Wikipedia:Simple talk

Simple talk
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Edit war or change war?

Since we don't generally use the word "edit" here, should Wikipedia:Edit war be moved to Wikipedia:Change war? I've at least created a redirect for now. Also, should the wording on Template:Uw-3rr be changed also? It's possible there could be an argument that the Edit war article adequately explains the word edit. What do people think. IWI (chat) 15:41, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

There is also editing policy, editing guidelines, and tons of interface text that still says "edit" instead of change. Since change is the preferred word here, I would recommend changing all instances to that. Naleksuh (talk) 20:08, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

I do not prefer change to edit but using the same word for the same thing would be Simple. War is a common word but I am not sure that it helps to use it when some people are acting in good faith. The simple message could be "Someone does not agree with the change you made. Please do not try to make the change again today. If you think your change needs to be made at once, you may try the change for a second time, but say why it cannot wait in the Change summary. Please use the word Urgent to help everyone see that you have thought about leaving your change for another day. If the change is not urgent,...[agree]... " From this, we might get "Change not yet agreed" instead of "Edit War". I might prefer "Changed back. A second change must be urgent". Just a thought.--GrounderUK (talk) 22:10, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

They don't teach the word edit in English schools. They do teach the word change. IWI (chat) 14:25, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

That may be so. On the other hand, Edit is the English word that normally appears in software that allows the person using it to make a change, so it is a word that is familiar to younger people and to many others with less advanced English. As I say, I don't have a preference for which word we use but I would prefer us to be consistent in using one word or the other. Well, I didn't quite say that, so I'll try again: use either change or edit but not both.

And then we have revert and the three-revert rule, when the action is labelled undo! There is no excuse at all for revert if our English is Simple (it's less than half as common as edit). Of course, if you undo an undo, it's a re-do. But they both change back... "Take care, because we do not let you change back the same page more than three times on the same day. We may still stop you making any more changes if ..." --GrounderUK (talk) 16:01, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

But you can revert without clicking undo. Although undo is a synonym of sorts. As for that, change should be use as we have a "change" button and a "change" summary. IWI (chat) 20:29, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it's hard, isn't it? The point is that we are not consistent. We use "undo" and "change" as action words, then we say we have a "three-revert rule" which applies to a "user" and says "An editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page—whether involving the same or different material—within a 24-hour period. An edit or a series of consecutive edits that undoes other editors' actions..." And yet we simply want to say "Don't keep changing things back" or (if you prefer) "Don't keep undoing edits"

Then, of course, we call our changes "contributions" and the things we've changed are "revisions" and the changes between revisions are called a "difference". But if you look at a "Revision history" they stop being called revisions and become "versions", unless you actually want to compare them, when you "Compare selected revisions", which shows you a "difference". (And if, instead, you think you might like to "Edit tags of selected revisions", you'll see that "Edit tags" doesn't let you edit tags, it lets you "Add or remove tags". And if you think you want to "Manage tags", that'll just get you a list of "tags that the software may mark an edit with"...)

So you stick to editing... I mean changing. You ignore the fact that hovering over "Change" helpfully translates it as "Edit this page" and choose "Change source". You remember you were prompted to "use the preview button before saving", but there isn't a preview button and nor is there a save option. Not too hard to guess that the "Show preview" button might mean "preview"... but if you choose "Show changes", you get to see "Newest version" beside "Your text" (which is actually the "difference" against the latest "revision"). Either way, the text entered under "Change summary" is labelled "Preview of edit summary". Duly advised of the consequences of clicking "Publish changes", you guess that must mean "save"... But "If you do not want your writing to be changed and shared then do not submit it here." "Submit"? You mean "Publish"? You mean "save"? You mean "Do not click the button"! ...Simple? It ain't!--GrounderUK (talk) 01:04, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

You've just fried my brain. I have no idea where to start haha... What? IWI (chat) 02:25, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry. That's not what I wanted to do. Let's go back to the start.

1. You point out that we use "change" not "edit", so should we change "Edit war" to "Change War"? Fair point. Whatever word we use, we should be consistent.
2. Naleksuh agrees but points out that "edit" is used in lots of other places so we should change them all. Fair point. Whatever word we use, we should be consistent.
3. I think, "Fair point. Whatever word we use, we should be consistent." but if there are going to be all these changes, let's take a look at the word "war" too. I don't think it's helpful. So I offer some thoughts about what sort of language we might use (not using the word "edit" or "war").
4. You say that they don't teach the word edit in English schools. Maybe not. Perhaps they should. Whatever word we use, we should be consistent.
5. So what about "revert" and "undo"? Revert is not Simple English. Maybe we should think about "undo" instead. We already use that word. But I go back to "change back" and suggest revised wording that avoids using the words "revert" or "undo".
6. You say, "you can revert without clicking undo". Well, yes. There is more than one way to change something back. WP:3RR already talks about "a series of consecutive edits that undoes other editors' actions"... Because that's Simple English... Unlike "Don't keep changing things back".
7. And you say we have a "change" button and a "change" summary. Well, nothing wrong with that. Except that the "change" button has a hint that says it edits. And the "change" summary has a preview that calls it an "edit summary". Nothing like being consistent, is there?

