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 Note that you should not change the archives, so if something that has been archived needs discussing, please start a new discussion on this page.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

"movie" vs. "film" in category names

Are the words "movie" and "film" identical and interchangeable, or is "movie" considered simpler English? I just performed a rename move on Category:2011 anime movies because the English WP calls it en:Category:2011 anime films and I consider it preferable for the two to have an identical name. Then I saw all the subcategories here in Category:Anime movies by year, all "movies." Is there a guideline here, or guidance? Thank you, Deborahjay (talk) 20:19, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

There is no consenus on simple. Some editors are strongly of the opionion that the word film should not be used in any item on moving pictures and that we should consistently use movie. They believe that readers may be confused as the word film has other meanings than a moving picture show. Other editors have equally strong opinions that film is a universally recognised word for a moving image story, many of the awards and instituions use the word film and not movie and that the context of the article is clearly about moving pictures and not about a thin layer of coating. I think that either can be used, with film being the natural word to use for British films and movie more suited to American movies. To avoid confusion the item should include an explanation in the lead that "film is another word for movie" or "movie is another word for film". As far as categories are concerned the consistent use of movie to group films and movies seems a good idea. -- Brian R Hunter (talk) 23:30, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

It is a long-standing practice here to use movie, except in things like direct quotes and proper names of things (such as Sundance Film Festival). It is not a case of British vs. American English: here in the US we use both terms. We certainly wouldn't do our ESL readers any good if we mixed the terms. The fact that new editors come here from enwiki and get tripped up by the different language used here and disagree with it does not mean there is no consensus. And keep in mind that there is no requirement that category names here match those used by enwiki. If it helps, think of Simple English as a separate language, just like Spanish is separate from English. --Auntof6 (talk) 09:10, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

As many of our readers are learning English as a second language ESL we should take every opportunity to explain potentially confusing words such as film and movie which they will come across in the real world. Deprecating a commonly used word does a diservice to those learners. We are not inventing a new language, just providing access to information to those new to English. ESL students need additional explanation not a dumbed down encyclopedia. -- Brian R Hunter (talk) 10:05, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Despite the comment of Brian above long standing consensus is to use movie instead of film. And yes we treat Simple English as a distinct variation of the English language. The entire purpose of Simple English wikipedia is essentially to be a "dumbed" down version of English wikipedia in terms of the language used. We try our best to only use words from the Wikipedia:Basic English combined wordlist. However that is certainly not always practical so we often make choices on what word is the best word to use when there are multiple words for the same thing. The result is usually the words with the least ambiguity. And we would never use something like "film is another word for movie" in an article except the main movie article as that would be adding complexity and redundancy if we used it in every article where we used one or the other. Remember this wiki is about using a Simple concise subset of the English language, we aren't specifically here to teach ESL, although that is the natural outcome of using a concise shortened wordlist. -DJSasso (talk) 15:23, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Although some editors claim 'consensus' I have not seen anything on simple other than the two views being put forward (see archived discussions) with no final resolution. Neither 'movie' nor 'film' exist in Wikipedia:Basic English combined wordlist and so we need to explain the use of these words. 'film' is the older word used by most of the world and in all awarding bodies such as BAFTA and Academy awards citations. 'movie' is deeemed simpler. I would be interested in any ESL teachers from the UK providing another viewpoint. As a UK teacher, I have asked friends and the consensus is that the more common word is 'film' and that it is unlikely to cause confusion when refering to motion pictures. My view is that either can be used, the preference being on context. Where there is possible confusion, explain it. Brian R Hunter (talk) 21:37, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I am also of this opinion. A previous discussion was archived before most had even read my opinion, which was:

"Film" is the standard word in British English for what American English calls a movie. There's no doubt about that, and it is not ambiguous. Context in language determines meaning: many words do have more than one possible meaning. The word 'movie' sticks out like a sore thumb in a page which is otherwise in British English. We should "go with En wiki" as we do in many other debates".

Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:22, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

But context is also difficult for English learners to get. That is why we try to use words that have only one meaning, or at least as few meanings as possible.

And if we always "go with enwiki" there's no reason for this work to exist. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:38, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

This is exactly it, context is not simple, which is why we try to remove the need for it when possible. This is a case where we can remove the need for it. -DJSasso (talk) 12:53, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

In English 'film' has two other meanings, which are unrelated to motion picture/movie. We shouldn't complicate our lives and use 'movie' wherever possible (with the possible exception of 'film festival', as 'movie festival' looks funny). It looks like we are flogging a dead horse; most of the active regular editors agree...--Eptalon (talk) 13:16, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure that 'film' having other meanings makes it more difficult for students to understand. This is because the two other meanings ('thin layer' and 'photography medium'?) are more rarely used ('photography medium' especially nowadays) and not commonly learnt until the student is more advanced. As another example, consider the word 'habit'. The 'action performed regularly' meaning is much more common than the other meanings, and children and English beginners only learn this meaning. Even if we use the word 'movie' for the noun, we still have to use the verb 'film' (e.g., in the article Babe (movie), where we say "Babe was filmed at…"). One could argue that using 'film' is simpler since we can use this for both the noun and verb, so the learner does not have to learn two unrelated words. As well as 'film festival', we also have the issue that a short film seems to be called this in all Anglophone countries. If we look at the American English corpus, 'short film' is still used much more than 'short movie' (see Ngram Viewer). I guess this is why the 'short film' article is called this despite the 'movie' policy on this wiki. Perhaps 'movie' is used more for feature films than for shorter films? Even if we look at 'film' and 'movie' in American English, 'film' (be it verb or noun) is still used over twice as many times as 'movie'. In that sense, English learners will be confronted with 'film' more (either in verb or noun form), so if we were to opt for the most common word, it would be 'film'. A popular English learning wordlist, the Oxford 3000, has both 'film' and 'movie'. I think it would be good to gather some opinions from children and beginner ESL students on this issue on what they think would be best. Although I agree Simple English is effectively a variety of English, we define its rules on this wiki so we can change things if we want to. Having said this, I shall certainly stick with the movie policy (unless it changes one day) since this is what most people agree with. --Thrasymedes (talk) 00:03, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

