the bottom section on Commodores, who are of less general interest. We know from experience that we cannot handle very long lists of ever-changing personnel. Air Vice-Marshalls should probably go, too. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:49, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

None of your points stand. They are all notable. I have reduced their names and appointments.— Preceding unsigned comment added by BlueD954 (talk • contribs) 2020-11-19T08:08:25 (UTC)

Aviation Concepts Technical Services, Inc.

Request for Assistance. My page was deleted, hence the page that I created was similar to Metrojet Ltd., Jet Aviation, and Execujet and they were up here at Wikipedia. Dianne Jornacion (talk) 01:50, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Hello! I can't find the logs for that page, but judging from the name, I'm guessing it was deleted for promotion. Wikipedia is not a venue for promotion, and everything must be written in an Neutral manner, and with Reliable Sources. Thank you! --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 01:53, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, a lot of companies want to make Wiki articles so they'll become better-known, but the Wikipedias only want articles about things that are already well known. Just keep being awesome and someone will write an article about you sooner or later. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:40, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey 2021

The 2021 Community Wishlist Survey is now open! This survey is the process where communities decide what the Community Tech team should work on over the next year. We encourage everyone to submit proposals until the deadline on 30 November, or comment on other proposals to help make them better. The communities will vote on the proposals between 8 December and 21 December.

The Community Tech team is focused on tools for experienced Wikimedia editors. You can write proposals in any language, and we will translate them for you. Thank you, and we look forward to seeing your proposals!

SGrabarczuk (WMF) 05:52, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Requested move

• Category:Pornographic actors → Category:Pornographic movie actors
• Category:American pornographic actors → Category:American pornographic movie actors
• Category:LGBT pornographic actors → Category:LGBT pornographic movie actors

This is a more standardized version. Enwiki also uses the same format. It will also coincide with other actors' categories. --Saroj Uprety (talk) 08:03, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

No, we should keep the most general title until numbers of entries force us to be more specific. And you should not have made the change before there were any replies. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:19, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Categories should only be extended/specialized when there are sufficiently many entries. Take the exampe of en:Mistinguett (1875-1956); she also performed at the Moulin Rouge. She had roles as an actress in over 50 movies. She also was an on-stage actress. Around 1900, she was the best-paid entertainer in the world. What do we call her episode at the Moulin-Rouge? - Remember, Can can was seen as lewd in former times - Was she a "pornographic actor"? ; There are probably other people where a similar rationale applies. In short: renaming categories needs discussion...--Eptalon (talk) 10:20, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

In fact, I kept it up for discussion. Not only some but all entries in existing categories must be moved. There will be no other form for pornographic actors except the movie. The requested name gives proper meaning and is parallel to other wikis. Saroj Uprety (talk) 15:31, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

I know it is pürobably easy to say these people starred in pornographic movies, and therefore to rename/move the category tree. But please keep in mind, that there are also Burlesque shows, where such people can become knowmn. What about Mata Hari? Esp. with Can Can, which was seen as erotic/forbidden, I don't think we should limit ourselves to movies. --Eptalon (talk) 16:01, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

But we are talking about movie actors. Category actors have only played in movies. It has no link with other shows. Let's take the example of Tom Cruise, in this article we are using 'American movie actors' instead of 'American actors'. This is because we are following a category tree. If we use such a tree, it will be easy for the readers as well. Like the mainstream actors, I don't think there are other forms of porn actors like television, stage. Saroj Uprety (talk) 04:43, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
It's not that simple, take Patrick Stewart (who plays Captain Picard, in Star Trek): He is an actor, and also plays in theatres. Similarly, I think it is wrong to limit ourselves to movies. How are we going to classify Dita Von Teese, who is a burlseque dancer? - Similarly, Bettie Page (who never starred in movies, to my knolwedge, but is credited as being among the first people to popularize bodage pictures)?--Eptalon (talk) 09:55, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

For the dancer, another category is 'American erotic dancers'. For Bettie Page, according to Enwiki, she is an 'American female adult model', not a porn actor. There is a difference in the two categories. For Patrick Stewart, there are different categories (stage, movie, voice, television). If an actor is active in various fields then we can add categories related to them. Saroj Uprety (talk) 11:15, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

