Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 100

Copied from the English Wikipedia

Is permitted to copy an article from the English Wikipedia? אורח פורח (talk) 06:53, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

You can certainly use an article from another Wikipedia, as long as you "translate" it (simplify it) and provide attribution to the original authors - see Wikipedia:How to copy from another Wikipedia. Osiris (talk) 07:02, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Sandbox

I would like to change the header of the Sandbox to include an extra box pushing users back to the student tutorial. Currently the tutorial asks for users to edit the tutorial pages and save. I think it would be better to push them to the sandbox to make an edit then this box can push them back once their done.

• Wikipedia:Sandbox - The sandbox, compare the header here with a possible alternative;
• User:Kennedy/Sandbox - The alternative.
• Template:Please_leave_this_line_alone_(sandbox_heading) - The header page.

I see the negative is creating an extra step, but it might be better to keep all testing to the sandbox. The tutorial page has been tested quite a bit. The page could get quite messy if a group of students all begin to test the tutorial.

Thoughts? Kennedy ^(talk) 12:53, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea. A sandbox should be used as a sandbox. I do not understand why editors are encouraged to edit a Wikipedia guideline page. --weltforce (talk) 13:03, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Because the tutorial page is also a sandbox. The idea was to keep all of the student tutorial stuff in one place so they wouldn't have to go all over the wiki. If they have to jump back and forth they are more likely to just not return to the tutorial. -DJSasso (talk) 13:18, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I understand that but they would not be "going all over the wiki", only to the sandbox where there would be a prominent message to go back. This way the tutorial is never comprimised. A student could follow the tutorial and delete the whole content of the page (its a valid test, and likely) meaning that his/her fellow students would not see the tutorial at all. Kennedy ^(talk) 12:15, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

To fix that we could easily have the bot also fix that page every so many minutes like it does to the normal sandbox. -DJSasso (talk) 12:25, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but that doesn't actually solve that problem. I put it to you that most students do not access WP one at a time, but instead in a class. This means that there will be a number of users at one time. So if say 20 people access the tutorial over the space of 5 minutes and the first person deletes the code from the page then the other 19 people will not see the tutorial at all. Now, perhaps the user will delete the code from the sandbox ignoring the "Please leave this line alone" bit they will still get back to the tutorial by the same way they did the first time. We obviously have no way of knowing how many times this may have happened (if at all) but my suggestion puts an extra degree of certainty that it doesn't. Kennedy ^(talk) 12:30, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

While at the same time possibly breaking the tutorial by making them leave it. This is a solution in search of a problem. We say don't touch the line, if it gets touched its up to the teacher or whomever to fix it. You can be sure in a class if suddenly part of the tutorial is missing the teacher will know about it. Not to mention that it provides a teaching opportunity on how to revert an edit. -DJSasso (talk) 21:49, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Much discussion which is irrelevant here has been moved to User_talk:Kennedy#Discussion_moved_from_ST Kennedy ^(talk) 12:38, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Talk pages

Are you allowed to use regular English on articles talk pages? I'm wondering because chances are most editors speak English as a first language here. Pug6666 (talk) 20:07, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

You can, but you should avoid it as much as possible. A very large portion of our editors are actually not English as a first language people -DJSasso (talk) 21:52, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Special:WantedPages

I know this page has been down since 2009, so I decided to crunch some numbers and you can see a report of the most wanted pages at User:Werieth/Sandobx Werieth (talk) 05:02, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Cool. There's also Wikipedia:Most wanted articles. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:17, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Unlike WANT, my report lists only articles, and WANT is almost two months out of date. Werieth (talk) 05:20, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Nice idea, but it's absolutely useless. Any list which suggests "Azuchi–Momoyama period" is the most wanted page on wikipedia is wrongly designed from the start. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:19, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Seamounts

A seamount is an underwater mountain in the ocean.

Please take a quick look at Category:Seamounts and notice en:Category:Seamounts of the Pacific Ocean.

In a discussion thread here, Macdonald-ross argues that article titles which include the term "seamount" should not have a capital letter. The explanation which informs this is easy to grasp:

Where the two words are not a single term, the second word should be lower-case in English, unless it is a proper noun. Most languages do not have 'seamount' in their title, it follows that 'seamount' is not part of the name. Other languages may have different rules about capitalization.

Is seamount a proper noun in our article titles? I don't know.

I am persuaded by the reasoning of Macdonald-ross. For example, Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain is a good title, but Saikaidō Seamounts is not ... or maybe should it be Hawaiian-Emperor Seamounts?

If there is no objection, I will invest the time needed to remove the capital letter in 24 articles. --Horeki (talk) 13:35, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

You would have to look in reliable English sources to see how they typically capitalize it. I know for most other geological features like rivers the word River is capitalized. So I don't think this would be any different but you would need to check reliable sources to be sure. As for other languages not using the word seamount in their titles, that doesn't persuade me one way or the other because they may have different ways of naming geological features. En.wiki is the only one that would tip me in one direction since its the same language. -DJSasso (talk) 13:39, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Surely they would need to be capitalised. If the word is part of the name, as in, if it's always written "Kammu Seamount" and not just "Kammu" then it would be capitalised. As suggested, though, have a look at how reliable sources put it. Osiris (talk) 04:48, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Hello!

Hello everyone! I'm new here and from Chinese Wikipedia. :-) I'm learning English now, and want to creat articles for Simple English Wikipedia. However, It difficult for me to writing a long article, copy from enwp seems easily to create a "not short" article, so is there some notes for me. Thanks!--铁铁的火大了 (talk) 14:24, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Welcome! This page Wikipedia:How to copy from another Wikipedia may help.--Tbennert (talk) 18:51, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I gave you a short introduction on your talk page. Have a nice time here! --weltforce (talk) 23:41, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

V • T • E or v • t • e

May I ask why Template:Navbar is showing vte instead of VTE? VTE fits better in my opinion because it's capital letters will be displayed smaller. --weltforce (talk) 22:30, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Should the discussion about the Indian Education Program be moved?

Hello all, I am wondering, whether we should move the discussion about the Indian education program & SimpleWiki to its own page. Points in favor of this are: If we decide to follow and work out some prototype, this will occupy us for quite some time (say: months), These pages are periodically archived by a bot (every 10-15 days, or so). If we don't follow with this, we would need to decide it fairly quickly, else we do work several times.

What do you think? --Eptalon (talk) 23:08, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Move it.--Peterdownunder (talk) 23:12, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, please do it. --weltforce (talk) 23:41, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I would appreciate if you could move it too. Can I make a request and move both the proposal and the 10 point table above? The 10 point table would be really useful for an ongoing discussion as it is where we would love to get (and are already getting) comments from the Simple community that go into the detail of the pilot. Hisham (talk) 01:37, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

The Indian Education Project discussion has been moved to Wikipedia:Proposed Indian Education Program.Please join/continue the discussion at the new page.Peterdownunder (talk) 02:22, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

lastactive.js

Hello! I experimented with JavaScript programming and created a new tool called "lastactive". It shows you on someones user page when he/she was last active:

So if you are on my user page and my last edit was 8 hours ago, it will show:

User:Weltforce    (last active 8 hours ago)

---

If someone was last active on May 21, 2012, it will show:

User:xxxxxxx    (last active on May 21, 2012)

---

I think this tool is quite useful. It doesn't need any actions by the user, it just loads up within the page. Please test it on your own common.js or monobook.js:

importScript('User:Weltforce/lastactive.js');

Source code can be found here. Thank you for using it! --weltforce (talk) 23:19, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

New Modules for Twinkle  Done

Wikipedia_talk:Twinkle#New_modules

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Twinkle#New_modules. --weltforce (talk) 12:44, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

hi

hi i hav two questions how to i get a account und what is an admin? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.59.36.114 (talk • contribs) 10:39, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

You may see a button labeled "Create account" in the top right corner. Click there to create a account. See Wikipedia:Administrators. Have a nice day, weltforce (talk) 10:47, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Hello! Welcome to Simple English Wikipedia. To add to Weltforce, you can Click Here to get an account. In short, an admin can delete pages or stop people from editing, and other things. They are sort of like the 'police' of wikipedia. If you need any help just ask. Kennedy ^(talk) 11:34, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Your answer can't be expressed in a better way Thanks Kennedy! --weltforce (talk)

What is this place

What is this place, it looks like some simpler version of wikipedia.--TheAnnoymousUser (talk) 16:17, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

That is what it is. -DJSasso (talk) 16:25, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

See also: Wikipedia:Simple English Wikipedia. Cheers, --weltforce (talk) 16:36, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank You

Hats off to this community, I am from english Wikipedia, and to be honest, I have never received such a warm welcome to any other Wikipedia. I love the friendliness of this community and I promise you to try my best to contribute as best as I can on this Wikipedia. Thank you again, this is an awesome community. --Debastein (talk) 20:21, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that is one of the things why I really appreciate this small, but nice community. Hope there will be more active contributers ^^ Cheers, weltforce (talk) 20:36, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Proposed Indian Education Program

Hi, I just found this lengthy discussion about a proposed program for Indian students, which sounds like it would be a wonderful project. I would support it 100%. However, it doesn't seem to have been agreed upon and I don't see any signs of a consensus having been reached. Has the Indian Education program been rejected or are the students currently editing? A Clockwork Orange (talk) 22:11, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

The program doesn't start until November, so it's in the discussion stages at the moment. Some issues have been identified, so the coordinators are trying to address them. Osiris (talk) 02:23, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Since it will probably take months of discussion, it has been moved to its own page; discussions on this page are archived when they are about two weeks old.--Eptalon (talk) 07:29, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Discussions are still on-going but I highly doubt that it will be accepted at this point. Being only about 4 months away its unlikely the situation could be adapted to something that would work on simple in that short a time to alleviate the concerns of the opposes. -DJSasso (talk) 14:44, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

TMD students in class editing session in 5... 4.. 3...

