Wikipedia:Simple talk

Simple talk

WP:ST

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 Note that you should not change the archives, so if something that has been archived needs discussing, please start a new discussion on this page.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

change

Who edits the most on Simple Wikipedia?Edit

How (Where) do I find a list of the most active editors on this Wikipedia? Kdammers (talk) 05:29, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

@Kdammers: This might not be exactly what you want, but Special:ActiveUsers shows the number of edits by all users who "had some kind of activity within the last 30 days". It's sorted by user name, and there doesn't seem to be a way to sort by number of edits. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:01, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Kdammers, I think this page is the list you're looking for. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 16:44, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

[1] This is the link you need. Scroll down and you get a proper analysis. The section is called "50 recently active wikipedians, excl. bots, ordered by number of contributions". Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:18, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Moving Category:SwazilandEdit

Last year, the country of Swaziland changed its name to Eswatini. The articles and using Swaziland have been moved to the name name. (Some by me, some by others). Now we need to move the category as well. Trouble is, I don't see the option to move it. I've never moved a category before, so I'm not sure what to do. Do I just make a new category, move everything over, and then change this one to a redirect? Or is there a way to actually move it, that I am missing? Desertborn (talk) 17:36, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Well, this is odd. I see the move option on other categories, but not this one. Desertborn (talk) 17:37, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

I can move it, you couldn't because it was move protected until there was a consensus. But once there was consensus for the article to move which happened awhile ago, the category needed to move to match so I have moved it. My bot will take care of moving the articles over within seven days unless you are hot to trot and want to move them all over yourself. -DJSasso (talk) 17:38, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll leave the article moves up to bot. Desertborn (talk) 19:37, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

@Djsasso: Can any user move a category, or must a move discussion be held first? After a User Moves a category should they notify the BOT operator so the items in the category also get moved Ottawahitech (talk) 14:57, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm not Djsasso, but I can address this. To move a category, you need the right that allows it. As to whether it should be discussed, use your judgment: if it might be controversial or cause any kind of issue, then discuss first. After a move, you do not need to notify anyone to get contents recategorized: the bot that does these moves looks at all redirected categories to see if they contain anything and it moves whatever it finds. Just make sure the old name has the {{category redirect}} template and not the kind of redirect that's used for articles -- sometimes I've seen a category move use the latter, but that might have been changed. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:02, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

It is just the same as articles, anyone can move them, and whether or not the moves should be done is the same, if the move could be controversial you should discuss them. The bot is always looking at the category redirect pages and moves anything in the old category automatically so you don't have to tell anyone. It does however wait 7 days just to make sure there isn't move warring back and forth. -DJSasso (talk) 10:36, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

@Desertborn: When you rename categories, please be sure to change any sort keys that need to be changed. Many of the sort keys in the renamed categories will need to be changed from "Swaziland" to "Eswatini". Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:56, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't even think about that. Thanks for the reminder. Desertborn (talk) 12:13, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

General question regarding moving a categoryEdit

What is the best place to discuss Category-moves: the talkpage of said Category, wp talk: Categories, here, or somewhere else? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 23:48, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

If you mean moving/renaming one category, my preference is to have the discussion on the category's talk page so that it remains attached to the category, but also publicize it at WP:ST so that more people learn that a discussion is taking place and it gets more participation. That's my preference, but others might disagree. --Auntof6 (talk) 00:05, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Proposed rename of some categories for political party color templatesEdit

I propose that we rename the following categories to the same name as enwiki:

The proposal is to change the words "parties colours" to "party colour". Example, "Canada political parties colours templates" would become "Canada political party colour templates".

Reasons:

The current names are ungrammatical.
It's good to match this kind of category name to enwiki's name so that we don't have issues when things are imported.
About half of our political party color template categories already use the proposed new naming so this would standardize the names.