I reclassified Carmen de Mairena, who was a transsexual. This leaves us with 9 pages in Category Pornographic actors. Of these 9, two are lists, and one is the generic "Pornographic movie actor" article. I don't think there's much of a difference between an erotic dancer and someone starring in a burlesque show. Men usually attend these shows because they either want to see women undress, or naked women on stage. Yes, there are probably differences in how classy the show is; if it is a pure stip show, women are usually not permitted. To my knolwedge, the Moulin Rouge also permits women to attend, as they don't perform strip shows. Anyway, if I look at the number of entries in the category, only 'American pornographic actors' is worth talking about (with currently 48 pages). Renaming this (or creating a subcategory, for 'movie actors') won't help much though; if I understand you correctly, most of them are 'movie actors'...--Eptalon (talk) 11:53, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, this is what I was talking about. Enwiki also has such articles, but they are used in the requested format. I think changing the name would definitely help as it would be easier for the readers. It will also follow the category tree and be parallel to Enwiki. Not only Americans, but others will also worth moving. If we see en:Category:Pornographic actors, en:Category:American pornographic actors and en:Category:LGBT pornographic actors, they are all empty. All the articles you mentioned are in Enwiki and listed in the above requested categories or categories suitable for them.. Saroj Uprety (talk) 12:23, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-48

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• Timestamps in Special:Log are now links. They go to Special:Log for only that entry. This is how timestamps work on for example the history page. [12]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes

• The Wikimedia Cloud VPS hosts technical projects for the Wikimedia movement. Developers need to claim projects they use. This is because old and unused projects are removed once a year. Unclaimed projects can be shut down from 1 December. Unclaimed projects can be deleted from 1 January. [13]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:19, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Global bot policy proposal: invitation to a Meta discussion

Hello!

I apologize for sending a message in English. Please help translate to your language. According to the list, your wiki project currently is opted in to the global bot policy. Under this policy, bots that fix double redirects or maintain interwiki links are allowed to operate under a global bot flag that is assigned directly by the stewards.

As the Wikimedia projects developed, the need for the current global bot policy decreased, and in the past years, no bots were appointed via that policy. That is mainly given Wikidata were estabilished in 2013, and it is no longer necessary to have dozens of bots that maintain interwiki links.

A proposal was made at Meta-Wiki, which proposes that the stewards will be authorized to determine whether an uncontroversial task may be assigned a global bot flag. The stewards already assign permissions that are more impactful on many wikis, namely, global sysops and global renamers, and I do not think that trust should be an issue. The stewards will assign the permission only to time-proven bots that are already approved at a number of projects, like ListeriaBot.

By this message, I would like to invite you to comment in the global RFC, to voice your opinion about this matter.

Thank you for your time.

Best regards,
Martin Urbanec (talk) 11:49, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Error

The link in my userpage's userpage disclaimer notice, leads to my EN wiki userpage, and not here. How can it be fixed? --つがる Let's Talk! :) 🍁 03:36, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

 Fixed Saroj Uprety (talk) 03:45, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, the link displayed, seems wrong, but it does lead to the right place though... --つがる Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:46, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Arkzin

I'd welcome your views on this page. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:12, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

I think it needs simplification. I just did some work on the opener. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:46, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Repeated Vandalism

User:Timothy29694 has been repeatedly vandalizing the page Apple. Can someone block him from editing, as he has been starting to slowly get aggressive whenever I revert his vandalism/give him a warning. ShadowBallX2 (talk) 23:36, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

• Update: Thank you to User:Chenzw for blocking him, as he was starting to get annoying to deal with. ShadowBallX2 (talk) 23:37, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

ShadowBallX2, You should report to Here in the future. Thanks --つがる Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:21, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

つがる I didn't realize that existed. Thanks for letting me know for next time. ShadowBallX2 (talk) 02:13, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Happy to help :) --つがる Let's Talk! :) 🍁 02:14, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Special:UnwatchedPages

• I propose a that a new userright be made for non-Admins to see the pages at Special:UnwatchedPages. Mainly to help combat vandalism, and spam on pages listed there.