Hello fellow editors,

I will again ask students to do some editing in class. We'll start in about 20 minutes. Their usernames begin with TMD. Please be kind. Please do communicate with them by Talk pages and make corrections to their edits. Please don't QD anything unless it is a clear copyvio. I will go back through the new changes queue to make sure no vandalism sneaks through as they do their editing. Thanks! (They seem to really be enjoying this project.) ELTted (talk) 01:21, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

One week later, time for the next in-class editing session with my students at 10:30 GMT+9. It will clog the New Changes, but I'll have a look for any vandalism that might slip by as many users starting with TMD post small edits. Thank you everyone for your patience. Please do notify me if this becomes a problem in any way. They are pretty good students but they will make mistakes. ELTted (talk) 23:10, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

A few students will be coming back in to edit again in class now. Sorry about the image uploads last week. I'll make sure it doesn't happen again. They have other tasks to work on as well, so editing should be lighter and more manageable this week. Thanks, ELTted (talk) 01:14, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

One week later, and time for another in-class editing session. Editors with usernames starting TMD will be editing as a group in a couple of hours. As usual, I will try to patrol all of their edits but may miss one or two. If they flood New Changes, I'll go back through looking for IP edits, vandalism, etc. Thanks, ELTted (talk) 21:35, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, Ted, I think I might miss this one - my fridge is empty so need to go out. Looks like Peter might be around. Your things always go very smoothly anyway. Thanks for the heads up. Osiris (talk) 01:28, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi, sorry I forgot to warn everyone in advance, but we'll be having one more in-class editing session from right about now. Next week at this time will be our last one. I hope a few students will continue editing after the course, but it will be summer vacation. ;-) ELTted (talk) 01:40, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

India/Pakistan

What is the plan on dealing with things like this, where there are differing opinions on the piece of land. Is it Indian, or is it Pakistani, or is it disputed, or is it 'occupied'?

I would hate for the word 'occupied' to be used, and don't think that is correct, so whats the best stance here? Kennedy ^(talk) 12:14, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Occupied is a POV word. Generally we try to avoid either descriptor if possible because either can be an issue, but of the two disputed is the least POV. But people who think occupied should be used could see that as POV as well. I reverted to the pre-existing sentence that didn't use either word for that reason which has somewhat become standard operating procedure for this India/Pakistan stuff since we have the big pov pushing editor in that topic area. -DJSasso (talk) 12:18, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I think the official English terms are Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Indian-administered Kashmir. Note that in this context, the Siachen Glacier, and a few mountain passes are under Chinese control. And yes, India and Pakistan have gone to war over the territory, so it is definitely disputed. Personally, I would avoid occupied as implies/requires one particular point of view. Controlled is more neutral. --Eptalon (talk) 13:35, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
What kind of process leads to better-informed word choices?

In the contexts of disputed land or territory, neutral terms include

• claimed?

EX: At en:Macclesfield Bank, "... claimed, in whole or in part, by the People's Republic of China, Republic of China (Taiwan), the Philippines, and Vietnam."

• controlled?

EX: At en:Northern Limit Line (NLL), "The Korean War armistice which was signed by both North Korea and the United Nations Command (UNC) ... specified that the five islands including Yeonpyeong Island, Baengnyeong Island and Daecheong Island would remain under UNC and South Korean control."

EX: At Senkaku Islands, "Control over these islands and rocks is disputed."

EX: At Spratly Islands, "... China, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam are interested in them. These countries share control of the islands but each of them want to take control of all or most of the islands."

See also Line of Actual Control (LAC)

• administered?

EX: At en:Kuril Islands dispute, "The disputed islands, which were occupied by Soviet forces during the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation at the end of World War II, are under Russian administration as South Kuril District of the Sakhalin Oblast (Сахалинская область, Sakhalinskaya oblast) ...."

EX: At en:Liancourt Rocks dispute, "... Liancourt Rocks have been administered by the Republic of Korea since 1954 by stationing ROK coast guard,

EX: At en:Paracel Islands, "... group of islands under the administration of Hainan Province, the People's Republic of China (PRC) .... In June 21, 2012, the PRC established Sansha City, with Paracel Islands as one of its three towns."

EX: At en:South Tibet dispute, "... entirely administered by India as part of its Arunachal Pradesh state; China claims it as a part of its Tibet Autonomous Region and refers to it as South Tibet (Chinese: 藏南; pinyin: Zàngnán).

These terms may appear somewhat interchangeable, but connotations may be "loaded" with historical meaning and usage.

EX: At en:Kashmir#The Kashmir conflict, "... Kashmir is split, as follows:

• "Republic of India controls the state of Jammu and Kashmir. It is made of the Jammu region, the Kashmir valley, and Ladakh. Pakistan refers to this as Indian occupied kashmir or Indian controlled Kashmir, or Indian-annexed Kashmir and Indian-held Kashmir."
• "The territories known as Northern Areas and Azad Jammu and Kashmir are administered by Pakistan. Islamabad calls them Pakistan-administered Kashmir. India refers to this as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir."

In articles which are notable because of a dispute, I wonder if a wider context of other disputed areas will be helpful? Could this kind of en:Thinking outside the box research become a useful step in a process? --Horeki (talk) 14:39, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Seeing as how this is the Simple Wikipedia, I think it would only be right for the factor of simplicity to play a role in choosing a name. Of the proposed choices (excluding "occupied", as it seems to have been concluded that this was a biased term), I would say that "claimed" is the most simple, followed by "controlled" and then "administered". The quotes cited above are from the English Wikipedia, so they are not written in Simple English.

Another note about the word "Occupied" - you can think of it this way: Indian Kashmir (from what I've read; I don't know about Pakistan) is under the control of several hundred thousand soldiers, thus making it under military occupation. Does that mean it is necessarily a better choice of language? No, but it's a different way of looking at it. A Clockwork Orange (talk) 10:48, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Template {{Under construction}} not working right

Template:Under construction isn't displaying the correct amount of time on some articles. Examples:

• Nintendo 3DS system software was last edited over 12 hours ago, template says it was 8 minutes
• Othallo Tabia was last edited 20 minutes ago, template says it was zero seconds

Some articles look OK. Maybe it's anything that was last edited less than a day ago? Could someone take a look? --Auntof6 (talk) 21:32, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Try purging the cache. I got the same results that you saw, but then purged the page and it now says 24 hours ago and 3 hours ago. Osiris (talk) 02:51, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Big Weekend moved

I have moved the proposed Big Space Weekend to August due to some time difficulties on my part. Sorry for the late notice. Please feel free to do a different one this month. Sorry again, DJDunsie (talk) 15:49, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

What happened to gadgets?

I noticed that HotCat wasn't working. I went to settings, and the Gadgets tab is missing. Is the software getting changed or something? --Auntof6 (talk) 21:59, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

And now it's back. --Auntof6 (talk) 22:09, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Indian football club articles

The format for ENWP articles about football clubs is somewhat standardized. As a general rule, the article includes a table of current team players.

In 2010, many SEWP articles about Japanese football teams were created, but they soon became outdated. In this context, Creol explained at Talk:Sanfrecce Hiroshima: "Most football team articles include the team list ... but these lists require constant upkeep that may not be worth the effort for a smaller wiki."

In 2012, the format of these Japan-related articles was changed. All J. League Division 1 team lists were moved to linked sub-articles. For example,

• Albirex Niigata + List of Albirex Niigata players?
• Sanfrecce Hiroshima + List of Sanfrecce Hiroshima players?

There are still a few J. League Division 2 articles which include 2010 team lists.

QUESTION: What is best in our unique SEWP context?