Comments? --Auntof6 (talk) 08:42, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. -DJSasso (talk) 10:33, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

OK, I went ahead with the rename, and left redirects behind. Any new categories should use the new naming. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:50, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

CopyrightsEdit

Simple-wiki is very strict when it comes to creating new articles that are copied over from enwiki. Users are asked to attribute the page to a specific version of the enwiki article to avoid copyright infringement. However, it seems that no attruibution (and no references) are required for adding information from enwiki after the page is created. Just wondering if this is not considered a copyright infringement? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 02:31, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Attribution is required any time you copy over something from en.wiki or anywhere else for that matter. We are just as strict with indicating you are copying something over after creation as we are on creation. -DJSasso (talk) 10:32, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Infoboxes are routinely added without attribution and without references. An infobox on enwiki typically represents the work of dozens of Users. Infoboxes on enwiki use the references supplied in the text part of articles. At least this is my understanding. Ottawahitech (talk) 15:22, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Adding an infobox to an article wouldn't need it because the attribution for it is on the Template page itself (assuming it was done right). And the actual information in an infobox is pure facts so doesn't show the level of creativity needed for copyright to apply. (ie you can't copyright plain facts). References are different from attribution, references are just references and people are free to add them or not add them as they see fit as they would any other time they are editing an article. -DJSasso (talk) 15:44, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Here is just another example where no attribution or references were added to information obtained from enwiki. I started this article from scratch (did not consult the enwiki). After a while a third editor turned up and added unreferenced information. There is no attribution in the article to the information added. Ottawahitech (talk) 03:21, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Attribution doesn't mean references. Attribution is just about, if you copy and pasted the content of the article from somewhere else and you need to say where. References are a separate thing. You can add information without references. Though you should include a reference if its something likely to be questioned. -DJSasso (talk) 10:47, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Unhelpful editorEdit

Hello. I'm new here, and I'm sorry if I put this in the wrong place. There is a person here who has made unhelpful pages and a bad change. They have been told that this is not the thing to do here, but they keep doing this. I think they should be stopped from making more unhelpful pages and bad changes. (I don't know if it means anything here, but they have been blocked at en.wikipedia because their IP number looks like a problem.) Thanks. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 07:31, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi @BlackcurrantTea: and welcome to Simplewiki. My views probably do not represent others', but it is my impression that most people who participaten here are Admins and other Oldtimers. I don't know if you have posted here before (the tool is down at the moment), but if you have not I would like to congratulate you on having the courage to start participating.

Sorry for not addressing your concern about the User that you have brought to our attention. I see a lot of Users who have questionable contributions. However I have recently discovered w:Wikipedia:Old-fashioned Wikipedian values. I therefore try my best to wp:Assume good faith. We have a very limited pool of active Users here (less than a thousand). From what I have seen, many of these active Users are involved in policing the behaviour of other Users, leaving only a handful who are actually involved in building content. I would like to see more people invloved in building content.

As I said these are only my views. Your miles may vary. Ottawahitech (talk) 17:05, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer, Ottawahitech. I spend more time on pages than I spend looking at what other users do. A big change to a page may take 15 minutes or even 30 minutes. When I fix bad changes, it can take less than five minutes, even when I make two changes: one to fix the bad change and one to ask the user to not make bad changes.

I think I do ok at the 'assume good faith' part. Sometimes I see a person wants to help, but they don't know how. Maybe they don't know how we add a link, or they use hard words. That's ok! They can learn how to do things here, then their changes will be better. But there are a few people who want to make bad changes and bad pages. They hurt this place. I don't want that.

Both kinds of work are important. This place is better when the pages are better, and when there are more pages. It's better with no bad pages and no bad changes, too. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 01:27, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi BlackcurrantTea. Welcome here and as per Ottawahitech, I also wish to congratulate you for posting here. New users should not be afraid to post here (my 1st simple post is on this Board anyway). For that user, it's a dynamic ipv6 by COMCAST, a very busy range out there. If there is any blocks, I think is someone abusing it but yes, AGF can be important as this is a range with not a small amount of collateral. Anyway, the IP had been insufficiently warned, they have been given lesser than the needed warnings. The pages are bad, I'll warn them. If persist, the fastest way is to head to WP:VIP (we do have this here too) and an admin will help you there. Thanks a lot. --Cohaf (talk) 02:03, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Cohaf. I found that a while after I first posted here. I tried the same link I use at the other English Wikipedia, WP:AIV. That's easy for me to remember. Time had gone by in between when I posted here and when I found that page, so I decided not to post about the unhelpful IP user there. That is a good note about the group of IP numbers and how busy they are, and also about the number of warnings. Thank you for reminding me. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 04:07, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Welcomed. Have a nice time here BlackcurrantTea.--Cohaf (talk) 05:09, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

