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 Note that you should not change the archives, so if something that has been archived needs discussing, please start a new discussion on this page.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.
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Square in article history pages

What are the boxes after the two circles? I can't see any explanation for what the square does.Kdammers (talk) 07:33, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

It is to select specific edits. Admins for example use it to pick specific edits to delete. -Djsasso (talk) 16:30, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

There should be an explanation.Kdammers (talk) 07:10, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets

Is there a page to report a potential sockpuppet instead of just throwing the suspected sockpuppet template on their user page when I'm not 100% sure? --Hellothere4 (talk) 16:50, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

@Hellothere4: The WP:RFCU page is for reporting socks to CheckUsers. Usually the tags should not be put there unless the user has been blocked already. --IWI (talk) 16:52, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Ok thanks I will use that. --Hellothere4 (talk) 16:53, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Policy on References

I have a question. What if there is an article here on simple and all references are written in Ukraine. How is that handled?

Here is the article.

Thanks - --PotsdamLamb (talk) 17:44, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

References written in Ukrainian are still references, and can still be used in an article, I believe. --Belwine (talk) 17:46, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

@Belwine@PotsdamLamb The so called guiding policy is here en:Wikipedia:Verifiability#Non-English_sources. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 17:53, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks CM! One of the reasons I asked is because there are numerous refs to a livejournal.com in Ukraine and I do not know if they are even valid and not a POV or anything. PotsdamLamb (talk) 17:58, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

@PotsdamLamb For that based on these discussion on enwp, there is a consensus that the site is a en:WP:BLOG and en:WP:SPS. Hence, I will incline to think it as not reliable. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 18:03, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Ok that was my thinking. I left the author a note on their page about it. Thanks again - PotsdamLamb (talk) 18:14, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

No problem, glad to be able to help. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 18:30, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-07

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

Problems

• There were problems with recent versions of MediaWiki. Because the updates caused problems the developers rolled back to an earlier version. Some updates and new functions will come later than planned. [1][2]
• Some services will not work for a short period of time from 07:00 UTC on 17 February. There might be problems with new short links, new translations, new notifications, adding new items to your reading lists or recording email bounces. This is because of database maintenance. [3]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 February. It will be on all wikis from 18 February (calendar).

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

17:55, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Categories

So as I am going through fixing articles, some I have tagged as needing more references because they only rely on one source. This has auto-created a red link titled "Category:Articles needing additional references from February 2021"

How should I handle this? Should I create a cat, a sub cat?

Thanks, PotsdamLamb (talk) 19:09, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Create the category and add {{MonthlyCleanupCat}}. --Belwine (talk) 19:11, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

@Belwine: - Can you help me with what I should do now? I have the page created, but it doesn't show up in the main cat so I think I missed something. Please don't do it for me, but try to walk me through it so I can learn. Here is the [[Category:Articles_needing_additional_references_from_February_2021]]. Thanks PotsdamLamb (talk) 19:45, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the issue is. What's the main category - the Category:Counter categories? Belwine (talk) 19:49, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

It is not on the monthly list but looks like it ended up in a different place? Is that the correct place? PotsdamLamb (talk) 19:55, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I think you need to use {{MonthlyCleanupCat}} instead of {{Counter category}}. Thanks, Belwine (talk) 19:59, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Haha - Got it! Now it looks right :) PotsdamLamb (talk) 20:08, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Feminism & Folklore 1 February - 31 March

Please help translate to your language

Greetings!

You are invited to participate in Feminism and Folklore writing contest. This year Feminism and Folklore will focus on feminism, women's biographies and gender-focused topics for the project in league with Wiki Loves Folklore gender gap focus with folk culture theme on Wikipedia. folk activities, folk games, folk cuisine, folk wear, fairy tales, folk plays, folk arts, folk religion, mythology, etc.

You can help us in enriching the folklore documentation on Wikipedia from your region by creating or improving articles centered on folklore around the world, including, but not limited to folk festivals, folk dances, folk music, women and queer personalities in folklore, folk culture (folk artists, folk dancers, folk singers, folk musicians, folk game athletes, women in mythology, women warriors in folklore, witches and witch-hunting, fairy tales and more. You can contribute to new articles or translate from the list of suggested articles here.

You can also support us in translating the project page and help us spread the word in your native language.

Learn more about the contest and prizes from our project page. Thank you.

Feminism and Folklore team,

Joy Agyepong (talk) 02:40, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

FR Yugoslavia national football team

Hello. Yesterday, an IP editor made FR Yugoslavia national football team. I tried to redirect it to Serbia and Montenegro national football team, but the IP who made the page reverted it twice. I tried to solve the situation by asking on one of the talk pages, where I got no reply. I want to know other peoples opinion on if we should redirect or not.