A similar format may be good for articles about Indian football teams. For example,

• Pune F.C. + List of Pune F.C. players?
• Sporting Clube de Goa + List of Sporting Clube de Goa players?

Perhaps no one noticed that Manchester United F.C. is now paired with List of Manchester United F.C. players? Compare, for example,

• en:Manchester United F.C. + en:List of Manchester United F.C. players?

Auntof6 suggested here that the issue should be posted on this talk page.

Please consider commenting here and/or at Talk:List of Indian football teams#Structural strategy in football articles. --Horeki (talk) 20:20, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I think that the article about a sports club (whatever the sport is) should give an equal focus to the history of the club. This part will be something more stable, than to know that player X played in club Y, in season Z... --Eptalon (talk) 22:17, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Agree. I think what should be done now though is to work on the wikiproject for football and maybe make other pages related to it like on English wikipedia. For example we can create our own fully-professional leagues page and probably have a better system for it (My idea is that if you think a specific league is fully professional you should go to User talk:Arsenalkid700/WikiProject Football and make a new section called Nomination for [Insert League Here] for fully-professional leagues and explain why the league is fully professional and than other users will do a quick vote were if the majority say yes than the league will be added and if not than not added.) --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 18:05, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

My interest in this subject is narrow. At this point, I am only willing to commit to investing a limited amount of time in short articles about the 20+ major Indian teams.

Cut-and-paste from ENWP has sometimes caused problems in the past. Some of these problems were avoidable. My hope is that this thread will focus on issues which may be handled in more than one way. For example, Eptalon's comment here caused me to expand Pune F.C.#History and Sporting Clube de Goa#History.

In other words, the question becomes about good judgment. What should be included -- and not included -- in a very basic article about an Indian football club?

Indirectly, this also suggests what may be missing or not parsed well enough in articles about Japanese football clubs. For example, Auntof6's change summary here caused me to move headnote links to "Related pages" in 20+ articles about Japanese football clubs. --Horeki (talk) 19:12, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Please comment about List of East Bengal F.C. players.

What are the questions I should be asking about this kind of list article?

In this context, how many redlinks are too many as a general rule? I am unsure about whether no link is better than a red link? What is the minimum number of names which need to be on a list like this? I don't quite understand how to make guesses about minimum standards? Please help me think through this problem? --Horeki (talk) 20:50, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Aha, yes. Some questions have no answers. The community confirms it here. In other words, the flexibility of fuzzy logic is best in this context. --Horeki (talk) 12:17, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Simple WikiProject Football

Just started User talk:Arsenalkid700/WikiProject Football as I felt we needed a project which provides a guideline for how association football articles should be made and kept. Cheers. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 22:31, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Is it possible that SEWP is too small for a WikiProject? --Horeki (talk) 18:43, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Very likely. Numerous attempts have started and failed. Not that I'm condemning this one... I hope it does succeed for the obvious reasons. Kennedy ^(talk) 11:54, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Writing of numbers

See XM8. I know that in some places the period is used for decimal and the comma separates each group of 3 digits, and in some places (Europe?) that is reversed. Do we have a preference here? I read XM8 and thought, "2660 kilograms doesn't seem very light to me". Then I saw the other number and realized what was going on. Comments? --Auntof6 (talk) 18:02, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Afaik, we don't. --Eptalon (talk) 19:13, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Its probably of a smiliar argument to en/us English where its generally if its an UK subject use British English, American US English, however this differs in that I think we should be consistent across the project with one or the other. I'd put the argument forward that English speaking countries would use commas (1,000) rather than periods (1.000) where its more common in Europe etc. - or at least most often, and therefore that is the standard we should implement. Kennedy ^(talk) 11:24, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

English-speaking countries have always used the comma and still do. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:56, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
If there really is no standard, I think we should opt for the easiest possible solution: use whatever you like, but be consistent. I don't care that much if one articles uses dots as thousands separartor, and another uses commas, but please: Inside an article always use the same. (It is much the same argument with 'ou' vs. 'o'). Either its 'honor' or 'honour', but inside the article only use one variant... --Eptalon (talk) 16:15, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I think that's quite wrong. Where British and American usage is the same, it should be followed in all our articles. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:58, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

The guideline you're looking for is WP:MOSNUM. You're supposed to use commas to separate figures of 5 digits or more. Periods are used for decimals. Osiris (talk) 15:34, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Ah! I was looking at WP:MOS (simple doesn't have MOSNUM) - This is the section btw; en:Wikipedia:MOSNUM#Delimiting_.28grouping_of_digits.29 Kennedy ^(talk) 15:41, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Translation of the week does not match...

Hello all,

the two articles we currently have listed as translation of the week do not match any current or past candidates. The easiest way would be to write a bot that updates them regularly.... --Eptalon (talk) 11:15, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, Eptalon - this is my bad. Shizhao, who usually updates the candidates, hasn't been active this week and so the candidates haven't been replaced. The two listed at meta are outdated (for 9-15 July), so I replaced them with the two next in line on the nominations page. A bot would definitely make everything much easier. Osiris (talk) 11:49, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I've gone and updated the pick at meta, so you should be able to go there now and add the links to your work. Osiris (talk) 21:14, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Misspelled category

Can an admin move Category:Caeclilians to its proper name Category:Caecilians? Best, Jonayo! ^{Selena 4 ever} 00:24, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Are there any more pages to fill it? I'm only seeing two at the moment.. Osiris (talk) 03:39, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

There's actually five articles in that category. Best, Jonayo! ^{Selena 4 ever} 04:01, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Osiris (talk) 04:40, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Help decide about more than $10 million of Wikimedia donations in the coming year

(Apologies if this message isn't in your language. Please consider translating it)

Hi,

As many of you are aware, the Wikimedia Board of Trustees recently initiated important changes in the way that money is being distributed within the Wikimedia movement. As part of this, a new community-led "Funds Dissemination Committee" (FDC) is currently being set up. Already in 2012-13, its recommendations will guide the decisions about the distribution of over 10 million US dollars among the Foundation, chapters and other eligible entities.

Now, seven capable, knowledgeable and trustworthy community members are sought to volunteer on the initial Funds Dissemination Committee. It is expected to take up its work in September. In addition, a community member is sought to be the Ombudsperson for the FDC process. If you are interested in joining the committee, read the call for volunteers. Nominations are planned to close on August 15.

--Anasuya Sengupta, Director of Global Learning and Grantmaking, Wikimedia Foundation 20:24, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Distributed via Global message delivery. (Wrong page? Fix here.)

Templates: giving examples without adding categories to the template or template doc page

Is there a good way to do that? Maybe a check to see if you're in templatespace? How could one do that? --Auntof6 (talk) 22:37, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Wait, what do you want to do? Does {{template other}} help? Osiris (talk) 23:31, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I understand now. Sorry. Using template other might do the trick. Osiris (talk) 23:35, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Or if you only want the categories to be added on Category pages, you can use {{category other}}. So format the categorisation like this:

{{category other|[[Category:Decades]]|<!--nothing-->}}

That should make sure only the category pages get added to the category, or:

{{template other|<!--nothing-->|[[Category:Decades]]}}

...will make sure all pages get added to the category except for template pages. Osiris (talk) 23:52, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Empty maintenance categories

I just noticed the following categories under Special:UnusedCategories:

• Category:Articles to be expanded from February 2008
• Category:Articles to be expanded from January 2007
• Category:Articles to be expanded from January 2010
• Category:Articles to be expanded from November 2009

It looks like they have self-nominated for quick deletion because they are empty, but they don't appear under Category:Quick deletion requests. Should they show up there? --Auntof6 (talk) 04:33, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Nah, they never do. Thanks, I'll take care of them now. Osiris (talk) 06:26, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

The accompanying page on en.wikipedia called Las Vegas, Nevada has been moved to Las Vegas. Can we do the same here? Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 21:51, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Can we? Sure -- go ahead and do it. Should we? I dunno -- is there a particular reason? --Auntof6 (talk) 21:57, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

It would help establish a clear and consistent naming convention across geography articles. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 22:30, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Across wikis, you mean? It wouldn't be consistent across all city articles. Some cities have to have the state name because there are multiple cities with the same name and none is a primary use. Here, of course, it would be the primary use, so if we ever add articles on the other places called Las Vegas, we could qualify them. I don't see a compelling reason for the change, but I wouldn't object and I think you'd be safe to do the move. Does anyone know if the bots would pick up that kind of change and update the interwikis? --Auntof6 (talk) 00:10, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Until simple.wikipedia has an acceptable naming convention policy, it may be best to just just en.wikipedia's. If I made a list of a hundred or so articles that I wanted moved (like Plastic Island to Great Pacific Garbage Patch) would you guys be willing to indicate your approval/disapproval here? I'd rather have be a dedicated Requested Moves page like on en.wikipedia but somehow I don't think that would work here. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 01:18, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I've done the Las Vegas one. I'm sure the bots will sync it later today. Osiris (talk) 04:40, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
potentially, we do have the problem, that there is another Las Vegas in New Mexico, there is one in Spain and one in Honduras; there is the Las Vegas Culture (of hunters and gatherers), in Ecuador. Can we be quite sure that the people looking for "Las Vegas" will want the place in Nevada, most of the time?--Eptalon (talk) 12:20, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes we can be, that is what the discussion on en was about. It was about which Las Vegas was the primary topic. Once those other ones have pages you create a disambiguation page and put it in a hat not at the top of the NEvada page for those few people who aren't looking for it. -DJSasso (talk) 12:24, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Big Olympic Weekend

The July Big Weekend will focus on creating or expanding articles related to the Olympics. The dates are from Friday July 20 through Monday July 23. (Sorry for the short notice).