You present a compelling argument that I mostly agree with. I would point out that there is no policy to use movie on this wiki, just a convention amongst long term editors. I still promote the use of 'film' or 'movie' as appropriate in the article and promote in article explanation or linking to the movie page from the word film. -- Brian R Hunter (talk) 02:36, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

This is an important point we need to clarify. There is nothing in the manual of style about it, but I was under the impression that it is a de facto policy which we cannot deviate from, even though there is no policy page. For example, I started The King's Speech with 'film' and it was changed to use 'movie'. Were I to have changed the article back to have something like "film (movie)", I think this would have been reverted again. Would administrators please clarify the situation? Perhaps we are in need of a policy or guideline? --Thrasymedes (talk) 12:23, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

It was the result of many discussions in the past. As such there is consensus for doing that. Not all consensus discussions end up in an actual policy page or guideline page, in this particular case I believe there has been discussion on how exactly a page to explain preferred words would be laid out and we never came to a conclusion on how to structure such a page. That doesn't however mean there is no consensus that movie should be used. There very much is and has been since the early 2000s. You are correct in your statement that if you were to use film you would almost definitely see that it gets changed to movie. -DJSasso (talk) 12:57, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Having looked through the past and recent debates (thank you to the user that found the archived discussion for me), I have not found any consensus position for the consistent use of either word. Re-reading the title of this discussion I would vote for consistency in category names and that it should be 'movie' (as now). For artcicles I would vote for allowing either word, so long as 'movie' had an explanation that it means 'film' (as it does on its article page). -- Brian R Hunter (talk) 14:06, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Well at this point we are just going around in circles. The discussion they linked to in the more recent discussion is only one of many that have been had. They all end with essentially the same consensus to use movie instead of film or with a lack of consensus to change to a new consensus (ie the recent discussions) which means status quo remains per the usual methods for consensus on a wiki. -DJSasso (talk) 17:10, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps we could just flip a coin. More seriously, I don't see how it matters much. We've already expended a lot of community time on this discussion, and it's unlikely to greatly affect any reader. Vermont (talk) 18:15, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

If changes are being reverted consistently with no option for disagreement, it is a rule, whether it is written or not. I know not all consensus discussions end up with a guideline, but I think here we are in need of one to stop going round in circles and so editors know what to do. A sentence or two in the manual of style might do the trick, possibly as a bullet point in the "Miscellaneous notes" sections. I think what Auntof6 has written already would be fine: "We use the word "movie" instead of "film" when talking about motion pictures. "Film" can be used for the actual medium that a movie is (or at least used to be) recorded onto. It can also be used for the act of recording the movie." Among the people in this discussion, there seems to be a 3:3 split on the proposition, so perhaps we could have a vote on whether to include Auntof6's sentences into the manual of style? Then we can determine what the rest of the community thinks and put this issue to bed, which I agree is tiresome because it has been discussed repeatedly. Or shall we just put those sentences in there without a vote if a vote is not appropriate? --Thrasymedes (talk) 18:45, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

To be honest it is already there for article titles. Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Movies. Could just expand on what it says there, though it is in the titles section so probably not. -DJSasso (talk) 18:47, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

I know it's not a vote for consensus but if it helps I am with remaining with movie. I think it's the objective of SEWP to be simple, and I prefer either movie or film, not both. Let's end this discussion which is clearly going nowhere. --Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 18:58, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

@Djsasso:  Done The article titles section uses the word 'movie', but it does not say anything about having to use 'movie' instead of 'film', hence the discussion here. Yes, I thought the same. Assuming there is a consensus for 'movie', I added a slightly edited version of Auntof6's sentences to the National varieties of English section. Feel free to improve it and move it to a better place. With this, I think we have answered Deborahjay's question. --Thrasymedes (talk) 21:24, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

@Thrasymedes: I do not see consenus for the overwriting of 'film' with 'movie' EXCEPT in the use of categories, where it makes perfect sense to be consistent. I would support a vote if people feel strongly that the word 'film' when refering to motion pictures should be banned. My vote is for both words to be allowed, consistent use of one choice within a page and links to alternative. Brian R Hunter (talk) 20:20, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Since there is disagreement between editors on whether there is a consensus to ban 'film' and not much dissection of arguments, a poll may assist here to focus discussion on the pros and cons of using only 'movie' and establish a consensus. I agree it does not matter much either way, but we need to be clear if 'film' is banned or not so we can answer Deborahjay's question and move forward with everyone knowing what to do. Thus, I offer the following proposal. --Thrasymedes (talk) 16:30, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Proposal: We should use only the word 'movie' instead of 'film' when talking about motion pictures. That is, the use of 'film' in this context should be forbidden.