Note that all 3 IPs that have edited the page are blocked on enwiki as part of a school block, with one being previously blocked for disruptive editing. ShadowBallX (talk) 16:18, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Redirected and blocked. -Djsasso (talk) 16:28, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Simple English

I have two questions.

1) Why are some words which are not proper nouns capitalized in the list of basic English? These include 'purr,'* 'college' and 'embassy' as well academic subjects like 'chemistry.'

2) The notice on a page of someone (presumably "anyone" rather than"someone") who has recently died reads in part "a person who died a short time ago." This does not seem like simple English to me. It has a relative clause, a use of 'short' that might not be clear, and what probably looks like an extra adjective ('ago') stuck on at the end. which not the common location for adjectives in English. Why don't we use 'recently'? That would reduce some of the complexity. It ranks 638 on the New General Service List (https://www.newgeneralservicelist.org/).

• As a side issue, I don't know why 'purr' is on the list but 'growl' and a dog's 'bark' are not -- but that issue probably extends beyond Simple English's purview.

Kdammers (talk) 02:53, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

The entire list you are referencing comes directly from a very well known source done by the researcher Ogden. You would have to read their research for answers to your questions regarding what is on the list etc. Looking at the source they are capitalized there so we capitalize here. -Djsasso (talk) 12:24, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

We are not bound by Ogden's lists. Their purpose was to show his ideas on a simplified English vocabulary. Because we have many young readers, and readers for whom English is not their native language, we try to write so they have a better chance of understanding. Doing that is not easy, and Ogden's ideas have their uses. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:48, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-08

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

• The visual editor will now use MediaSearch to find images. You can search for images on Commons in the visual editor when you are looking for illustrations. This is to help editors find better images. [4]
• The syntax highlighter now works with more languages: Futhark, Graphviz/DOT, CDDL and AMDGPU. [5]

Problems

• Editing a timeline might have removed all text from it. This was because of a bug and has been fixed. You might need to edit the timeline again for it to show properly. [6]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 February. It will be on all wikis from 25 February (calendar).

Future changes

• There is a user group for developers and users interested in working on Wikimedia wikis with the Rust programming language. You can join or tell others who want to make your wiki better in the future.

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

---

00:17, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Spider-man 3

So we just learned the name and release date for Marvel's Spider-Man 3. Here is the link. They also added a funny video to it. Does it warrant an article now or should we wait for a trailer? --Hellothere4 (talk) 21:37, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

 Done - Has alreayd been created, and moved to new name. See Spider-Man: No Way Home —Belwine (talk) 21:40, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Category, do we have it?

Do we have a category for people who died of COVID-19, like Cody Anderson? Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:09, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Here:Category:Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic --Hellothere4 (talk) 23:23, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I will implement it ASAP. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:36, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

IP(s) Creating Articles

• In the past there has been discussion on various IPs creating stub type articles. I am running to this similar behaviour here, and I am wondering if this IP is a bot. I don't want to associate this IP by saying 'this is likely X editor using them' just yet. I am just wondering if the Abuse Filter to stop X in Y stub creations can be put in place, as mentioned before, this action put strains in Patrollers, and I don't think having a one line article is helpful to begin with. --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:31, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

  It might be simpler to simply block the IPs as before. It is likely a bot. --IWI (talk) 07:18, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

  We know who it is as this was talked about here awhile back, and they are doing it slowly now as opposed to before when it was likely a bot. I am monitoring the situation. One liners are helpful and perfectly acceptable. Tsugaru you need to get out of the mindset that short articles are bad. -Djsasso (talk) 11:57, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

  Yeah, if they're doing them at a slower pace without the assistance of an unauthorised bot, then it is okay. I hadn't looked at the timeframes in depth. --IWI (talk) 12:05, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

  I notice that sometimes the articles are being created quite quickly (1-2 every minute), and sometimes they are created every now and then.
  I was thanked by another user for an edit I made to one of these articles so I am quite sure about who it is. —Belwine (talk) 12:08, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

  They are mostly creating one every 5 or so minutes now. Creating an article that is one sentence only takes seconds. Before they used to create 3 or 4 a minute. -Djsasso (talk)

   (change conflict) The point is whether they are creating on a mass automated scale, which doesn't seem to be the case now I am looking into it. As long as a page demonstrates some kind of significance past the A4 threshold (which all legally-recognised geographic places do), then it is fine. Of course, we would prefer a little more, but it is fine. --IWI (talk) 12:14, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