Some ideas for articles:

• Biographies - The List of articles all languages should have has many redlinks. Also most countries have an article for Olympics with a medal table. See Belgium at the Olympics for an example.
• Locations - This [1] is a list of the Stadiums; Category:Olympic cities has a list of the cities.
• Sports - Category:Olympic sports has several articles to expand. Compare to the list on English [2] - some sports are missing.
• History/Politics - 1980 Summer Olympics and 1984 Summer Olympics need info on the boycott. Both World Wars had impact on the Olympics but we have little info on it.
• Other - Many years need expansion, for example see 2000 Summer Olympics and 1964 Summer Olympics. Art at the Olympics and Museums can be created.

When making Olympic changes please put BOW in your edit summary. It would also be super great if you could add your name to this list as I may lose some of the edits in Recent Changes. Looking forward to seeing what we can get cleaned up before the opening ceremony! --Tbennert (talk) 04:10, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Big Olympic Weekend has begun! Thanks to those that have already started making changes and to those who will be able to participate. Planning on running this one through Monday. Remember to please put BOW on your changes. Thank you very much! --Tbennert (talk) 21:36, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Results

Thank you to everyone who was able to contribute to this Big Weekend! We made 22 new articles and 145 improvements. Extra recognition goes to Auntof6 and Horeki who both made tremendous contributions. Hurrah! Hurrah! --Tbennert (talk) 02:45, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Chilean flag icon

Chilean athletes participated in 1924 Summer Olympics and 1928 Summer Olympics. There is no problem with the flag of Chile icon in these articles. However, there is a problem with the same template in other articles such as

• 1912 Summer Olympics
• 1920 Summer Olympics
• 1952 Summer Olympics

I don't understand this. I assume I caused it? --Horeki (talk) 20:48, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

No, you didn't cause it (at least it doesn't look like it). I have no idea what happened, but when I tried to fix it, I moved the template in so it was right beside the bulletpoint to see if that would fix it. However, when I went to another article which had the same problem, simply purging the page cache made the flag show up. How odd... -Mh7kJ (talk) 21:16, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. "Odd" was a good word to describe this. --Horeki (talk) 13:11, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Mobile view

Responding to this query, I've added some simple css code to the main page. For people who can access Wikipedia using a mobile, please have a look at our main page to see everything works. It looks a bit crude at the moment, but at least there's something there now. For comparison, have a look at enwiki's. Are VGA and DYK the elements we want to display? I thought about the introduction or event the welcome panel instead of DYK since it's not updated very regularly... Any thoughts? Osiris (talk) 02:28, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, we could have the first para from the Welcome, and a selection of two or three DYKs. That should do it. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:19, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree, welcome to Simple, followed by the DYKs. I don't feel the featured article is right for the mobile page at all. Kennedy ^(talk) 13:27, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

"Smartphones" with touch-screens are becoming more commonplace. Text entry with such devices is usually awkward and slow. In my opinion, we should give them the "Who we are"-blurb, a "show any page", "search", and perhaps a selection of DYKs. Note however, that screen size on these devices is limited, and may be as small as 208x176. Current models of "Symbian" usually feature 320x240, or larger; Android supports screen resolutions of between 420x320 and 960x720 (here). iOs ("iPohne") is at 480x320 or 960x640. Some older Nokias have resolutions as low as 208x176. --Eptalon (talk) 13:56, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Just to clarify, do you guys mean the "welcome" banner with all the links, or do you mean the first paragraph of the /Introduction? Should mention that it's not really possible to split up the DYKs, because they're all transcluded at once by a template. Technically I can work some code into the template itself, but it's probably going to get in the way of people updating it and there's no guarantee they won't remove it. Osiris (talk) 22:46, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Ideally the first paragraph of the Introduction (above the divider); the rest colud be "hidden" behind an "Editing tips" link, or similar. --Eptalon (talk) 06:47, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

 Done. It required splitting the intro into two templates - I'm not sure why, but if anybody else can manage it in one please feel free... Have another look at the link above and see if that's any better. If you want to change any of the headings, just alter the |title= in the markup. Osiris (talk) 07:41, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Last in-class editing session for TMDU students this semester

Hi All, I just wanted to let everyone know that in a few hours I'll be having my last round of in-class edits with students. Most of you already know, but their usernames begin with TMD. As usual, I'll try to track the New Changes to make sure nothing else slips through if they are flooding that page.

The project was interesting and I really appreciate everyone's patience and kind assistance. I'll be going through a big cleanup of all of their pages shortly. I learned a lot, and I think the students did too. This was a pretty limited project, but I hope we haven't used up too much time, effort, or attention from the Simple English Wikipedia community. Thanks, ELTted (talk) 20:42, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

To the TMDU students—congratulations. You did good work, not only in the articles you helped improve. It is probably important to recognize that you helped to show how this kind of small group project can work well.

To ELTted—congratulations. You showed good teaching and good leadership.

This is a clear example of ways a teacher can be helpful and active in sheperding those who are unfamiliar with SEWP.

1. The groundwork or foundation was explained here and here.
2. A practical context was presented here and here
3. Reminders and updates were provided here and here
4. A summary overview was offered here.

As an aside, this is timely opportunity for compare and contrast with the very different Indian Education Program. --Horeki (talk) 14:02, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. I don't believe there have been any major issues, its all went rather well. Kudos to ELTted and his class(es?) Kennedy ^(talk) 11:42, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Question for the music people and interested others

We have 32 categories named something like "Singlechart usages for Foo". You can see the list here. These categories are all empty. I think template {{singlechart}} might have been supposed to add things to these categories. Do we want to change the template to use these categories, or can we get rid of the categories? If we're keeping them, I'd like to add them to some category other than Category:Hidden categories. --Auntof6 (talk) 00:45, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh, that was me who changed the template a few days ago. They're tracking categories. I've never seen the need for them, but if somebody else does just undo my changes to the template (and let me know so I can re-fix the original issue). Osiris (talk) 02:30, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Animals

Hey guys I have created a project called WikiProject Animals. Join if you would like to help out with articles about animals. Best, Jonayo! ^{Selena 4 ever} 19:54, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

I've created a simpler version on the EN wiki article Saint for use here. I don't have permission to make the move though. Could someone move User:JaGa/Saint to replace the redirect Saint? Thanks, --JaGa (talk) 19:30, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Bit of an embarrassing slip-up along the way, but it got there (I need sleep, apparently). Thanks for the article JaGa! :) Osiris (talk) 19:38, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Need template experts

I would like to know if anyone here can help create this template from enWP? Best, Jonayo! ^{Selena 4 ever} 18:54, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

What template? That link goes to an article. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:39, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes that template on the article I need for Amphibian which I'm working on right now. Best, Jonayo! ^{Selena 4 ever} 23:31, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

You mean the automatic taxobox one? I could bring that over for you. It's not hard, though -- just create a page here and copy the code over, then do the same for the doc page.
On second thought, the talk page for that template says only to use it where there isn't already a taxobox. I believe we do have a taxobox template. Is there a reason you can't use that one?

We do? Can you link it for me? Best, Jonayo! ^{Selena 4 ever} 00:15, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

{{Taxobox}}. --Auntof6 (talk) 00:17, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Jonayo! ^{Selena 4 ever} 00:22, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Automatic taxobox expert here! I can work on importing it if you like. It's powered by an insanely hugely complex network of templates, so it would take several days' free time at best to get at least the most critical ones all imported. Also, I'm quite busy with several things at the moment, but I can add that to my list of things to do. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:13, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

If you like :D I've been using that taxobox (even though its for species and not for kingdoms) but I made it work lolz. It would still be appreciated if you can and I'll use it for the Amphibian article I'm working on. Best, Jonayo! ^{Selena 4 ever} 18:20, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
If you give me the list, Bob, I can use Special:Import to import them all. Only takes a few minutes, and it means the attribution is there already. Osiris (talk) 18:51, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

As of now, the {{automatic taxobox}} template should work flawlessly at Amphibian, though most other taxa will require the entry of each individual parent taxon. Once this system has been used across several hundred pages, it will require considerably less work to add an automatic taxobox to an article, hypothetically to the point where the only taxa needing entered are those the article is being written about. I'd recommend having a bot set up to import the Template:Taxonomy subpages from the English Wikipedia, where several thousand taxa already exist in the database, allowing the automatic taxobox to prove its worth.