Support

• Support for all the reasons that have already been mentioned ad naseum. I would like to point out that the assumption is actually incorrect that movie is only a north american thing. We have had editors from numerous european countries and Asian countries that mention their words for motion pictures more closely translate to movie than film. -DJSasso (talk) 20:27, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

• So I decided to look further into it since someone mentioned to me on IRC that Australia uses movie. Turns out they use it 83% of the time. What I found is someone actually did a study on this very topic. And results that I am sure will shock the two opposes below. In the United Kingdom movie is actually used 53% of the time in google searches and the year over year trend in news articles actually shows that usage is increasing in the UK. Here is an interactive map for how often either word is used in various countries. Looking at the map it becomes very clear the most common word in almost the entire world except a few outlying countries is movie. While some countries are split almost evenly like the UK. -DJSasso (talk) 11:58, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support. 'Movie' has a clear meaning and is generally used in most of the places. Youtube, Amazon, Netflix all use the term Movie so I think using it is better idea.--BRP ^ever 12:46, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
• After much thought, I feel that the easier is the meaning of the word, the better it is. The more common is the word, the simpler it is is also true. I also feel the status quo if maintained will be more effective in this project. Hence, support. --Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 14:26, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose For reasons discussed above, which I summarize here:
   • 'Film' is well-understood by speakers of all national varities of English. In the 2009 American English corpus on Google Books Ngram Viewer, it appears (either as a noun or verb) over twice as many times as 'movie'. Using the overall more common, standard word is one of the underlying principles of Simple English.
   • We can use 'film' to describe works of all lengths, whereas 'movie' is generally limited to feature films and not used for short films. Also, festivals are almost always called 'film festivals' (see list of film festivals). If we want to stick with one word for simplicity, 'film' can be used more broadly.
   • We have to use the verb 'film' in articles, so it is simpler to use the related noun 'film' instead of the unrelated 'movie'.
   • 'Film' having the other meanings of 'thin layer' and 'photographic medium' does not make it harder for English learners to understand. The other meanings are rare and only learnt when students are more advanced. Hence, they will not get confused when reading articles about motion pictures. For this reason, I do not agree with the argument that, because 'movie' has only one meaning, it is simpler than 'film'.
   • Since 'movie' is only standard in North America and is not the standard word in Australia or the UK, for example, this proposal forces articles written in Australian and British English to use 'movie', breaking the principle from the manual of style where "if there is a strong relationship to a specific region or dialect, use that dialect". On the other hand, 'film' is understood in all Anglophone countries since it is the older and more established word, so could be used in American articles too.
   • 'Film' is the standard word in academia. For example, a US academic journal is called Film Criticism. The academic discipline film studies is called so in all Anglophone countries. --Thrasymedes (talk) 16:30, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
   • In response to DJSasso's comment, I said "'movie' is only standard in North America". This only refers to English since this is the language under consideration. I did not say or assume anything about other languages. If anyone wants to see translations of 'movie' in other languages, please take a look at the translations section on Wiktionary. As you can see on that page, numerous European and other languages have translations closer to 'film' too. Our readers have lots of different native languages. We are only comparing the meanings and usage of English words here. --Thrasymedes (talk) 22:20, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
     • Except we are not just considering English. We have to take into account ease of which those coming from other languages will understand the word. As such it is a very important marker. That being said, as I have since added above, movie is actually the most common in English in most of the world, even the UK (though slightly). -DJSasso (talk) 13:10, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
       • Since many other people will find 'film' closer to their native language's word, this depends on what native language the person has. To do this properly, we would have to quantify how many readers we have from different locations and work out, for each language, whether 'film' or 'movie' is the closer word. But this still does not address the meanings and usage of the two English words, which are different. In terms of meaning, 'film' is broader and, in terms of usage, the word 'movie' is more common in the UK and the US in some situations, like the Web, but not others, like books. More on this below. --Thrasymedes (talk) 19:56, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
   • In response to DJSasso's second comment, Web searches and encyclopedias are different situations. I have already read articles like this, which describes the trends, so I am well aware of them. In the 2012 British English corpus, 'film' was used over 6 times as much as 'movie' in the UK (Google Ngrams). If we compare this to the stephenfollows.com article and look at 2012, it does not match up. The situations are different. For example, Google searches are informal and 'movie' is a more informal word, Google is an American search engine so users might use the American word (GB American spelling example) and UK users often want to find American movies, which are very popular there and around the world. On the other hand, books are generally more formal so writers use the standard word, hence why Ngrams shows a different story. Academic works in English still use 'film' even in the United States, which is why enWP uses it even for US films. There is certainly an increase in the use of 'movie' in British and Australian English, especially Australian, but 'film' remains the standard for formal works in both countries. Since we are an encyclopedia, if we want to use only one word, we should go for 'film' because it is the standard word used in academia, has a broader meaning than 'movie' and is just as simple. --Thrasymedes (talk) 19:56, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
2. Oppose For reasons given above. Simple should aim to explain words not on the common list. Neither movie nor film is on that list, so both words need explanation where used. A link to the movie page should be sufficient. -- Brian R Hunter (talk) 19:48, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Comments