Well, let's leave the other inconsistencies for another time. "Edit war", we can change. But let's think about that word "war". Let's think about it quite hard.

--GrounderUK (talk) 09:42, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

fwiw, they changed the edit button to publish long ago, so the edit war jargon is obsolete. you can tell a veteran from a newbie because they say edit. Slowking4 (talk) 13:21, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

So it seems that consensus is to move to Change War. But what about other uses of edit that I mention above, such as similar pages like editing policy, contents of many other pages, and interface text. Is there consensus for this to be changed as well? Naleksuh (talk) 17:24, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Two ways to look at this: 1) Match other Wikipedias and 2) Do our own thing.

1) "Edit War" has an advantage: It is the same term used on the English Wikipedia, Spanish Wikipedia (Guerra), French Wikipedia, Italian Wikipedia and probably lots of others. If someone is reading an article in their own language and then coming to Simple English to learn or make a Simple English version of the article they wrote in Spanish, it would help a lot if we used the same term. I write articles in Simple English and in Spanish and it helps me.

2) If there were no English Wikipedia and you were coming up with a name for this completely from scratch, what would you pick? "Change War" works, but it suggests coins. And do we need the word "war"? There's "Change-back War," "Change fight," "Change-text fight," "Dueling changes," "Erasing Fight." Can anyone come up with a really good word that gets right to the point and is better than "Edit war" by enough that it outweighs the advantage of matching other Wikipedias? Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:34, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• I think you (collectively) have run too fast. You dismiss 'revert' as being not simple, but it is accurate. Long ago we agreed not to be bound just by the Ogden list when we had a clearer alternative. No-one thinks Ogden did more than scratch the surface. We must be specific if we are going to use the words to describe an administrative decision. "Three reverts" is a much more specific description than three edits, changes etc. Also, the whole discussion took less than a fortnight. And, there is a lack of comments from some of our most experienced editors. We should change what we have been doing for years after such a discussion? No, the poll is far too likely to give us something we will regret. Stop being so pushy. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:20, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree. Just to be clear, though... I brought up "revert" because it is a less common word than "edit" and, it turns out, "edit wars" are actually about "reversions", not "changes". To relate most directly to the (current) user experience, we have first a "change" and then an "undo". Or, as IWI points out, there is some other action that has the effect of an "undo". One alternative is going back to an earlier "revision"; another is a new "change" that has the effect of moving in the opposite direction to the original change (a "counterchange", if we are not staying Simple). Personally, I don't find "revert" to be a more accurate term than "undo", here, but I can see how it might be helpful to use a term that is not directly linked to a particular form of the misbehaviour. (This is why I shifted to "change back"... but "undoing war" makes me smile!)--GrounderUK (talk) 13:32, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

• I think "edit" has a very specific meaning; yes "change" covers some of the meaning, but only some of it: Is a "change war" a contest who can change clothes fastest? - And as pointed out elsewhere, it is not just this occurrence, but many others. I feel I am here to make this Wikipedia better. I don't necessarily do this by changing a good part of the interface texts. And no, I am not a native English speaker. (And for those who don't know yet, I am probably the person who has been changing this wikipedia for the longest time, and who is still active). --Eptalon (talk) 18:15, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

• I have been thinking about this for awhile but couldn't think how to word my thoughts but Macdonald-ross has pretty much summed up my thoughts perfectly. There is a tendency to try and change a word without considering the entire phrase or idea. Changing a single word to make it simpler sometimes makes the phrase less simple. -Djsasso (talk) 18:32, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

• Although I added support to this proposal, below, I can see both sides of the argument. I certainly agree with some of the points made by Macdonald-ross and Eptalon above. Accuracy matters. What I would add is that consistency also matters, and if we are calling edits changes in some places, and edits edits in other places, that could be confusing for the target audience. Why not call a revert a change-back; three change-backs? I do see why someone would question the use of it as it comes from a phrasal verb, to change back, but in essence to revert something is to change it back to what it was. I also think that context makes it obvious what change would mean in the context of a change war, given that we already talk of changes here, not edits. The page explains what an edit war or change war is. The title of the page merely acts as an expression we would use to allude to the definition. In the scheme of things, I do not think it will have a huge impact either way; the wiki has been fine with the page as it is (edit war), and it would be fine if we changed it to change war. I do think that for consistency's sake, changing it would be a good idea. --Yottie ^=talk= 19:23, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

• I don't want anyone to think I have attempted to game the system here by starting a poll. The poll is just to get an idea of what people think, it is not setting stone. Consensus should be drawn from this whole discussion. If there is strong consensus for something different than my proposal, it should be stopped. Either way, "edit war" doesn't seem appropriate, considering we don't use the word "edit" anywhere else. I see Eptalon's comment about the fact that "Change war" could possibly have other meanings. Is there a better phrase for this that we can use? The way I see it, "change war" is still better than "edit war". I also see Macdonald-ross' point that we may have moved to fast with the proposals and accuracy should not be compromised for simplicity. This is also true. As Eptalon said, other meanings may be drawn from the phrase, but we must remember that the article in question explains the phrase well. IWI (chat) 18:52, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Poll

I will start a simple support/oppose poll below, as nobody has came up with another name. . Should Wikipedia:Edit war be moved to Wikipedia:Change war?