In case folks are wondering what exactly this template it, I've imported the documentation as well (it's not been translated to simple English-- sorry!). The template is a specialized taxobox that automatically calculates the entire scientific classification of an organism, and also prunes the list down so it only shows the taxa that are relevant. When you add an automatic taxobox to an article, you'll usually be prompted to add that taxon to the taxonomy template database. Once you've done that, you'll do the same for the parent taxon, grandparent, and so on, until you reach a taxon already in the system. If taxonomies are revised, this is reflected on all taxoboxes, not just one. (This saves hours, sometimes days, of correction work!)

Anyway, I hope to spend some time working out any glitches the code has as a result of having been developed for a different wiki. Please leave any questions regarding the system at Template talk:Automatic taxobox. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 07:59, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to make sure the automatic taxobox and the manual one both maintain similar output styles and will be linking them to use the same formatting code, as has been done recently at the English Wikipedia. I've adapted the same code to match the Norwegian taxobox style (which is radically different from any I've seen), so this should be doable. I assume the current taxobox style is the one that works best on this wiki and that the new automatic taxobox should reflect the same style? Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 23:20, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I think at this point we might need to start evaluating whether we really need this system. It's coming up to about 250 templates now and it looks like there are plenty more where those came from. Taxobox works fine without this system, so is there enough of an advantage to warrant this new system considering the lack of infrastructure and editor support to maintain its hundreds (potentially thousands) of templates? The documentation page seems to indicate that one of the main purposes of this system is that it updates hundreds of thousands of taxobox transclusions automatically... But simple has under 3000 transclusions - which is (at a glance) well less than a third of the amount of subtemplates taxonomy would carry (not even considering all the other templates). Do we need this? I'm certainly glad to see the enthusiasm, but I'm somewhat unsure whether we have enough articles to warrant it, or enough editors to maintain it... Osiris (talk) 00:48, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

It certainly isn't "needed" at all...the manual one produces the same material. On en:, the manual taxobox is far easier to use when it's being used on a manageable number of pages, but the automatic one is far easier when the taxobox is used on thousands of articles. Given the numbers, I think it's safe to say the Simple English Wikipedia likely will not see the benefit from this template at a very early stage. That's not to say "don't use it", but that it would be more effort for editors to use this template until it becomes widely used (as in several thousand transclusions). But, I'll leave this to the community to decide.

So folks are more informed, an automatic taxobox would require you to enter a template corresponding to the taxon the article is about, as well as all parent taxa that don't already have a template. After several thousand templates are made, the number of templates needing made each time a taxobox is set up decreases (as low as 1 or 2), but starting out you might be creating between 10 and 60 templates each time depending on the level of detail you want to go into.

At any rate, I'll halt my work on the system until a consensus is reached. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 06:54, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused here, sorry. Are we talking about the glitches of the taxobox? Best, Jona^{talk to me} 03:48, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

The glitches are caused by the absence of templates that need importing. According to Bob, every time you use automatic taxobox, you'll need to import more templates. We are talking about whether it would be practical/worthwhile to have this system, or simply continue using the ordinary taxobox template. Osiris (talk) 05:05, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

First of all, let me say that this is the kind of automation I used to come up with in my programming days, and it's really cool. Second, I have to say I'm glad I probably wouldn't be helping maintain it (I don't have the expertise). After looking it over, I'm in favor of keeping things simple here, and just using the taxobox we have. Let me repeat that the automated one is really cool! I'm just concerned that adding the automated system would further tax our already stretched volunteer staff. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:28, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

The taxobox is for species not for classes of animals. Maybe we could create our very own simple template based on the needs of classes? Best, Jona^{talk to me} 20:39, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Really? I thought it could be used for any level of taxon...? It's used in Mammal, Bird, Reptile... Is there something particular about the template that you find won't work for classes? Osiris (talk) 02:32, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

English wiki has several different kinds of taxoboxes. One is called species box. The main problem is that taxonomy is in flux because of the effect of cladistics and genome analysis. Instead of Linnaean terms like order, family &c., this gives clades, tribes, &c. Unfortunately, once you have a particular kind of taxobox, this decides what kind of classification you can use. Thus the older taxobox just doesn't work unless you fill in "Kingdom", whether you want to or not. I've said somewhere that it will take 20 years for the classification to stabilise. Meanwhile, we should probably stick to a manual taxobox. It's not actually necessary to have it on all biology pages! If it's a page on a bird, for example, you may only need the order and family. Sometimes the older method is perfectly satisfactory. Macdonald-ross (talk) 04:04, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

If our current taxobox can display those higher classifications (kingdom, domain) then that's perfectly fine to use. My main concern is not having the ability to show those classifications and just have species, family and class. I actually copied-paste the template on the Amphibian article from the Reptile article. The only problem is the Domain, which does not show on the article itself. Is it possible to add that classification on the template? Best, Jona^{talk to me} 18:27, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Both the {{taxobox}} and {{automatic taxobox}} are fully capable of displaying any taxon; this is a common misunderstanding. Specialized taxoboxes include the {{speciesbox}}, {{subspeciesbox}}, {{infraspeciesbox}}, {{oobox}}, {{ichnobox}}, and {{virusbox}}, none of which are "required"-- these are only meant to simplify things. My recommendation is to keep using the current {{taxobox}} on this wiki. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:54, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Mourning Dove and Le Spectre de la rose are now Very good

Hello all,

I just noticed, Mourning Dove and Le Spectre de la rose have been promoted to Very good articles in the last month. Along with 34 others, they are now able to showcase the ability of this community to produce articles that are able to explain difficult concepts in easy to understand language. Congratulations to all those who helped in the process. --Eptalon (talk) 09:07, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I have a problem with the promotion of Mourning Dove, one support and one neutral don't make a consensus in my mind. Albacore (talk · changes) 18:05, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

It was two users who supported the article lolz. Best, Jona^{talk to me} 18:16, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

I see Osris as one, who was the other? Albacore (talk · changes) 17:49, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Well I do believe I'm an editor as well?. Of course I did not say "support" because we are not supposed to per rules. Best, Jona^{talk to me} 12:21, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Do you think the article mourning dove is not ready yet? --Eptalon (talk) 22:45, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

I think its a GA but I don't think its a VGA. -DJSasso (talk) 18:06, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for asking. I would comment on procedure as follows

1. The closure of the discussion was improper, and should have been reverted. I think Mourning Dove was a perfectly satisfactory GA, but a borderline VGA. The absence of comments is not grounds for promotion, especially at VGA level. It is not sufficient for VGA for a page to be cleansed of micro-faults; it needs to be positively supported, and clearly so.
2. We have got ourselves into trouble over VGAs before by being slack, let's try not to get in the same place again. Because we permit contributors to list a whole string of pages for promotion, we have strained our capacity to deal with the constant flow. The ones that are clearly no-hopers are not a problem. But we have hundreds (thousands) of pages which are pretty good, and just a few people who are capable and willing to shepherd them through the process. The number of pages being proposed is stretching the system to breaking point. I'm as guilty as anyone in not commenting enough, but I prefer to edit rather than comment on other people's work.
3. I have said before (but without any support) that elements of the English wiki system would improve us. And we should restrict any person to only one promotion proposal at any one time. And the criteria should be toughened up in the area of general qualities such as quality of prose. Some people have the idea that if they clear up all the micro-faults a page should automatically be supported. For me, the list of criteria is too narrowly focussed.
4. As for Mourning Dove, it's not a problem to have it as a VGA. The way it was done certainly is an issue.

Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:02, 29 July 2012 (UTC) I very much agree with what Mac has said, especially with the number of submissions being so disproportionate to the number of people reviewing. I try to leave a review of each article submitted, but the more submissions there are, the less time I can give to review them as thoroughly as I might have wanted. And with less than a handful of reviewers looking at a multitude of nominations, the standards are going to drop.

• I know that enwiki has a PGA backlog going back to April, but that's not something we should be seeing here. Not all of the editors submitting nominations are reviewing those of others. PGA should be totally self-sufficient: if you submit a nomination, review someone else's.
• Too many nominations are relying on reviewers to put in the hard work – I've found myself spending too much time on nominations that aren't even close to meeting the cut.
• Perhaps exacerbating the problem is that peer review redirects to PGA. If we need a place where editors can go to request general reviews of their work, it should be here (like Philosopher has done below). With so few people active on PGA, it should only be for articles that meet the GA requirements.
• Putting a limit on the number of nominations you can have at one time is something I would definitely support. Another remedy we might consider to guarantee standards is setting a minimum number of reviews before a nomination can be promoted.