• Weird that someone start a proposal just to oppose the proposal. I rather Thrasymedes start a proposal which him/her supports. This seems pointless to me. --Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 08:58, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
• @Camouflaged Mirage: I think @Thrasymedes: wants to bring this long running discussion to a conclusion and proposed formal agreement for what he believes some users have claimed is the consensus. If passed then when could remove all mention of film in relation to motion pictures (which some editors have claimed to want); if failed then we could allow both words to be used (as other editors have wanted, perhaps with clarification on when to use which word) -- Brian R Hunter (talk) 12:20, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Seems quite complicated, why not be more straightforward and put what you want as a proposal? --Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 12:58, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
    • @Camouflaged Mirage: Some editors already believe that there is a consensus for the proposal and are acting in line with it already, so I proposed it on the back of the discussion above to gather points of view from the community and to see if there is a consensus for it. I encourage editors to consider the proposal and the discussion above, and give their view. If there is a consensus for this, we can put it into the manual of style so everyone knows. If not, we can consider other proposals. I agree that proposing something I disagree with is a little unusual, but I did not think it was worth proposing something else if there was a consensus for this. We can give some time for people to think things through and give their views on this proposal, and take things from there. --Thrasymedes (talk) 19:35, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
      • The issue with doing it as you have is that a consensus can already exist, and the lack of consensus in a new discussion to go one way or the other in a new discussion just means the old consensus still holds. In other words you actually need consensus to change from the existing consensus. -DJSasso (talk) 20:27, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
        • No consensus to delete something normally results in it being kept. Surely a lack of consensus to ban something means that it is not banned? It seems over the top to require a proposal to allow something if people have already not established a consensus to ban it. But if that's the case, fair enough. Either way, we'll see what happens with this and go from there. --Thrasymedes (talk) 22:20, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
          • Speaking of RFD, this seems to be a DRV rather than RFD. The previous discussion have a consensus to use Movies rather than Films. The previous discussion can be seen as a RFD. For DRV, no consensus to do anything defaults the article to be deleted (if RFD result is delete) or article to be kept (if RFD results is to keep). So I will say it need to have a consensus to use both or use films to overturn the previous consensus. For me, I don't really know how to participate in this. We try to be simple here, so the lesser the words with similiar meaning and can be replaceable, the better. I think my take is, use either films / movies, not both. Obviously if it's XXX Film Festival or Best Film Awards, such should still stay per films (i.e. for proper name or terms, use what is given). For titles, I hope there will be a standard (i.e. XXX (Movie) or XXX (Flim) but not both. Obvious exceptions still applies like if a movie is called The Best Film, surely we don't have to change to The Best Movie. --Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 15:53, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
            • You don't have to worry about proper names being changed. They are names so definitions don't really matter compared to using the actual name. -DJSasso (talk) 16:11, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
            • @Camouflaged Mirage: That is a helpful analogy, thank you. If there was not a consensus from before for a given proposal, and the proposal to ban had no consensus, then I think it would not be banned. But if there is a previous consensus, this changes the situation. Is that how you see it? --Thrasymedes (talk) 19:56, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

More admins needed

Looking at the new changes, I think we surely need more admins. Of course, we do have active admins, but the thing is that we need more. 2019 is over with zero successful nominations for advanced permissions (administrator, bureaucrat, checkuser and oversighter). I see vandals and/or disruptive editors, disrupting Wikipedia, and we can do nothing but to revert their edits, and they may repeat it many, many times - with no online admin to take care of them. A steward just took action and blocked (then glocked) a vandal who just wouldn't stop vandalizing Wikipedia. We have also opted-out of global sysop user group, so global sysops can do nothing with their tools here. So, as a newbie here, I see only three ways to solve this:

1. To start recruiting new admins; and/or
2. To opt-in the global sysop user group; and/or
3. To create another user group called eliminators with limited administrative rights

I personally do not suggest the second and third way at all. I've been at the Persian Wikipedia, where the community had a "no-admin" problem. Instead of choosing more admins, the community decided to create a new user group called "eliminators", with certain administrative rights. The result of the decision is that becoming an eliminator is practically a requirement for becoming an admin (more bureaucracy), and that the community doesn't support adminship requests easily (again, more bureaucracy). I personally think it's a bad thing, because admin right is not a big deal and should be granted to trusted and competent users easily. So, as a newbie here, I wanted to invite experienced and established users to nominate themselves for admin right, since I don't see anyone doing it, and I think every project needs some new administrators every once in a while to be "fresh". Ahmad^talk 20:17, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

The user we are talking about, it a well-known LTA, and I can't remember when he made productive edits any more. The other one (which I just blocked beforehand) is probably unrelated to the LTA. This is a small wiki, where we have realtively many admins compared to the number of active editors. We opted ot of global sysop, as we wanted that local people (who know the procedures, which are sometimes different) take care of the situation. In my opinion, of the options you cite, only number 3 is viable; as it adds more bureaucracy, we are unlikely to adopt it. We also need to look at how often such situations occur (to my knowledge there are only a handful of die-hard LTAs). --Eptalon (talk) 20:31, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

And you have not been part of the wiki for very long. If we feel the need, we will take action, but it will be editors who have contributed over time who will be best placed to judge this. Macdonald-ross (talk) 20:41, 6 January 2020 (UTC).

I see, I'm not a long-term contributor to this project yet. I don't think that things here are too slow, but I think more admins are always useful for the project. More admins usually mean more eyes on the wiki, and that can help in emergencies. This is not limited to this recent LTA. It's a "general" thing, in my humble opinion. I think administrative tasks aren't limited to backlogs. A part of it is checking recent changes to see if there is anything wrong going on. I know, that might sound like "perfection", and I know it somehow is, but I think it's possible, especially in small and medium projects like Simple English Wikipedia. Also, sometimes the project needs an immediate action, such as blocking a vandal who just does not stop. In such cases, I see little or no benefit in getting into edit wars with the vandal, as they will revert your edit again and again. I mean, having more admins doesn't hurt, but will certainly help us, in my humble opinion. Ahmad^talk 22:12, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I will say it's absolutely undeniably true that we need more admins, period. There have been as many as 37 pending QD requests at one time, vandals going eleven days without being blocked, it's starting to get ridiculous.

As for the eliminators group, the problem with admins is that "no big deal" doesn't really apply in 2020 with all the dangerous permissions admins have gotten. When someone creates an RfA, you have to ask yourself, "Do I trust this person to edit the main page?", "Do I trust this person to import pages?", "Do I trust this person to run JavaScript code on my computer?", and a bunch of other stuff that makes adminship more of a big deal than it originally was. The eliminator group, while possibly creating more bureaucracy in that implementation, is an interesting idea to tinker with to allow trusted editors to take care of vandals without having access to the full mop. If I remember correctly, I've heard about some other WMF wikis that allow rollbackers to delete pages under 5,000 edits, and block users from editing. You may think I'm biased with that implementation as I myself am a rollbacker, but I've had this opinion before I even had rollback, and that it would be better geared toward there than patroller, due to the nature of their already existing roles.