• Support as proposer. IWI (chat) 19:12, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support - Makes sense to me. --Yottie ^=talk= 21:00, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support Seeing this is simple english wiki, it would make sense --TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 12:33, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
• Abstain There is no consensus here. There isn't even consensus about having a poll! I'm not opposing the change itself. But if it comes down to: shall we just do this one thing, and exactly this, right now? My answer is no.GrounderUK (talk) 11:53, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Not exactly sure what your point is. You're opposing on the grounds of there being no consensus and not wanting to do "exactly this" when everyone else who commented is in support. Why do you not want to rename the page? Vermont (talk) 12:51, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Reading the comments above, there are serious objections. My conclusion is that it was incorrectly named "edit war" in the first place and so it should not simply be changed to the equally incorrect (but simpler) "change war".--GrounderUK (talk) 13:32, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

If anyone agrees with this, they would expect to vote oppose.IWI (chat) 18:31, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean.

[For the record, I am changing my oppose to abstain. I dislike both options presented in the poll. I don't think we should be having this poll at all. But, honestly, I don't think it matters to me what the outcome is.]--GrounderUK (talk) 21:42, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Well the comments above would likely serve as an oppose from them. There is a reason, we typically don't jump to "Polls", we generally suggest discussion as above as its better to find consensus than a binary poll. -Djsasso (talk) 18:05, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

The point was to just get an idea of the opinions of users. None of this is setting stone - it's just a poll. Consensus is not a vote. IWI (chat) 20:00, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

• Support I can accept 'change war', though I could accept staying as we are. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:52, 29 June 2020 (UTC).
•  Comment I think we should pick one of the many alternatives offered in the thread above. I think "Undo war" makes the most sense for our purposes because people literally hit the undo button. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:05, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

You can revert without clicking the undo button, as stated. Not necessarily the best solution. IWI (chat) 19:06, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, certainly people can. But I think "undo war" is easy to understand because one way to have such a war is to use the undo button. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:10, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose I don't know about our target audience (mostly young people and non-native speakers, I presume), but as a native speaker of English, I would not know what "change wars" means. Kdammers (talk) 05:03, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

But if you didn't know what the word "edit" meant, would you know what "edit war" means? "Change" is a word used throughout this wiki, including in the interface itself. IWI (chat) 20:02, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

I could look up the word "edit" and get something of an accurate idea. Looking up "change" would give me too many options. As others have argued, "war" might not be a good choice either.

• Support. It makes no sense to use "edit" if we use "change" everywhere else. Majavah (talk) 07:20, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Other names

I agree with Macdonald-ross that this moved a little quickly. I would like to list all the other names people came up with in the thread here, and anyone with other ideas should add to it. My own view is that all of these are better than "change war" (though I think "Change war" is good enough to work without problems). Now that they have all had time to cook in my brain, I find I have realized which one I like most and why. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:05, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

• Change war (subject of main proposal)
• Change-back war/Changeback war
• Change-text fight
• Dueling changes
• Erasing fight
• Revert war
• Undo war

• • Out of these, revert war is my preference. Although I still think change war is the best IMO. IWI (chat) 19:08, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Introduction

This page seems to be a second sandbox, but should not be for several reasons.
1) Many users confuse edits to this page as vandalism, not aware it is a second sandbox
2) There is no reason to have two sandboxes to begin with
3)It could be confusing for people attempting to read this page to see random tests below it.
I will propose to retire this page as a sandbox, fully protect it and link to Wikipedia:Sandbox instead. Thoughts? Naleksuh (talk) 05:17, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

This was talked about in a section a few weeks back, this is the first page of an interactive tutorial, it is not a stand alone page. Also it gets reset like the other sandbox so the random edits are only there for a few minutes until the bot reverts. -Djsasso (talk) 13:22, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Support We should redirect that page to the sandbox, to avoid confusion, I removed that page from my watchlist to avoid confusion, I thought the edits were vandalism, but then saw it was a sandbox. --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 16:19, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Oppose the introduction page is good for new users; I see no reason from that standpoint to retire the page. IWI (chat) 13:30, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

comment i was going to say add a link, but it is there Do you want your own sandbox? Create a user subpage. maybe you want that large, bold and highlighted? Slowking4 (talk) 13:08, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Oppose This page should not be redirected to the sandbox. This page is part of a sequence of tutorials, and needs to keep the current content. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:38, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Oppose per Auntof6. Desertborn (talk) 16:01, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Editing news 2020 #2

Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

The new features include a toolbar. What do you think should be in the toolbar?