Here could be the requirements for the user right:

Users must be 'Extended Confirmed' although it doesn't exist there, it would be 30 days old and 500 edits on an account

Users blocked on any other projects, will not be able to obtain this user right (unless they are unblocked on any other project(s) they are blocked on first)

Users must show understanding in identifying Vandalism, Spam, etc

Users must have rollback

Users must not have been recently blocked in the past 90 days

Users must be registered and not an IP (obviously)

Users must be active in WP:VIP, etc

Users must be active in community discussions, etc

• Having the Unwatched pages restricted to admins only, makes it harder for regular users to patrol changes for vandalism, etc, if they miss it on New Changes, or if it has been some time after the change has been made, and is gone from Recent Changes. I know it's important why this page is restricted, but I would like everyone's thoughts on this. This would make it easier for non-admins to fight vandalism and spam. --つがる Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:29, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
  • That special page is not designed to assist in anti-vandalism operations. With 170000+ articles on this wiki, it is expected that a huge majority of those articles are not on anyone's watchlist. You would not be able to do any proper patrolling by referring to Special:UnwatchedPages. In either case, the output of that special page has a limit of 5000 pages. Chenzw  Talk  00:40, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Doesn't the watchlist have contribution quality filters? --つがる Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:41, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but Special:Unwatchedpages does not. I hope you are not suggesting that you want to take it upon yourself to add 100,000+ articles to your watchlist. Chenzw  Talk  00:49, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

No, I am not trying to state that. Just a suggestion I have, definitely not trying to hat collect or anything like that. I don't see that page, so I don't/didn't know it puts those pages on your watchlist. I thought they are separate, from your own watchlist. Again, I've never seen that page, so I don't know it doesn't have the filters. This was just a friendly suggestion, and it was not meant to cause any disruption. --つがる Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:54, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

This proposal can be scrapped, seeing that the page has no filters. --つがる Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:55, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

No, that special page does not add anything to your own watchlist automatically, and I didn't say anything to that effect. That special page is a list of pages that is not on any user's watchlist, and is limited to 5000 entries. Chenzw  Talk  00:57, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Question about a recent QD

I saw the article The America, which was an exact copy/paste of Google Maps. I nominated for QD under A3, as I didn't know what to tag it. I want to know what QD tag I should have used. ShadowBallX2 (talk) 20:51, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Update: He keeps making these types of pages (The Russia and The Britain). I would recommend a block of the IP. ShadowBallX2 (talk) 20:55, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

@ShadowBallX2: I think the copy/paste tag was fine. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:12, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Wikidata descriptions changes to be included more often in Recent Changes and Watchlist

Sorry for sending this message in English. Translations are available on this page. Feel free to translate it in more languages!

As you may know, you can include changes coming from Wikidata in your Watchlist and Recent Changes (in your preferences). Until now, this feature didn’t always include changes made on Wikidata descriptions due to the way Wikidata tracks the data used in a given article.

Starting on December 3rd, the Watchlist and Recent Changes will include changes on the descriptions of Wikidata Items that are used in the pages that you watch. This will only include descriptions in the language of your wiki to make sure that you’re only seeing changes that are relevant to your wiki.

This improvement was requested by many users from different projects. We hope that it can help you monitor the changes on Wikidata descriptions that affect your wiki and participate in the effort of improving the data quality on Wikidata for all Wikimedia wikis and beyond.

Note: if you didn’t use the Wikidata watchlist integration feature for a long time, feel free to give it another chance! The feature has been improved since the beginning and the content it displays is more precise and useful than at the beginning of the feature in 2015.

If you encounter any issue or want to provide feedback, feel free to use this Phabricator ticket. Thanks!

Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 14:39, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-49

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 December. It will be on all wikis from 3 December (calendar).

Future changes

• The iOS Wikipedia app will show readers more of the article history. They can see new updates and easier see how the article has changed over time. This is an experiment. It will first be shown only to some iOS app users as a test. [14][15]
• The Wiki Replicas can be used for SQL queries. You can use Quarry, PAWS or other ways to do this. To make the Wiki Replicas stable there will be two changes. Cross-database JOINS will no longer work. You can also only query a database if you connect to it directly. This will happen in February 2021. If you think this affects you and you need help you can post on Phabricator or on Wikitech. [16]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:44, 30 November 2020 (UTC)