  Yep last time the issue was they were clearly using a bot. They even appear to have mostly fixed the bad grammar they used to use as well. So really our messaging to them last time appears to have worked but I am watching to see if that changes. (and I assume other admins are as well). -Djsasso (talk) 12:17, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Hi Djsasso, I'm sorry if my opinion on short articles made you angry. That was not the intention here, it was just my personal opinion, however I did mention about the abuse filter above I'm not saying it should go on right away, there needs to be a community consensus to do so, and I respect what ever the consensus is. I'm not saying to not create 1 liner articles, I just meant that they should not be created in many at once. I am really sorry If what I said seemed rude. On an unrelated note, I asked earlier on Auntof6's talkpage, about a way to move the 'mark this page as partolled' bar into a different menu, so I don't accidentally click on it when viewing a page. Is there a mod for this? --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:50, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Not angry at all, but I often see people complaining about short articles. And short stub articles are very important. I think what leads people to think this is that they compare our articles to en.wiki articles. But most people weren't around in the early days of English Wikipedia. Their articles all mostly started the exact same way, but because they had many thousands of editors compared to our tiny numbers they moved past that point for most articles in a couple years. We on the other hand are going to be in the stage of having many short articles for many years, likely decades. Doing them fast is fine as long as they are not using automation to do it and they are not making a mess of the articles. And no there isn't a mod for moving the link that I am aware of. -Djsasso (talk) 11:58, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Good articles

So I was thinking about starting a good article and I was wondering if I would be allowed to copy over the info box and any other needed tables from it's en wiki page to save time or is that not allowed for good articles? --Hellothere4 (talk) 18:41, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes you can bring stuff like that over. -Djsasso (talk) 18:55, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Ok thank --Hellothere4 (talk) 18:56, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Is attribution needed for this (infobox)? --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 01:10, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

I thought attribution was always needed. --Hellothere4 (talk) 01:12, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I think too. I'm 99% sure it is needed, but I want to make sure for sure. --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 01:13, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah an infobox would be past the threshold of originality as far as I can see. --IWI (talk) 01:15, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Depends what you mean. If you just mean copying the template to use to an article or creating the template itself. If you are creating the template then yes you should attribute. If you are just pasting the template onto the article then you would not have to (but it doesn't hurt to) because they are straight statements of fact. -Djsasso (talk) 11:52, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

A good way to attribute the source of content is in the Change summary. If you get in the habit of writing this before you hit "Page preview," then "Publish changes," you'll avoid skipping this step. Deborahjay (talk) 14:47, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Question

Will I get in trouble for changing a redirect to a standalone? --Dingothegorg 16:06, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

@Dingothegorg: What is the redirect you are planning on changing? —Belwine (talk) 16:14, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

@Belwine: I was gonna plan on making the Conure page standalone from the Parakeet page --Dingothegorg 18:08, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah that would be perfectly fine. -Djsasso (talk) 18:35, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Question

Is there a way to see the most linked non-existent page? ShadowBallX (talk) 19:42, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Special:WantedPages --Hellothere4 (talk) 19:44, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. ShadowBallX (talk) 19:53, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Don't just go through creating redirects though if that is what you are thinking of doing. (noticed you did that on the first one). The red links help to get us to create articles, redirecting can hide the fact we need the article. Of course there are times when a redirect is warranted. I am just saying be careful if that was your intention. -Djsasso (talk) 19:58, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

The reason I created the redirect was because I thought that since it was a list of the topic, a redirect to the list would make sense. I don't have the intention of just creating redirects. ShadowBallX (talk) 20:03, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

I figured as much, I have just seen it before where people do things like that just to clear one of the many special pages of things to do and I wanted to catch it before it started incase you did want to do something like that. -Djsasso (talk) 20:10, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

A question

How can i create a wikiproject?12345678910FruitTalk(My Changes) 20:12, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

@12345678910Fruit: Go to User:12345678910Fruit/Wikiproject X (X being the thing you want to create a Wikiproject about) and then create the page. —Belwine (talk) 20:14, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

@12345678910Fruit: Just note that we have some WikiProjects, but they are unofficial and they are maintained in userspace. Unlike WikiProjects at English Wikipedia:

• We do not use categories for individual WikiProjects. There is Category:WikiProjects for the project pages and Category:WikiProject user templates for WikiProject user templates.
• We do not use categories for WikiProject participants. Participants can be listed on individual project pages.
• We do not use WikiProject banners on article talk pages.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:31, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

A question about disambiguation pages

How can disambiguation pages be created?--12345678910FruitTalk(My Changes) 13:10, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

@12345678910Fruit: It's not much different from creating other articles. The things you need are (using "xyz" as a sample name):

• A line at the top that says something like "Xyz might refer to:"
• A list of articles whose subjects might be called "xyz"
• At the bottom, {{disambiguation}}

You can always edit an existing disambiguation page to see an example, then just cancel out of the edit. --Auntof6 (talk) 15:02, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Wikifunctions logo contest

Hello. Please help to choose a design concept for the logo of the new Wikifunctions wiki. Voting starts today and will be open for 2 weeks. If you would like to participate, then please learn more and vote now at Meta-Wiki. Thank you! --Quiddity (WMF)

01:47, 2 March 2021 (UTC)