This issue of the Editing newsletter includes information the Talk pages project, an effort to help contributors communicate on wiki more easily.

• Reply tool: This is available as a Beta Feature at the four partner wikis (Arabic, Dutch, French, and Hungarian Wikipedias). The Beta Feature is called "Discussion tools". The Beta Feature will get new features soon. The new features include writing comments in a new visual editing mode and pinging other users by typing @. You can test the new features on the Beta Cluster now. Some other wikis will have a chance to try the Beta Feature in the coming months.
• New requirements for user signatures: Soon, users will not be able to save invalid custom signatures in Special:Preferences. This will reduce signature spoofing, prevent page corruption, and make new talk page tools more reliable. Most editors will not be affected.
• New discussion tool: The Editing team is beginning work on a simpler process for starting new discussions. You can see the initial design on the project page.
• Research on the use of talk pages: The Editing team worked with the Wikimedia research team to study how talk pages help editors improve articles. We learned that new editors who use talk pages make more edits to the main namespace than new editors who don't use talk pages.

– Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)

20:33, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm reading one of the papers cited by the Research/Editing team and it is very good. It says that new users who receive personalized talk page messages about their reverted edits in which the sender takes responsibility for reverting the edit are less likely to quit. That could be very valuable to smaller Wikiprojects. Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:55, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

That's very interesting, Darkfrog24. Do you suppose the idea is that saying "It's not you, it's us" encourages newcomers to try again? (Please ping me. I really appreciate it.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:29, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): I think so, yes. But it's not so much "It's not you; it's us." As you can see at the bottom of page four of the study, they used very subtle differences in text (like active vs. passive or whatever), but I think a personal touch would do it, yes.

I have seen this attempted, but in a different context: At Wikinews, also a small project, newcomers get a lot of personalized attention, and retention remains very low. Extant Wikinewsies often post on the newcomer's talk page, explaining whatever it was they did wrong. I don't think I've ever seen a newcomer's mistake addressed with a bot. I would often take a rejected draft and finish it myself. But Wikinews also has some hurdles not in play here at Simple: The review system takes time to understand, and the time limits can be arbitrary and frustrating. The article deletion rate over there is super high just in general because content gets old enough to be not-news. Another difference is that people come to Wikinews because they're like "Hey, this one thing? I think it's important and there should be a news article about it," and it is usually just that one thing. It's hard to make the experience fun enough for them that they decide to stick around long-term.

So I guess the question is, why do most people start on Simple English? Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:35, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for pinging me.

I think personal attention is helpful. It's hard to keep the personal touch on a larger scale. (Maybe that's why the English Wikipedia gets so much value out of WikiProjects of various types.)

On the question of why people start here: People edit the English Wikipedia (and by extension, most of the others) because of some things about themselves, and some things about the site. In the first category, editors tend to be curious, educated, altruistic, and to have some time on their hands and enjoy sharing information with the world. In the second category, we tend to be curious and have some tech skills, so we are willing to click the [Edit] button and figure out how to fix a typo or small error. A lot of editors, back in the day, got started by making small edits.

I speculate that to become a dedicated editor here, you need all of those usual qualities, plus some connection to children's education or English language learners. What do you think? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:17, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I was speaking more of Simple specifically, but sure. I got started Wikignoming back when it was still called Wikignoming, but I'm new to Simple, so I don't know why people other than myself start to edit here.

I think the large number of people interested in editing Wikipedias in the aughts was because of the economy. Large numbers of millennials in Western countries had just graduated from college and found to their surprise that there was not much of a job market. So there were many highly educated, computer-adept people who had time on their hands and wanted something intellectually stimulating to do with it. After K-12 + four more years of writing essays that a professor will read once and then throw away, writing something that people will actually read feels satisfying. The dropoff in participation might be due to the toxic environment, as many departing editors cited, but it might just have been because the job market got better. Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic has damaged many economies across the world, but if there is a surge in Wiki participation, Project Wiki may make a silver lining out of it. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:38, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

The decline in the number of editors at the English Wikipedia started in 2007 (before the economy fell apart) and coincided with the deployment of vandal-fighting bots. There is less need to edit when a bot reverts juvenile vandalism faster than humans can, and perhaps less reward for doing so if you figure out that it's only going to be visible on the site for two or three seconds.