I've asked to nominate other people for admin and they always decline, but I haven't nominated myself at all because of paranoia. If anyone doesn't have any major objections to me being an admin, I may try nominating myself in the coming days. I've heard the concern from Eptalon that there are a perfectly fine amount of admins, but in practice the experience seems to differ.Computer Fizz (talk) 21:07, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Admins can't edit JavaScript pages, that's something only interface admins can do (we don't have any local interface admins, so I think only global interface editors can do it here). But yes, that can be a dangerous thing, says the user from fawiki, a project where a trusted user once (before interface admin right being introduced) used project's main JavaScript to mine cryptocurrencies. However, I still think administrative rights aren't that sensitive for trusted users. Of course, one may block everyone, delete the main page and fill it with nonsense, but for how long? There will be an emergency removal of tools by stewards, and an indefinite block, of course. Besides, we don't see many of them - just few users that can be dealt with easily. Many members of this small group do not abuse their rights so that they won't have it removed. In a recent case at English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, a sockpuppeter admin was blocked indefinitely, though, as far as I know, they didn't abuse their tools. I can't remember any case of such abuse in recent years (except once, by a template editor, at Persian Wikipedia; he is currently glocked by WMF's office action). I mean, if we choose good users, we will most probably never face such abuse of rights.

Well yes, in theory, having an eliminator user group seems to be a very good idea. However, I personally think it is not. As time goes by, almost all trusted users gradually request for this right and get it. It actually results in a weird situation. Some administrative backlogs, such as QD, will be handled mainly (or only) by eliminators, and that will result in admins becoming inactive. At the same time, since eliminators don't have access to some administrative tools, they can't do their job perfectly. Since admins are no longer very active, eliminators need to wait for a long time to solve a small issue. This can be more serious here, as Simple English Wikipedia is a rather small project with a smaller active community. So, if all rollbackers here are going to get the eliminator flag gradually, why shouldn't we just grant them the mop? It's not really a big deal in my opinion, even for 2020.

I see no concerns here, and I think you should self-nominate yourself for adminship. Anyways, we surely need some boldness in this area! Besides, the whole RfA thing is not a big deal either ;) Ahmad^talk 22:12, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Interface Admins is a temporary flag here granted only for specific tasks for a short period of time which is why you don't see any listed. As for your comment about not seeing many bad admins, we have actually had a number on this wiki. Smaller wikis are especially prone to them because its easier to manipulate the voting process. Often through drive by voting from editors not familiar with a users edit history on this wiki or through other worse means like specific canvassing. We have removed a number of admins here in the past. Generally here we view getting adminship as a bigger deal in some ways then even en.wiki does (which at this point is nearly impossible). In a small community like this often the bigger issue isn't about how they will treat the tools as much as how much they fit with the community and interact with the community, an admin can cause huge damage on a wiki with a lower editor count without ever abusing the actual tools.-DJSasso (talk) 12:30, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

For #1, everyone is free to nominate themself or someone else, rest is up to the community. #2 and #3 are not feasible and may cause problems in the future. We have discussed #2 plenty of times already and adding eliminators will increase bureaucracy so I suggest people go for adminship instead, there really isn't much difference.--BRP ^ever 22:00, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree. The proper solution, in my opinion, is nothing but choosing more admins. Other solutions will solve the issue temporarily, but will create a greater issue: a community not willing to grant the admin rights to its trusted users. Ahmad^talk 22:14, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Looking at the numbers, we are probably at the level where 30-40% of the active, non-vandal regular editors have the admin flag (not talking about bureaucrat,checkuser, oversighter). While we have actually worked out a guideline (Criteria for Adminship), I think it is important to make sure those becoming admins are trusted editors, and that the level of admins to active,regular editors does not grow much more). In short: If we want more (active,regularly editing) admins, we need to grow our base of active, regular editors as well. --Eptalon (talk) 22:50, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

As a rollbacker and editor I think that we do not need another category of admin-type user. I do not see any excess delay on qd pages and current admins do an excellent job. My main issue that I see too little content creation compared with vandal activity. So encouraging more content creators would be good. I know that it is controversial to suggest it but requiring account registration to edit pages would stop a lot a vandals and free up time to create valid content. How much content is added by IP users? -- Brian R Hunter (talk) 23:31, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

No, we cannot limit page creation to registered users only here, as we have very productive IP editors here. It will not work like commons / enwp. I certainly hate to have an AFC system here if we do ACPERM. --Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 09:11, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ahmad252: That's an interesting thing to mention about how Eliminators may hurt admins. However, wouldn't that mean the existance of admins would retire bureaucrats? It's an interesting thing that can't be seen without actual in-practice, but of course adding and deleting user groups certainly aren't something to be "experimenting" with. I have also nominated myself for admin like you recommended to--the entire community's input is requested there. I now think it may be most wise to change the existing groups instead of trying to create new ones. While I've heard importing pages can corrupt the DB if used maliciously, I'm not entirely sure about that. Computer Fizz (talk) 23:40, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@Brian R Hunter: Not requiring account creation is in the founding statement, it would require a lot to change that (like meta-layer). It's not entirely known how much constructive edits are done by IP users (the last good statistic was in February 2007). But I am fairly sure this wiki is much higher than most others. Computer Fizz (talk) 23:40, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@Computer Fizz: Yes, I was not really proposing the blanket ban, it would need a very long debate by the community and is not needed unless the vandalism to content creation proportions got too much to manage. It would be interesting to have stats on edits by IP, edits by account and rolled back/undone proportions. If someone would like to write the code. Brian R Hunter (talk) 00:23, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Brian R Hunter: That's not something a machine can determine easily. I am writing code to do that (gathering automated data then using humans to fill the rest) for ENwiki. I could try doing the same for simplewiki once that's finished. Computer Fizz (talk) 00:25, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Computer Fizz: That sounds interesting. I am a programmer, so if I can be of assistance please let me know. Brian R Hunter (talk) 00:33, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Brian R Hunter: More "content-user"s are surely appreciated on any project, and we surely have problems in that field. I'll personally try to do some content work every once in a while, but we do need more people doing that. About restricting IPs completely, I think it's not possible, and I personally oppose it because I think they are not that harmful. However, I think restricting IPs from creating new pages is a good idea. In addition, I think even if the community accepts that, WMF won't.