It's great to see two new VGAs in the last month. I supported Mourning Dove and I wouldn't take it back, but I do feel as though it could have been better with more reviews. Osiris (talk) 09:30, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Peer Review redirects because of the same problem being discussed here, no one was reviewing them because editors were putting them up for review with little work done towards actually making them good articles and so people stopped reviewing because they were relying on reviewers too much. I believe the community asked people instead to ask specific people on their talk pages for reviews if they wanted them. I would have to dig up the archived discussion to be sure. -DJSasso (talk) 18:03, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

I also agree with Macdonald-ross' points. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:17, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Well then, we need to do something about it, because two users are putting up proposals in a non-stop sequence. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:39, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

I disagree completely, yes we should have a limit on the number of articles one can submit at a time, however, we shouldn't necessary punish users who actually want to improve Simple by the one nomination per user rule. It's not the nominator's fault users simply do not wish to take part in the reviewing process, instead of diminishing our good content why not think of a more positive approach? Barnstars, recognition, etc for those who part take in the reviewing process? Maybe a spotlight corner on the main page for excellent helpers and what not? Secondly, every time a user asks for the community on an article of interest, its usually 1-2 users who submit a review. So like I said, its not the nominators fault, maybe if we seek out whats the real issue (lack of reviewers) then we should tackle on what needs to be done in that area. Telling us users who seeks a future of Simple with good content just makes us want to give up on the project. Do we really want stubs over good content? This is just my opinion, I think we should focus on what we should do, collectively, on the lack of reviewers. Lets bring excitement back to the process, lets do something positive. Best, Jona^{talk to me} 15:22, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

I think the problem is that you see going through the GA/VGA process as helping the wiki. A large number of us have said and have told you in the past that we actually feel that going through the GA/VGA process on a wiki this small with this few editors actually hurts the wiki more than it helps. It takes an extraordinary amount of time to take articles to a VGA status. Something you have never seemed to understand. In the time it takes to get one article to VGA status a user could probably get 10-20 to a good status. (what I mean by good is a decent article, but not with all the nitpicky details done that are required of a VGA or GA.) What helps the wiki more? Taking 20 articles from stub to a decent state or making sure one article has used the same cite template on every citation or that the right number of spaces are used after each period in a single article? So in saying that please don't make it sound like you are helping the wiki by doing what you are doing and that no one else is helping the wiki if they don't waste their time helping you fix articles that should already before nomination be a lot better than they are when you nominate them. By all means if people want to get articles to GA and VGA that is great as everyone helps in their own way. But certainly don't think the process is broken when it really isn't. No one ever said getting a GA or a VGA is easy. It usually takes a few months to get an article to the quality that it could be called a VGA. And at the rate some people are nominating them, they clearly aren't putting in the effort needed to get the articles to a VGA status and expect everyone else to help them fix the articles. -DJSasso (talk) 17:58, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that's going to help bring in reviewers. I don't want ribbons or prizes, I just want to be able to point out a few things that the author has missed, read it over and then make a decision as to whether it's worthy. But what seems to be happening at the moment is that nominators have got multiple nominations going on at once and they're relying on reviewers to spend time pointing out obvious deficiencies, that should have been dealt with prior to the article being submitted. Once the reviewer calls to the nominator's attention these issues, the nominator fixes them and then sits back and waits for the reviewer to find more. It does take a lot of work to get an article up to scratch, and editors can't just throw half-a-dozen submissions at us at once and expect us to point out the same issues over and over under each nomination. It's not "punishing" you to allow you only one nomination at a time; it just forces you to be more committed to each nomination. Osiris (talk) 05:34, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Well said. A few times I've felt that a nominator hasn't put any serious effort into improving an article before nominating it. This process isn't supposed to be "let's work together to get this article to V/GA status", it's supposed to be "I think I've gotten this article close to V/GA status, now I'll ask my fellow editors what I've missed". --Auntof6 (talk) 05:55, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Also, another thought what about a rule that if a user wants to nominate an article, they must give a review (lets say a min of two nominated articles), I have given reviews for almost all nominated content, however, there are nominators there who simply do not and could help this area. Best, Jona^{talk to me} 15:32, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Section on GA/VGA criteria now at Wikipedia talk:Requirements for very good articles

Iowa Supreme Court

I've just created Iowa Supreme Court from en:Iowa Supreme Court. If someone wanted to look its language over, that'd be great! --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 14:34, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Looks good to me.--Chip123456 ^Talk_Changes 20:15, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 08:58, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Can someone look at Template:Location map Australia Sydney?

Resolved. Osiris (talk) 06:55, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

This template is getting a loop somehow. I don't see the difference between this one and others that don't have the problem. Would someone take a look? --Auntof6 (talk) 06:49, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Missing a <noinclude> tag, so the documenation was being transcluded creating a loop. Osiris (talk) 06:55, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick work! --Auntof6 (talk) 07:02, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Reference Tooltips

Reference Tooltips

Is there a specific reason why Reference Tooltips aren't enabled here in the Simple English Wikipedia? They are enabled on the regular English Wikipedia already. Think that they'd be quite comfortable. --weltforce (talk) 15:33, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Haven't imported the scripts yet. Will only take a moment, if nobody has any objections. I haven't tested it out yet, but it looks like if you have navigation popups enabled you won't see any change. Osiris (talk) 15:46, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

I had Navigation popups enabled for a time, but then I got rid of them. Can you please import the script? --weltforce (talk) 09:13, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Gadget is imported. Haven't set it to default, so you'll have to enable it in your settings. Osiris (talk) 04:05, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much. --weltforce (talk) 15:56, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Flag of India

At List of IOC country codes, flag templates may be helpful. In the process of modifying the table formats in this article, I have had no problems adding 80+ flags.

However, my change here revealed a problem with the flag of India. I don't see how I could have caused this. If I did do something wrong, what was it?

I don't know how to repair this, nor do I know how to find where the mistake exists. Before asking for help, what else could I have tried to do ...? --Horeki (talk) 16:04, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Problem was Template:Flag/core, I fixed it now. All the best, --weltforce (talk) 16:11, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I did not know about Template:Flag/core. I still don't quite understand why India was the only flag affected by whatever it was you fixed? Will you please explain again in different words. --Horeki (talk) 16:19, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

That wasn't the issue, he just thought what he did fixed the problem because he hit save right after I fixed the actual problem. :) That is why it didn't affect any of the other flags. -DJSasso (talk) 16:43, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

I fixed it, it wasn't what weltforce mentions. Someone did a test edit on the country data for India. As for what you could have done, basically just look at the flag template code and see where it gets its information from. Other than that you could do just what you did by coming here. -DJSasso (talk) 16:12, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand one phrase -- "look at the flag template code and see where it gets its information from" ...? Will you please explain again in different words. --Horeki (talk) 16:19, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Look at how the template for the flag is written and see where it is getting the information it displays. Then go to that page and fix the problem. -DJSasso (talk) 16:22, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Djsasso, thank you. I see your change here at Template:Country data India. --Horeki (talk) 16:36, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Oooh, thank you. --weltforce (talk) 17:19, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

How to fix a broken part of a page?

How do I fix a broken part of Vale of Rheidol Railway? It says "runs for 11+3⁴_{{{4}}} miles when it should not. Please help me remove the three { and the three }. I am sorry if I asked in the wrong place. I work at the non-simple English Wikipedia. It is hard for me to write simply. Nyttend (talk) 05:13, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I fixed it for you. The convert template doesn't handle fractions. You have to specify the number as a decimal. And this is a perfectly fine place to ask, by the way! --Auntof6 (talk) 06:59, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Translate

Would it be possible that articles that are on here but not on en be moved from here to en (with improvement so that they are not so simple). London 107 (talk) 10:43, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes as long as you use the proper method of attribution. That being said most articles here that are simple would be acceptable there as-is. En.wiki could often use a bit of simplification. It just doesn't work in the other direction. -DJSasso (talk) 11:40, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

ProveIt

Hi folks, you know the tool ProveIt yet? It is really useful while referencing :) --weltforce (talk) 19:45, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

An excellent tool, highly reommended.--Peterdownunder (talk) 12:47, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

New linking problem

When I highlight a word and click on the "Link" icon on the edit tools, it brings up an "Insert link" dialogue box. This box used to tell me if the highlighted word already had an existing page, and would let me change the displayed text. This is no longer working, every word I highlight has an existing page according to the dialogue box. I can't remember whether this was a normal editing tool or a script I have added. Does anyone know why it has stopped, and can I/we/someone fix it?--Peterdownunder (talk) 12:39, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Same problem here. --weltforce (talk) 12:43, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Gadget problems

At Weltforce's request (see here and here), I tried to install the refToolbar gadget. But it doesn't seem to have worked. Any idea why? --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 08:09, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Did you copy en:MediaWiki:Gadget-refToolbar.js to MediaWiki:Gadget-refToolbar.js? The two pages are different. --weltforce (talk) 12:09, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Which one should we use? --Peterdownunder (talk) 12:41, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I had used the sample code linked at en:Wikipedia:RefToolbar 2.0/porting. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 21:51, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

The button is loading now, but the gadget is still glitchy. Parts of MediaWiki:RefToolbarMessages-en.js don't seem to be loading, which means the error descriptions are missing. Osiris (talk) 13:53, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

More opportunities for you to access free research databases

The quest to get editors free access to the sources they need is gaining momentum.