Page views have been up during the pandemic, and so are the number of active editors. The analytics folks said a while ago that geolocation of page views formed interesting patterns: page views for Wikipedia articles about individual countries spiked early in each country's outbreak. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:53, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

That makes sense about the page views. I didn't know about the bots. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:02, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

" Betacommandbot, who had sent "more than half of the messages categorized as aversive leadership" .... The effect of this warning was to decrease the recipients' edits by more than 10%." [1] and [2] - Slowking4 (talk) 12:30, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Proposal for creation of a certain template and its addition to Twinkle

I’m coming here for community input on an idea I have. So, my idea is creating a simple english version of en:Template:Welcometest, to welcome users that make test edits without biting them with a warning. If this is approved, I would be willing to (at least partially) create the template, but someone else would have to figure out how to put it into Twinkle. Let me know what you think of the idea below. Regards, --sithjarjar666 ^{(my contribs | talk to me | email me | see my enwiki profile)} 23:58, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

This paper cited by the editing team suggests that might be a good idea. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:21, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

@Darkfrog24: I could probably start with the standard Template:Welcome and adapt it from there... who maintains Twinkle over here? --sithjarjar666 ^{(my contribs | talk to me | email me | see my enwiki profile)} 15:17, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Here’s what I’ve got so far: Template:Welcometest. --sithjarjar666 ^{(my contribs | talk to me | email me | see my enwiki profile)} 15:35, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Malfunctioning Infobox

The infobox on Best European Goalkeeper (and all other award pages) is malfunctioning. Two of the parameters, which are properly formatted and troubleshooted, are not displaying. I'm quite sure this is because of some error in Template:Infobox award. You can see on this template page that the small prototype of the infobox on the right-hand side is incomplete based on the syntaxes provided by "Usage" section. I think only editors with special rights can access the problem's source. ClumsyMind (talk) 15:36, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

A fresh version was imported from enwiki along with new doc. Issue resolved. Operator873^talkconnect 15:56, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

@Operator873: Can you also tell why the short description that i put on the same page isn't working? I have been facing problems with these short descriptions since a long time. ClumsyMind (talk) 16:02, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Short descriptions aren't in use here. Instead it uses the description from the wikidata item. That short description system is enwiki only. Desertborn (talk) 20:08, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Question about moving pages

I know that enwiki has a process of achieving consensus for moving the pages called Requested moves. What is the simplewiki equivalent of that process? Interstellarity (talk) 23:01, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Generally, we want our title to be the same as on the English Wikipedia unless there is a reason to believe our title would be more simple (not simple as in shorter, as were your recent page moves, but simple as in Simple English). If you believe your new title is better for some other reason, you should advocate for the English Wikipedia page to be moved. If our title is more Simple English in your opinion, you can comment on the article's talk page. Naleksuh (talk) 23:12, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, that helps. Interstellarity (talk) 23:56, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Who develops Twinkle over here?

I want to add Template:Welcometest to Twinkle’s “problem user welcomes” section under the “welcome” tab. However, I have no idea how to do that. So, I’m asking for either a link to whoever currently maintains Twinkle, or a way to add the template myself. (If it's the second, you can send it to me in an email, if only so it doesn’t end up with the LTAs learning how to screw up Twinkle...) --sithjarjar666 ^{(my contribs | talk to me | email me | see my enwiki profile)} 20:48, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

That template is very similar to {{welcomevandal}} (which tells the user that their changes were "not helpful"). Is it really necessary for there to be another welcome template specifically for test edits? Chenzw  Talk  02:15, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

substituting welcometest for welcomevandal works also. Slowking4 (talk) 12:01, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

No probably not, it can't hurt to exist, but yeah the other one is essentially the same thing. -Djsasso (talk) 16:45, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

why you would prefer test over vandal - i will quote the carnegie mellon paper here: "We found that ... 2) transactional leaders and person-focused leaders were effective in motivating others, whereas aversive leaders decreased other contributors’ motivations; " - Slowking4 (talk) 20:41, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I didn't say I would? -Djsasso (talk) 21:10, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Something wrong over at DYK?

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the DYK hooks were supposed to update once a week. However, they have literally stayed the same since my coming here. Is there something wrong at DYK? If so, how can it be fixed? --sithjarjar666 ^{(my contribs | talk to me | email me | see my enwiki profile)} 21:24, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

We just haven't had anyone update them - ideally it would be changed once a week, but without a new set to use they aren't updated DannyS712 (talk) 22:40, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

We don't yet have a full queue so not much we can do until one is filled. IWI (chat) 23:03, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Historically our DYK change every couple months. Though there has been an activity surge recently which has had us change them more frequently without holding some queues back for dry times. -Djsasso (talk) 02:37, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Moving George VI of the United Kingdom to George VI

I would like to move the page in the heading to a shorter title to match that on the English Wikipedia. However, I am unable to do so. I know on the English Wikipedia, there is Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests, but that does not exist on this Wikipedia. How do I request the page to be moved? Interstellarity (talk) 13:32, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

• This is reasonable: shorter titles win if there is no ambiguity. And don't worry about the mechanics, it would be done for you if that is the consensus. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:56, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
• I agree with Macdonald-ross, above. Non-controversial, simpler. --Yottie ^=talk= 13:59, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

 Done -Djsasso (talk) 16:39, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Very Good Articles

Hello, I have looked through our Very Good Articles, and see that a lot of them need some work to ensure they keep their status. Of the 34 VGAs, the following have issues:

• Jessica Alba (needs updating, red links, reference issues)
• Baseball uniform (reference issue)
• City of Manchester Stadium (needs updating, red links at bottom of page (minor issue))
• Mourning dove (reference issues, red links at bottom of page (minor issue))
• Evolution (reference issues, red links in reference section)
• Geisha (red links)
• Hermann Göring (red links in infobox)
• Gothic architecture (red links)
• Billy Graham (red links, reference issues)
• Daniela Hantuchová (red links, needs updating, quite frankly not looking great)
• Hurricane Vince (reference issue)
• Ipswich Town F.C. (needs updating, red links, reference issues)
• Ana Ivanović (needs updating, red links, reference issues)
• Jupiter (red links)
• Dan Kelly (reference issues)
• Kingsway tramway subway (dead link in references)
• Anna Kournikova (red links in infobox)
• The Lightning Thief (red links in infobox, reference issues)
• Portman Road (red links)
• Powderfinger (needs updating, reference issues)
• Ronald Reagan (minor - a few red links in the references)
• Red Hot Chili Peppers (a few issues with references, and frankly it probably needs updating)
• Bobby Robson (red links, reference issue)
• Saturn (red links, reference issue)
• Tropical Storm Barry (2007) (reference issues)
• Victoria line (currently under review for demotion)
• Violin (Sources needed template, red links)
• Yellow (song) (red links, needs updating template)

28 articles. I don't mean to seem harsh, but that is more than half our VGAs. I realise that some of these issues are only minor, and won't take too long to fix. Others are more concerning. I can see SOFIXIT being thrown around in response, but it is our collective responsibility to look into these issues further. --Yottie ^=talk= 18:45, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

I'll try to go through some of them. These should be our very best work. IWI (chat) 18:51, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Issues with categories

I came across this category: Category:Wikipedia and I feel that there are some things we can remove from this category that shouldn't be in the category. For example, we could remove Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Current issues and requests archive 11, User:Prahlad balaji/sandbox, and User:Vnencak.e. If someone can take a look into it, that would be great. Interstellarity (talk) 23:37, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

 Done They are just pages that have categories activated that shouldn't be. Its easy enough to just deactivate them, no need to come here and post. Just deactivate the cat. -Djsasso (talk) 23:44, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

@Interstellarity: It can be tempting to just remove such categories with HotCat, but please check before doing that. Sometimes the problem is just that a colon was left off when wanting to display a category name. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:45, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

@Auntof6: Thank you. I will keep that in mind. Interstellarity (talk) 11:56, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk:Oxygen

I'm currently involved in dispute resolution on the talk page with Legerrich. Would like more comments. He She has taken upon himself herself to declare the discussion finished and has changed the article how he she wanted it. Won't revert due to edit warring rules. Thanks, IWI (chat) 05:39, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Then asking for more voices is the thing to do, IWI. But I am sorry; I cannot find which talk page you mean. Never mind. I see it. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:53, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Changing the names of articles

Hello Simple talk, I was just wondering whether you can change the names of articles.-Thanks! TheBlankSlate (talk) 13:44, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes article names can be changed, once you are autoconfirmed you will have a more option at the top of your page and you can select move from it. Whether or not a given article should be changed is another matter. -Djsasso (talk) 13:52, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Move error

You do not have permission to move this page, for the following reason:

"῾Eta" cannot be moved to "῾eta", because the title "῾eta" has been banned from creation. It matches the following blacklist entry: (?!(User|Wikipedia)( talk)?:|Talk:)\P{L}*\p{Greek}.*[^\p{Greek}\P{L}].* <moveonly> # Greek + non-Greek

Anyone can edit the filter as such? Naleksuh (talk) 18:18, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

@Naleksuh: Same thing happened to me when I tried just now... --sithjarjar666 ^{(my contribs | talk to me | email me | see my enwiki profile)} 18:28, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Annual contest Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos

This is to invite you to join the Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos (WPWP) campaign to help improve Wikipedia articles with photos and win prizes. The campaign starts today 1st July 2020 and closes 31st August 2020.

The campaign primarily aims at using images from Wikimedia Commons on Wikipedia articles that are lacking images. Participants will choose among Wikipedia pages without photo images, then add a suitable file from among the many thousands of photos in the Wikimedia Commons, especially those uploaded from thematic contests (Wiki Loves Africa, Wiki Loves Earth, Wiki Loves Folklore, etc.) over the years.

Please visit the campaign page to learn more about the WPWP Campaign.

With kind regards,

Thank you,

Deborah Schwartz Jacobs, Communities Liaison, On behalf of the Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos Organizing Team - 08:24, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

feel free to translate this message to your local language when this helps your community

Requesting page mover rights

I would like to get page mover rights here on Simple English Wikipedia. I often come across pages that should be shortened to match the title on English Wikipedia. I more specifically want to do round-robin page moves. I don't have this right on the English Wikipedia because I don't often come across pages that need to be moved. My question is where is the correct place to request page mover rights for this wiki? Pings are appreciated. Interstellarity (talk) 18:26, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

As far as I know, we don't have 'page mover' rights. As soon as you are autoconfirmed (shouldn't be an issue when I look at the number of your edits), you can move pages (except for a few 'move-protected' ones). --Eptalon (talk) 18:34, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