@Computer Fizz: Bureaucrats are somehow different. They have just a handful of tasks to do; things like granting adminship or bot flag, and these aren't "urgent" matters. Admins and 'crats have little effect on each other in my opinion, because their tasks don't overlap. Importing pages can harm things, but good-faith admins who aren't familiar with technical stuff usually don't use it at all, and because of its slow nature, any kind of bad-faith abuse can be dealt with, without huge damage to the project. And thanks for self-nominating for adminship. On a side note, do we have a en:Template:Centralized discussion-stuff for important news? Ahmad^talk 08:40, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

We don't need crats, nor IA or coders to implement accounts only page creation, enwp model can be adopted or commons, it should be a local consensus and then to fabricator. However, WMF will for sure push back, enwp managed to do so by having AFC, Draftspace which I think clearly cannot work here and too much bureaucracy. We do have local IA rights, it can be granted by crats to themselves or admins for temp period only for very specific tasks. --Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 09:15, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah Template Interface Editors is a temporary flag here, only granted when needed for a specific task. -DJSasso (talk) 11:52, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• I will just say I find current balance of admins vs non-admins quite reasonable, but yes, we can use the help of some users here, I have some in mind. my criterion is basically they have a clue and not a jerk, with good distribution of maintenance work as well as content creation which close to 50% of our new articles are created by that handful of editors. I will oppose this to be GS wiki as GS will not understand the nuances well (although we have many of our admins holding GS or even Stewards). I will not think eliminator is a good idea, we tend to need blocking more than deletion. I will say the lack of content creators and maintainers is worse than admins.--Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 09:09, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree with this comment by Camouflaged Mirage, so will support it rather than making my own statement. Desertborn (talk) 18:13, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• This entire section is a perfect example of why GS is not a good fit for this wiki, people coming from other wiki's especially English often don't understand the culture of this wiki and end up causing endless amounts of headaches here. Our amount of admins if anything is still too high for the number of active editors we have here. Currently more than half of our active editors are admins. Very rarely does vandalism sit too long, certainly judging by the Christmas holiday period is not a very accurate determination that we don't catch things fast enough as that is always going to be a time of the year when things aren't as quick to be caught. More admins are not always a good solution, in the past we had many more admins, and the number of admins we had actually caused many problems. So much so that one of the reasons we eventually came up with an inactivity policy was so that we could cut down on the number of admins we had through attrition. And I definitely don't want an eliminators group, we already have a bad enough issue with bad deletions by admins, nevermind giving that right to more users who aren't admins. -DJSasso (talk) 11:42, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
• Lol "37 pending QD requests at one time, vandals going eleven days without being blocked, it's starting to get ridiculous" - I'm still nervously awaiting the decision on my Patroller request from almost 3 years ago XD --Crasstun (talk | contributions) 13:35, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• To be fair, and I can't speak for other admins, but that was likely not done because you haven't done a tonne of article creation here yet on which to judge. Patroller requires a history of content creation here in order to be granted it. -DJSasso (talk) 14:02, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• I also have to say that I clear the quick deletion requests every morning; usually we have 8-12 pages threre, but as you say: I have seen up to about 30 pages. That said: A QD request is rarely time-critical, most of them are what I'd call "Graffitti". Most, if not all get cleared within a day or two. The real problem of this wiki is not that vandalism is not being dealt with in a timely manner, the real problem is that we need to increase the number of active regulars from currently 25-30. Doubling, within half a year would be nice, but that's probably wishful thinking.--Eptalon (talk) 20:04, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Eptalon: True, it's not absolutely time-sensitive in the minutes, but it still would be nice to have them cleared fast. Longest time I've seen was about 36 hours once before Macdonald-ross cleared them. If you want more people editing this wiki though, there's not much to do here obviously (i.e. preaching to the choir, everyone here already edits the wiki). One place to start would most likely be the english wikipedia. There was talk about having some sorry of embassy there, but I don't know if that ever got finished. Computer Fizz (talk) 20:10, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I surely see a pattern of backlog-clearing here, which is a good thing and I do appreciate it. I was more focused on "urgent" tasks - things like persistent vandals, LTAs etc. It's normal for admins not be online all the day long, and there's nothing wrong with it, so I obviously QD backlogs, and generally, deletion backlogs, are usually non-urgent matters (unless, for example, some LTA decides to out experienced users). But yes, we surely do have a lack of active users. I think that might be a result of people not being familiar with Simple English Wikipedia. Ahmad^talk 21:28, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

ok i can see this is an emergency, so i am ready. make me admin and i will save the wiki :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.77.212.17 (talk • contribs)