I clicked on WP:AIV which @BlackcurrantTea linked above and, presto, I found myself at Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress(VIP). Interesting to note that this was achieved through a redirect done by an unregistered User (IP) back in 2007.Ottawahitech (talk) 02:49, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

GA CandidateEdit

Anyone want to check out Wikipedia:Proposed good articles#Lawrence, Kansas. One of the better from scratch articles I have seen created here in a long time. So would be good to get some eyes on this so it doesn't fall through the cracks. -DJSasso (talk) 11:35, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Archival for GA candidates?Edit

Hello,

what would you think about an automatic archival of the good article candidate proposals page? - I was thinking about a duration of 1-2 months (of inactivity)? - also can we configure Miszabot to dso this? --Eptalon (talk) 14:11, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

No we couldn't configure the talk page archiving bot to do it. That being said, there aren't so many an admin can't just do it once in awhile. If it looks like there are too many and they have been there a few months, archive them. Personally unless we get busier there, I myself probably wouldn't archive anything newer than a year just cause it is so slow traffic there. -DJSasso (talk) 11:39, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Template:Africa-stubEdit

I think we should make this template again. It was deleted as it was unapproved last time. Nigos (talk · contribs) 10:40, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

I made a version of the template at User:Nigos/Template:Africa-stub. Nigos (talk · contribs) 10:48, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

We don't typically create stubs unless there are a few active editors trying to expand that particular topic. You can think of subject specific stubs as grandfathered here (though we aren't totally against creating more). If you can show that there are a few editors that are working on Africa stubs and there are atleast 1000 articles that already meet that subject that are stubs then it could be possible. But I want to stress that we don't create stubs just to tag articles with the stub tag. Someone has to actively be expanding the articles. We try to be simple here so drive by tagging is very discouraged. -DJSasso (talk) 11:10, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks. Nigos (talk · contribs) 11:24, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Deploy Internet Archive Bot?Edit

I've noticed from time to time we have dead links. When I see them I try to rescue using archive.org. But it seems if the IABot was active here, it would help. To do so, looks like it just needs to be approved, and then a phabricator ticket submitted. (Here is a sample). What do you all think? Desertborn (talk) 19:31, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Sure, why not. Is there a downside? Ottawahitech (talk) 00:22, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Support --DannyS712 (talk) 03:41, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Hell yes. I want something further, to be able to run the IAB Management Console to analyse a single page at least. Thanks for raising the issue out. --Cohaf (talk) 04:26, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Seconded. I often try to get some archived links in my sources, but sometimes I'm just lazy. Support! ~Junedude433^talk 14:04, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Assuming the bot op wants to operate it here, I would approve it as a crat. -DJSasso (talk) 14:59, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

@Cyberpower678: Sorry to disturb here too but can you read the above and can your IAB be deployed here? Thanks so much.--Cohaf (talk) 15:01, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

It would be nice if someone where to open a Phabricator ticket, so this doesn't fall off of the radar.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 23:19, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

See phab:T228123 --DannyS712 (talk) 02:46, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Constitutional crisis at WikipediaEdit

Not sure how many readers here are aware of this crisis that started on June 10, 2019. I myself only found out about it sometime in July. The English Wikipedia community has been discussing this since June 11, so a discussion forum on Simple for our contributors has finally been created here.

This is where Simple contributors can also have their say:

Wikipedia:Simple Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram on the English Wikipedia.

Please keep discussions civil, but also allow everyone to express their honest views. Try to refrain from blanking comments by others. It is best to wp:hat such comments instead of blanking. Ottawahitech (talk) 17:17, 14 July 2019 (UTC) Ottawahitech (talk) 17:17, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

I've left a comment there. Seems unnecessary to me at best and I'm thinking the best course of action is to delete the page. Hiàn (talk) 17:23, 14 July 2019 (UTC)