You are autoconfirmed, see Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed users for what that means.--Eptalon (talk) 18:37, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Eptalon, I think they're referring to the English Wikipedia userright "extendedmover", often called simply page mover, which permits a user to move a page without leaving a redirect. On this project, only administrators can currently do that. Vermont (talk) 18:43, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Page mover hasn't been unbundled from the admin toolset here (or on many other Wikipedias) like it has on the English Wikipedia. I'd support unbundling it, there's definitely cases (like this one, potentially) when it could be useful. Vermont (talk) 18:41, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Yeah I don't see why we couldn't do that here too. IWI (chat) 18:47, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Just another 'hat' for the 'hat-collecting community'...--Eptalon (talk) 18:53, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

But some people would make good use of it. Many moves I have wanted to do I have simply left because I didn't want to go through the bother of asking admins every 5 minutes. IWI (chat) 18:57, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Almost no one would make good use of it. It pretty much never comes up. It would 100% be for hat collecting. Its generally why en.wiki users end up here a lot of the time. To grab hats here to make their case for them better on en.wiki or elsewhere. It gets tiring to people who have been here awhile and seen it happen over and over again. -Djsasso (talk) 22:07, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

You have a point that some enwiki folk are going to try to get the right here to justify requesting the right on enwiki, but that isn't warrant to prevent people who could legitimately use it from doing so. Like what happens with rollback, if someome comes here who is hat collecting, we just decline it. Vermont (talk) 22:44, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

The bar should be very high. Users with a history of page moves here and at least a few months should be allowed it. New users or blatant hat collectors can be declined. IWI (chat) 22:54, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

The bar I would want to see set would be essentially the same as that for admin so at that point I would say why not become admin. -Djsasso (talk) 23:02, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

(ec)You could make that argument if not having it prevented anyone from doing anything. But it doesn't. They just slap a QD tag on and a little while later they can make their move. Moves are not time sensitive. You could also make that argument if we prevented people from hat collecting here. We don't. We almost always see this wiki pile on yes in discussions without thinking about consequences. -Djsasso (talk) 23:02, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Because there has been some support for unbundling the page mover right, I am going to create a proposal to do that. I could request admin rights if I really need it, however, I don't think I've been here long enough to get the tools just yet. Interstellarity (talk) 18:58, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

@Interstellarity: What are round-robin page moves? Would that be switching the names of pages with each other (for example, if there are articles here like "Foo" for a book and "Foo (movie)" for the related movie, but on enwiki it's "Foo" for the movie and "Foo (book)" for the book)? --Auntof6 (talk) 19:24, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

@Auntof6: If you go to this page [3] on the English Wikipedia, that explains how they work. Does this answer your question? Interstellarity (talk) 19:42, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Such page swaps are very rare, I don't think I've needed to do them even once, and even so, suppressredirect isn't necessary to perform them, due to the ability to overwrite redirects. Just repeat the same procedure and G7 the leftover scraps. Naleksuh (talk) 03:46, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

 (change conflict) @Interstellarity: Yes, thanks. I imagine you'd need to reconcile links to both pages, since the moves wouldn't do that. --Auntof6 (talk) 03:50, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

To be clear, the "pagemover" group includes these four rights.

• suppressredirect (move a page without creating a redirect)
• move-subpages (move a page and all its subpages in a single action)
• move-categorypages (moves pages in the Category namespace)
• tboverride (override the Title Blacklist)

The vote below is for these, nothing else. IWI (chat) 22:09, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Yep, I don't think there was any confusion. None of this should be done by a non-admin. Especially the last one. -Djsasso (talk) 22:11, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

@Djsasso: This post is in response to me needing a page to be deleted in order to perform a move and one particular admin (not trying to name-and-shame) being stubborn about deleting it. This would require giving Page Movers the ability to delete pages, which I disagree with. I also do not think a new user group is necessary. What I might support is allowing all autoconfirmed users to suppressredirect - I don't see why it was required to create one in the first place. Can you say more on why this should be admins-only in this particular case? Naleksuh (talk) 22:19, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Because it allows editors to move a page without a redirect and then put another potentially bad article in its place with all the old incoming links now pointing to that page. While this wouldn't be as big a deal if we had a page mover right, it would definitely be a nono for just autoconfirmed users. It would also allow them to move templates to new names without redirects which could theoretically break thousands of pages all at once. Generally I am of the same opinion as Dearborn below. We are a small wiki, less flags the better. -Djsasso (talk) 22:23, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. Letting all autoconfirmed users not leave redirects would be dangerous. It's pretty easy to get autoconfirmed if you're a determined LTA. IWI (chat) 22:34, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Proposal: Unbundle page mover from the administrator toolset

I think this right would make things easier for some people to move pages without having to request admin rights.