Not sure we really have an issue with "urgent" issues either. It is pretty rare for us not to catch LTAs, persistent vandals pretty quickly. On the rare occasion that we don't because we happen to have a gap where none are around usually a steward does it for us. The biggest reason I hear from editors on English wiki as to why they don't come here to edit is that most editors on here are just here to play the game of wack a vandal or are just rearranging deck chairs in terms of the gnome like tasks they do. Most of them say they would give Simple a try if the editors here would actually focus on article content rather than administrative like stuff. The only way we are ever going to attract more editors here is to improve our articles. Until we do that, we will continue to be the wiki known as the place where people come to try and collect hats so they can take the step to the "real" english wikipedia or to stewardship etc. Or where they come to try and refurbish their reputation to return to en.wiki after being blocked there. A minor comment on the QD discussion, QD really just means a delete with a lack of discussion, it is not going to be instant all the time, nor should it be sometimes. Sometimes admins leave articles they themselves don't feel comfortable deleting so that other admins can look at them. The number of articles in QD are very rarely an issue, and it should never be a race to make sure they are deleted (excepting exceptionally bad stuff, libel etc obviously). That being said that QD queue rarely fills up that much. Eptalon usually takes care in the mornings Euro time. I end up covering early morning to late afternoon NA time. And a number of people cover the evenings NA time and there are a few who generally take care of Asia time. I don't really buy that you saw a tonne of QDs sitting for 36 hours. You might see an individual one which admins have not yet made a decision on. -DJSasso (talk) 02:37, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

I previously gave some of my thoughts in the ongoing RfA, so I am not going to repeat myself here; a point about the QD situation though - as highlighted above, quick deletion does not mean "quick" in the time sensitive sense. It is meant to be an alternative to the RfD process so that the community does not waste their time debating whether to delete an obviously nonsensical article. On the surface it may appear that EN is doing a better job than us at processing CSD candidates (if we were to calculate based on a CSD candidate/total articles ratio), but that would be looking at the wrong place on EN. Non-autoconfirmed editors are no longer allowed to create new articles, so that's where the Draft namespace (and en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation) comes in. There are currently 3700+ pending submissions (that is to say, Draft articles waiting for an experienced editor to review/re-review), with a 4+ month backlog. Chenzw  Talk  13:53, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Interface administrators

I have added a bit more to the above page, and clarified what this WMF-wide change means (and does not mean) for users ("editing technical information" is not really a good way to describe the user group). As it is now, this group can only be added by a bureaucrat. Discussion on how this right is handled can be found on Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 124, though I think it is safe that there is general agreement (from ST and current practice) to handle it in the same way as how flood is handled (i.e. a temporary right given on a as-needed basis).

If the expansion of the page looks fine, it would be great if another administrator can go ahead and tag it with {{policy}}, to close the loop here. Chenzw  Talk  17:52, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Looks fine, you didn't change the intent at all. We must have forgot to put the tag on after the discussion on how to handle it. But its there now. -DJSasso (talk) 18:05, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Normal administrators are still able to edit JSON, just not CSS and JS based on Special:ListGroupRights. I added this bit from the page footnotes to make it clearer. To be honest, why some still think it's technical is that it was originally called technical admins (on meta discussion page and elsewhere) and then WMF changes it to interface admins. --Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 18:27, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Good catch. -DJSasso (talk) 18:36, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Help with fancy code maths

Could anyone better at wikicode than me tell me why the time generator at Wikipedia:One hundred and seventy-five thousand articles isn't working? Beaneater (contact me) (see my edits) 05:39, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

@Beaneater00: You are dividing by zero because you include "({{NUMBEROFARTICLES:R}} - 153469" and we have 153,469 articles now. It's not clear to me what kind of formula you are trying to have... Please write out the formula using just numbers and operands and I can help you. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:50, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

@Koavf: I have fixed the problem by removing the - 153469 part from the equation. Thanks for alerting me to this. Beaneater (contact me) (see my edits) 05:59, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Request for permission question

A few weeks back I submitted an unsuccessful request for rollback. Prior to reapplying I'd expect the last request needs to be archived so as not to overwrite it/remove it from the record. Are past requests archived on a schedule, or is that something I would be able to move to an archive page myself? I couldn't find any information about the process on the related pages. Thanks, Brantmeierz (talk) 21:07, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't see why it would need to be archived at all. If you feel you're ready, just make a request now. But I'm not actually 100% sure on this as my first request for rollback was accepted. Computer Fizz (talk) 21:14, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

There's no need to archive anything immediately. Feel free to raise a new request. Chenzw  Talk  00:16, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

@Brantmeierz: I think I should clarify that while you are free to create a new request, you should not be removing the old request from the RFP page. There is nothing stopping a page from having the same section header, so both requests can co-exist. Chenzw  Talk  01:57, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

@Chenzw: Ah, that's part of what I was confused about, thanks. I restored the content from the previous request. Brantmeierz (talk) 01:59, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion on enwiki village pump about Simple English Wikipedia

I think some of you may be interested in a discussion they are having over on enwiki, so I am posting the link here.

• Discussion on enwiki: New approaches to "Simple English Wikipedia"

Desertborn (talk) 10:27, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Infobox import

Hi, Could someone kindly import everything from en:Template:Infobox adult biography to Template:Infobox adult biography as the infobox here is currently using the "[[File:Example.jpg|thumb|Caption]]" format which has long been deprecated on EN,
Many thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 18:32, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

That template is merged into infobox person on en. I have redirected it here too. Because of where I am editing from at the moment. I won't go to the pages and see if there is any funkiness in pages using it. But I will tonight if no one else does before me. -DJSasso (talk) 18:43, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi Djsasso, Oops sorry completely missed the redirect despite visiting the infobox on EN!, Many thanks for merging/updating it,

Everything looks fine here but given I missed the redirect it's probably best you or someone else rechecks later lol,

Many thanks for your help :), –Davey2010^Talk 19:07, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Folklore

Hello Folks,

Wiki Loves Love is back again in 2020 iteration as Wiki Loves Folklore from 1 February, 2020 - 29 February, 2020. Join us to celebrate the local cultural heritage of your region with the theme of folklore in the international photography contest at Wikimedia Commons. Images, videos and audios representing different forms of folk cultures and new forms of heritage that haven’t otherwise been documented so far are welcome submissions in Wiki Loves Folklore. Learn more about the contest at Meta-Wiki and Commons.