• Credo Reference provides full-text online versions of nearly 1200 published reference works from more than 70 publishers in every major subject, including general and subject dictionaries and encyclopedias. There are 125 full Credo 350 accounts available, with access even to 100 more references works than in Credo's original donation. All you need is a 1-year old account with 1000 edits. Sign up here.
• HighBeam Research has access to over 80 million articles from 6,500 publications including newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines and encyclopedias. Thousands of new articles are added daily, and archives date back over 25 years covering a wide range of subjects and industries. There are 250 full access 1-year accounts available. All you need is a 1-year old account with 1000 edits. Sign up here.
• Questia is an online research library for books and journal articles focusing on the humanities and social sciences. Questia has curated titles from over 300 trusted publishers including 77,000 full-text books and 4 million journal, magazine, and newspaper articles, as well as encyclopedia entries. There will soon be 1000 full access 1-year accounts available. All you need is a 1-year old account with 1000 edits. Sign up here.

You might also be interested in the idea to create a central Wikipedia Library where approved editors would have access to all participating resource donors. Add your feedback to the Community Fellowship proposal. Apologies for the English message (translate here). Go sign up :) --Ocaasi (talk) 02:24, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

The next Big Weekend – 10 to 13 August

The weekend has begun! DJDunsie (talk) 09:18, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Editors are invited to take part in the next big weekend, the Big Space Weekend, on 10 to 13 August. Our goal is to increase the number and quality of space-related articles.

How to help out

Here are some ideas on how to take part in the Big Space Weekend.

• The Solar System GA effort needs to be completed
• Missing articles need to be created

Ranger program • Kessler syndrome • Pluto Kuiper Express • Kármán line • Solar flare • Van Allen radiation belt • Arecibo Observatory • Celestial mechanics • Magellan (spacecraft) • Lunar Roving Vehicle • New Frontiers program • Apollo 15 • Space weather • HD 85512 b • Orbital mechanics • Asteroid mining • Space colonisation • Heliophysics • Gravitational field • Kepler-22b

• Stubs need to be expanded
• Articles need to be referenced

List of those taking part

Sign your name here with three tildes (~~~) if you are taking part:

• DJDunsie (talk)
• Jonayo! ^{Selena 4 ever}
• Macdonald-ross (talk)
• -Mh7kJ (talk)
• Peterdownunder (talk)
• Prad2609 (talk) 17:56, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
• Osiris (talk)
• Auntof6 (talk)

Remember

• All articles need at minimum two of references and a picture
• Be bold and do not hesitate to create further red links if they are needed
• Put the {{inuse}} on all articles you are creating/editing to avoid edit conflicts.
• So we can measure what happens, start all your edit summaries with "BSW" for Big Space Weekend.

Happy editing!

The coordinator, DJDunsie (talk) 20:24, 20 July 2012 (UTC) (thanks to Peterdownunder for this template)

-re-added, as this is taking place this weekend. --Eptalon (talk) 10:55, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Good idea and thank you. DJDunsie (talk) 16:17, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

How do you count edits from a long time ago? DJDunsie (talk) 13:28, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

I did it manually, from Special:RecentChanges, beginning early on the Friday, ending late on the Monday. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:56, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

The trouble is that the maximum is 5000, and that doesn't go back far enough. Hmmm... DJDunsie (talk) 14:16, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Suggestion: There is a list pf participants in BSW. One possible way to find out what happened during the BSW period is to check User changes from August 10 through August 13.

BSW STATISTICS

User change links

1. DJDunsie
2. AJona1992
3. Macdonald-ross
4. Mh7kJ
5. Peterdownunder
6. Prad2609
7. Osiris
8. Auntof6
9. Horeki

_____

Totals

New

• ___?
• ___?
•  15
• ___?
•    8
•    0
• ___?
• ___?
•    5

____

   ?

Change

• ___?
• ___?
• ___?
• ___?
•  58
•    0
• ___?
• ___?
•  48

___

   ?

All you have to do is count the BSWs in the change summary notes. Or you could count the number of changes to articles which have to do with space. For example, a review of my change summary history would reveal that I created five new articles.

The participants in BSW are not a big group. --Horeki (talk) 15:36, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• I counted the changes over the weekend and came up with 10 editors who made 294 changes. 42 new articles were created as well as a number of redirects, talk pages, and categories. An excellent result, thanks to DJDunsie and all who took part.--Peterdownunder (talk) 23:22, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Blank adminstats

• Template:Adminstats/Bluegoblin7
• Template:Adminstats/EVula
• Template:Adminstats/Kennedy
• Template:Adminstats/Jamesofur
• Template:Adminstats/Lauryn Ashby
• Template:Adminstats/NonvocalScream

These are blank, some of them are used, others not. Is there a point in keeping them around in the template namespace? Does anyone mind if I move them to userspace? I can hardcode the last available statistics into the page. Osiris (talk) 05:29, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Please do -- that will get them out of the uncategorized template list. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:05, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I would just delete them. -DJSasso (talk) 11:40, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, they're gone. Osiris (talk) 23:25, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

In case anyone is interested, two of them are still blue. --Auntof6 (talk) 00:46, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

The bot is recreating the pages. I'm talking to the operator about it. Osiris (talk) 10:47, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

It's because you will have to take the request to make the pages away as well. That being said it probably isn't a big deal to leave them. Since it doesn't actually save us any space or anything of that nature. Personally I would prefer them in template rather than user space since I see now that you just moved them instead of deleted them. They are subpages of the adminstats template so they shouldn't be split away from the template if they are being kept and not being deleted outright. -DJSasso (talk) 11:38, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure I've comprehended your first sentence. They're not subpages of the adminstats template since the coding was substituted as I said above. There aren't any transclusions of {{adminstats}} associated with any of these pages. Osiris (talk) 12:07, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

The / in the name makes them subpages. The original pages I mean. By just moving the stats to user pages you make the pages harder to track should someone actually want to delete them in the future or want to look at the history of the page (not that I can see someone would). Essentially moving them from a subpage to userspace is really just sweeping the pages under the rug and somewhat making a mess. My preference would be to just delete them, but if we are keeping them then they should be moved back to their original location. Not sure if only some were subst's because I saw alot of page move logs. -DJSasso (talk) 12:15, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I see, you're talking about the revision history being retained in the original namespace. I can restore the histories to the original pages, but I will have to blank the user subpages as well. Will do that now. Osiris (talk) 12:27, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Never mind. I found where the problem was. Osiris (talk) 12:11, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Homework?

I have a question, why isn't homework on the BE list? I am positive that this word is a simple word based on the fact that it is used as early as 3rd-4th grade. Best, Jona^{talk to me} 00:28, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

You'd have to ask Mr. Ogden about that. We didn't make the word lists, rather they have been taken from those created by that chappy. Goblin 00:31, 17 August 2012 (UTC) I ♥ GoblinBots!

Also, as it's a compound word, it's not inherently simple. The words 'home' and 'work' have been "mashed" together to create it. It probably has a place on 'BE 1500', though. Goblin 00:33, 17 August 2012 (UTC) I ♥ Gordonrox24!

Actually I was searching for it on the BE 1500 lolz, well that's fine, it was just weird that it was not on there. Thanks, Jona^{talk to me} 00:35, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Ah, fair enough! I'm not really sure who, when or how BE 1500 was put together, but with it not actually being 1,500 words long I don't see why we can't add to it, given sufficient consensus. So maybe there is one to add Homework? (Or, be bold. It's quicker.) Goblin 00:46, 17 August 2012 (UTC) I ♥ Dendodge!

The 1500 list is a a list created still from the works of Ogden, its not just a made up list. Wouldn't really be appropriate to just add a word. -DJSasso (talk) 11:51, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

That's fine at least the word exist in here so it's all good =) Thanks for the help, Jona^{talk to me} 12:33, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I am thinking that maybe the word didn't exist or wasn't as common way back when he created the lists. But that is just a guess I have no idea. -DJSasso (talk) 12:37, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Simple English lifehacker article and reddit thread

Hey guys!