Support

1. As proposer, Interstellarity (talk) 19:00, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
2. Support - as stated above, having to annoy admins about so many moves is a pain for people who like to move pages. IWI (chat) 19:05, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
3. Support Why not? We can always put it back if it doesn't work out. Anyone for trying this out for six months? Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:47, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose - I tend to agree with Eptalon, further up. I think it's easy enough to move a page and tag a redirect for QD if necessary. There is rarely a backlog, and this gets done promptly by the admin team. --Yottie ^=talk= 20:39, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
2. I myself have moved 87 pages, a good chunk of which have required the assistance of an administrator due to the target already existing. However, this would require giving page movers the ability to delete all pages (in cases where redirect overwrites are not sufficient), which is far too powerful of an ability. Overall if there were hundreds of pages being moved a day this could be useful, but it's not. Purpose of administrators is to help the wiki (although I am a large advocate of WP:DEAL per both deleting pages can easily be restored, it is best to only give it out for all deleting pages). The other use case of not leaving redirects...there's no harm in having the redirect up for a couple hours or whatever. In fact this is arguably better, as EN generally waits several *days* before deleting (intentionally, not due to backlog) Naleksuh (talk) 21:44, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

   @Naleksuh: The "pagemover" group does not include this. It doesn't let users overwrite. IWI (chat) 22:10, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

   It does just not in the way you are thinking. It allows you to do a round robin move. ie. Move the page to a 3rd location then move the 1st to the 2nd. and the 3rd to the 1st because of redirect suppression. -Djsasso (talk) 22:15, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

   Sure, but that doesn't give the ability to actually delete a page, only move it around to circumvent it. IWI (chat) 22:21, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

   Depends on how you look at it. The old redirect is effectively gone and a page moved that perhaps shouldn't have been. -Djsasso (talk) 22:24, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

3. Oppose for much of what has been said already including what Eptalon has said. This so very rarely comes up that having another flag for this would actually be more trouble than the two seconds it takes for an admin to do the delete when it shows up in the QD list. Hat collecting is a huge problem here and this very much is what this would end up, even the request feels like a request to hat collect. (not that it wasn't done in good faith). We are such a small community that we should have less flags not more for the very reasons suggested to split this out. I would be surprised if we have it even happen 10 times in a year beyond a single instance of a person doing a bunch at once. -Djsasso (talk) 22:01, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
4. Oppose per the discussion above. Chenzw  Talk  02:39, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
5. Oppose without more data demonstrating a current bottleneck that this would solve. It does not appear a significant issue with sysops not able to care for these in a timely manner. And on a small wiki I think a simpler permission scheme is better. Desertborn (talk) 16:00, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Discuss

• The way I see it, we only have a relatively small number of admins here. Why should their workload involve something as trivial as that, when trusted users can just not leave a redirect and save time. The hat collecting issue is true, some users are hat collectors. I don't see that as a reason to not unbundle the right. Obvious hat collectors simply shouldn't be given the right without a history of page moving. IWI (chat) 20:57, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

  Just to put things into perspective: Cleaning out the 'QD log', and going over the 'Requests for deletion' is among the most common things admins do. And it doen't make much difference, if you have the usual 'graffitti' to clean; or the usual graffitti plus a few old redirects. People: This project is about buliding an encyclopedia, about being able to contribute to articles, perhaps to ask oneself if a given person or concept deserves to be included. Its not about hat collecting. Its about doing work that is useful to the community.--Eptalon (talk) 21:37, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

  Of course it's not difficult for admins to clear these, but it does strike me as unnecessary when we could allow a few trusted users to be able to do it themselves. IWI (chat) 22:48, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Change in software may affect signatures

User WhatAmIDoing asked me to inform everyone that there's about to be a change in WikiMedia technology that may affect custom signatures. Anyone who has made their name extra shiny might want to check it out. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:52, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Yeah they mentioned that in a discussion on the admin noticeboard. Interesting to see. -Djsasso (talk) 15:26, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Feedback on movement names

Hello. Apologies if you are not reading this message in your native language. Please help translate to your language if necessary. Thank you!

There are a lot of conversations happening about the future of our movement names. We hope that you are part of these discussions and that your community is represented.

Since 16 June, the Foundation Brand Team has been running a survey in 7 languages about 3 naming options. There are also community members sharing concerns about renaming in a Community Open Letter.

Our goal in this call for feedback is to hear from across the community, so we encourage you to participate in the survey, the open letter, or both. The survey will go through 7 July in all timezones. Input from the survey and discussions will be analyzed and published on Meta-Wiki.

Thanks for thinking about the future of the movement, --The Brand Project team, 19:42, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Note: The survey is conducted via a third-party service, which may subject it to additional terms. For more information on privacy and data-handling, see the survey privacy statement.

Blocked enquiry

Please unblock me - I understand my mistake and it was done accidentally perhaps because I misunderstood the nai caste source.

Please unblock me earlier. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sam.Johnanderson (talk • contribs)

@Sam.Johnanderson: You're on the wrong project. This is the Simple English Wikipedia on which you're not currently blocked. You're probably trying to edit this page. I will draw your attention to our WP:ONESTRIKE rule here, however. Operator873^talkconnect 13:04, 3 July 2020 (UTC)