Kind regards,
Wiki Loves Folklore International Team
— Tulsi Bhagat (contribs | talk)
sent using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:15, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Transnistria -> Pridnestrovie

A lot of pages, links, etc. referencing the breakaway state Transnistria have been being renamed to Pridnestrovie, which seems innocuous at face value, but seems to be a controversial change after looking into it (based on the disputed status of the territory). I checked the English Wikipedia's talk page for the subject (here) and it looks like they ran into the same controversy there in the past, and settled on using Transnistria as the page name because it's what it is most commonly known as in English. Is the consensus (or rather, lack of consensus to move) there grounds to change the references back to "Transnistria" rather than "Pridnestrovie" here as well? Brantmeierz (talk) 01:24, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

No there as not. Agreed that this is a controversial change and also one that makes this wiki more complicated (as Transnistria is the more common name). —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:50, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

@Koavf: Sorry, I'm confused as to what you were showing with that link. Are you bringing up references to that name in pages? To be more specific, the edits I'm calling into question seem to be all those of 31.31.2.57 (which is geolocated to Moldova, another reason the change may be controversial). Brantmeierz (talk) 01:56, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

@Brantmeierz: You asked about there being a lack of consensus to move these pages and I answered with the link, "No, no one discussed it: see how there are virtually no references to the word 'Pridnestrovie' on this wiki" and then I additionally said, "Since there was no consensus for this change and it is controversial, it should be undone". I'm sorry if the way I worded it was too implicit or if I come across as condescending here: I'm just trying to be clear. Thanks for asking. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:12, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

@Koavf: Oh, my intent with the question was more about whether the consensus on enwiki should apply to our pages here. I do get what you're saying about the absence of consensus for something controversial being grounds for change though too. And apologies if my message came across as if I thought that; I just saw the text "No there as not" on the link and was confused, and it can be hard to convey tone. I do appreciate your clarification, thank you! Brantmeierz (talk) 02:28, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Got it. We're on the same page. I think that absent a local policy on x here at simple.wp, we should generally follow en.wp, yes. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:33, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

That is actually a guideline here WP:FOLLOW. -DJSasso (talk) 12:35, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Djsasso. I knew I've seen it in practice but didn't know there was that simple of a formal guideline. Brantmeierz (talk) 14:36, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Now it doesn't exactly apply to this situation because that guideline is talking about guidelines/policies from en as opposed to consensus based things. But as a general rule of thumb, unless there is a reason why simple is different (ie simpler english, more general page than the English one etc.) then article titles generally follow en.wiki. -DJSasso (talk) 18:16, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Hello all,by common reasoning, let's use the name 'Transnistria', because that's what the entity (country/state?) is known as in most of the world. We are talking about an unrecognized country, to my knolwedge only three other (also unrecognized) entities recognize it. No one outside the region will know it as 'Pridnestrovie'. --Eptalon (talk) 17:46, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Movement Learning and Leadership Development Project

Hello

The Wikimedia Foundation’s Community Development team is seeking to learn more about the way volunteers learn and develop into the many different roles that exist in the movement. Our goal is to build a movement informed framework that provides shared clarity and outlines accessible pathways on how to grow and develop skills within the movement. To this end, we are looking to speak with you, our community to learn about your journey as a Wikimedia volunteer. Whether you joined yesterday or have been here from the very start, we want to hear about the many ways volunteers join and contribute to our movement.

To learn more about the project, please visit the Meta page. If you are interested in participating in the project, please complete this simple Google form. Although we may not be able to speak to everyone who expresses interest, we encourage you to complete this short form if you are interested in participating!

-- LMiranda (WMF) (talk) 19:01, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Lack of updates on Kansas City Chiefs and Super Bowl LIV

Why on earth has nobody bothered to update the Super Bowl LIV page or the Kansas City Chiefs page? The 49ers are playing the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. You guys should go update that page and the Kansas City Chiefs page because the Chiefs will play the 49ers in the Super Bowl. —Lauren600 (talk) 02:09, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Lauren600, the community unfortunately isn't as active and as large here as it could/should be. You could update it, though, if you want to. :) Vermont (talk) 02:31, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Why only me? You guys can go help do it as well. --Lauren600 (talk) 02:46, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

No one said only you. Everyone here is a volunteer, and they work on pages that they have the time for and interest in. If no one has the time or interest, then the updates don't get done. You apparently have the interest, so Vermont suggested that you could do it. If you don't have the time, that's fine, just don't complain about other people who also don't have the time. --Auntof6 (talk) 03:30, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

"Your edit is now saved"

I think all of us will see this when we save a change here. Given we don't use edit but change here is there anyway to change it to "Your change is now saved"? Perhaps need translatewiki.net which I don't have an account there? Thanks much.--Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 09:45, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

I have made the change to MediaWiki:Postedit-confirmation-saved‎. Chenzw  Talk  10:23, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

"Draft" merge

Hi, I've recently finished an article, however I was wondering if a few users could look it over, because this is my first ever mainspace article that I've worked on long term. Please leave a comment on my talk page, or on the article's talk page. Thanks. rollingbarrels (talk) 04:21, 25 January 2020 (UTC) ( Current Version | Draft Version )