Someone just pointed this article out to me and I thought you'd be interested. The reddit thread that started it is linked from the article and also has some interesting discussion. It looks like at least a couple editors found the thread and responded pushing people here so hopefully we get a bit more help :) James (T C) 21:10, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Chess Project

Thought I'd mention that we do have a Chess Project. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:21, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Can anyone help with a review?

I would really appreciate anyone who can provide a comment or a review on Selena an article we all know I've been dying to get to GA status here. But I would like to do a different approach and will not nominate it until I am told its ready by more than one user. Thank you very much =) Best, Jona^{talk to me} 13:26, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Closing project proposal

There is a closing project proposal for the Simple English Wiktionary. Comments are welcome. Albacore (talk · changes) 18:30, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Revising VGA criteria

Following the propotion of two articles, there was a rather lengthy discussion on this page regarding the modification of VGA/GA criteria. This discuission has now been archived. I'd like to invite those interested to have a look at the VGA criteria talk page, so that with time we can agree on modifying the criteria. Among of the main issues curretly:

• there is "too little" difference between GA and VGA
• we specified a time-limit in the criteria, very often however, this is completely disregarded.

Please discuss on the page mentioned, not here. --Eptalon (talk) 07:08, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Ambox, Articleissues and Twinkle

Hi, folks, I got some things to say about {{ambox}}, {{articleissues}} (multiple issues) and Twinkle.

First of all, {{ambox}} has been rewritten on the main English Wikipedia. For example, the parameter {{{text}}} has been replaced with {{{issue}}} and {{{fix}}}. Issue is the problem of the article: "This article or section needs to be wikified." and fix: "Please do this by following our layout guide." I suggest updating the ambox with the newest revision from the main English Wikipedia and update the associated article message boxes. If nobody's got objections, I could assume it (with an flood flag, of course). One of the convenience we'll get from this is, that we can transwiki further ambox templates from en without any technical customisations (of course, simplifying is still needed).

Second thing is, that the template "multiple issues" ({{articleissues}} here) has updated its syntax: The original syntax

{{Multiple issues|unreferenced=July 2012|context=May 2012}}

has been replaced with

{{Article issues|
{{Unreferenced|date=July 2012}}
{{Context|date=May 2012}}
}}

In other words, the usual templates are put inside the template and will then produce the same output. This has got a benefit:

• Because the Templates are transcluded right into the multiple issues template, updating is very easy. Currently, all those text is saved in the template. Updating would be rather costly, because you need to update at two places.

Twinkle has implemented this syntax since Version 2.0-369-g8940830 (Diff) and using it here would lead to incompatibility, see this. It would need a specific Twinkle customisation would could get in conflict to future updates. My suggestion is, to update ambox and articleissues.

All these changes will not have any effects to the reader. It is just technical. --intforce.aka.weltforce 14:22, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

That would require an additional CSS class to be added to MediaWiki:Common.css. I understand the benefits of having {{issues}} rely on the individual stand-alone templates. It's a big task to switch them over though. Can you wait until the weekend? I'll be able to help you with it then. Osiris (talk) 06:25, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I haven't looked through the common.css to verify. But it was updated to match the en version fairly recently so it may already be there. Not sure when they made the switch over on en for that template. -DJSasso (talk) 11:36, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Actually looking at the changes on en.wiki since ours was last matched it doesn't look like there is a tonne of major changes so we should probably just synch up with them again anyways. -DJSasso (talk) 11:39, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

This just needs the bit under "code for compact ambox", which I've added. You can sync the rest if you want. Osiris (talk) 22:50, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Revising "How to write Simple English Articles"

Hello there,

our How to write Simple English Pages needs revising:

• We currently do not generally rely on word lists; esp. not for science-related subjects. Such word lists prevent accuracy, which is needed for scientific subjects.
• Phrasal verbs are generally a bad idea, because the meaning cannot be derived from the words.
• The guideline needs to also reflect the need for writing "scientifically accurate" articles.

Help:Translate English into Simple English is also affected by this.--Eptalon (talk) 20:46, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree, but maybe we should also stress the fact that in situations like science related articles, a special effort should be made to either link to other articles, to wiktionary entries, or to explain the most complex terms in brackets. Explaining science in simple terms isn't impossible - BBC2/4, for example, make many programs about science which are easily accessible to anyone, not only science enthusiasts!

As for phrasal verbs, I absolutely agree, they are more complex, and a latin based alternative is usually available (though more formal, usually, for native english speakers - but this is an encyclopedia, right?). Efforts should still be made to link to wiktionary when possible.

See above for reply to 3rd point you raise.

As for the use of word lists (BE850/1500), they are often not used, due to it being hard and long to do (always having to cross-reference everything you write...). Maybe a solution to this problem could be found (a semi-automated bot, maybe, based on the firefox add-on that is available?) although I don't have any concrete proposals. Yottie ^=talk= 09:29, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Many fields of science use specialized vocabulary. This means, it is generally not possible to replace a word with another, without changing the meanung. This also means that an effort needs to be made to explain the terms; this is best done in an annex article (linked), or as a footnote. People who already know what the word means should not be bored with an explanation. For this reason, we need to think about revising the content. Writing for science is a skill that can be learned, and that is usually taught at university. There are referece works for it. We simply need to make an effort, and revise the resp. help texts to reflect our current usage. --Eptalon (talk) 09:39, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

• Einstein and Simple English for Science Writers. Always remember that however difficult it might seem to the novice writer of Simple English, writing about science in Simple English is really very easy. Einstein was a genius at writing in Simple English about complex scientific theories. Anybody looking for an example of writing about science in Simple English could read his Theory of Relativity.

Wikipedia for Offline use..

I saw that there is the ZIM file format, which allows to make Wikipedia files for offline use. Info about the format is at [3]. There are different programs that can read this format. In this format, EnWP takes about 4.5G (one DVD), including a reader. Big question I ask myself is: would it make sense to have this generated periodically, for SimpleWP? --Eptalon (talk) 21:30, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't see what bad this would do. Articles are updated slowly here, so the chances of finding differences between the online and offline versions isn't very big, in the short term. It could be a good idea. Yottie ^=talk= 09:17, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Twinkle is under construction

Hello folks. Weltforce is currently renovating our Twinkle scripts in order to adapt a few features from the English Wikipedia to our project. Testing is being done in a separate gadget script, so you won't notice any changes. Testing should be completed in about a week's time. Osiris (talk) 08:28, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good. I look forward to the new features. --Auntof6 (talk) 09:22, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Btw, I will document the progress here. --weltforce | talk 09:33, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

I've finished the source code. Every module should be done now (maybe a little bit of simplification is needed, but that is not that important, I will do that in the following weeks). New features and documentation can be reviewed on the Twinkle development page.

Please test the whole script. @Osiris: can you test the following modules and make some screenshots to Commons?

• Twinkle batch protect
• Twinkle batch delete
• Twinke batch undelete
• Twinkle QD module for sysops

Thanks. All other editors are invited to test the other scripts, especially the new Twinkle preference panel! --intforce.aka.weltforce 15:16, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Would you remind me how to access your updates? I'm still using the EhJJ script. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:22, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh yeah. First go to your common/vector/monobook.js and remove the old script and its config, then go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets and enable the "new version of Twinkle". You'd probably also need to bypass your cache ;) --intforce.aka.weltforce 19:44, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Do I also need to delete or blank twinkleoptions.js? --Auntof6 (talk) 00:07, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

No, the new preference panel saves your settings into twinkleoptions ;) --intforce (talk) 05:08, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Btw,

• To test article tagging, use the article sandbox.
• To test user-page tagging (warn, welcome, and talkback), use the user warnings sandbox. --intforce.aka.weltforce 14:43, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Just doing a bit more testing, but I think -- if there are no objections -- that this can probably be implemented sometime on the weekend. Osiris (talk) 07:08, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm currently thinking about a module that has the ability to add WikiLove templates and barnstars to user talk pages (because there was no consensus on this). I don't know wether this is good, because I really think the WikiLove extension is better. Maybe we can revive that discussion? We could import the extension but deactivate it by default so users can active the script on their own. --intforce (talk) 11:13, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Legal Fees Assistance Program

Hello. The Wikimedia Foundation is asking people to join a discussion on a proposed program that could help some users who might be named in legal actions because of their work on the projects. The users protected are those in "support" roles, like administrators, OTRS agents, checkusers, etc. We want to be sure you know about this and have a chance to join the discussion. Please help get the word out on your project about this discussion. (If you'd like to help translating the "request for comment", program policy or other pages into another language and don't know how the translation system works, please come by my user talk page at m:User talk:Mdennis (WMF). I'll be happy to help or find help.) Thank you! --Mdennis (WMF) (talk) 15:41, 5 September 2012 (UTC)