Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 106

Usernames for administrator attention

Why here isn't a section like WP:UAA? Should I create this? Comment users.--Pratyya ^(Hello!) 03:35, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Please don't. This is a rather small wiki. If any usernames need attention, just report them to WP:VIP. Chenzw  Talk  03:46, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Or the WP:Administrators noticeboard. -DJSasso (talk) 14:02, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Notability of Mayflower passengers?

Hello, I was wondering in what way people become notable by travelling on a ship, the Mayflower. Articles about passengers are being created, yet for people such as Humility Cooper, almost nothing is known (except that she seemed to have travelled on the Mayflower as a child, and later in life, returned to the Old World). Yes, there are records mentioning her name. I do however think that "notability" in our sense is probably different. Given the few things that are known about her, the interest in her is probably limited to academic sources (for example those that look at the conditions of women at that time). In other words: in my opinion, having a separate article about her is probably wrong. A similar case can probably be made about other passengers of the Mayflower. In short, I think that we should not have separate articles for most passengers. So far I have not nominated any articles for deletion as I think that this is more a discussion about what action make a person notable. Note that the Mayflower did not have any accident, the ship simply transported people to the New World (Plymouth Colony, iirc), and back. Thomas Andrews (enwp) was a shipbuilder that died when the RMS Titanic collided with the iceberg, he is generally described as a hero, helping others leave the ship. Is he notable? What about Madeleine Astor (enwp), who survived the accident, and died in 1940? Or Milvina Dean (enwp), who died in 2009, and who was the youngest person aboard the Titanic? - In short, what makes a person notable? --Eptalon (talk) 13:03, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

You ask good questions. To me, Humility Cooper, for example, is probably pretty borderline.

That said, do understand that in US history, Mayflower has a unique, almost iconic status as ships go. It was the first ship to bring European settlers to the colonies that became the New England states. Those colonists were the first who came over as refugees from religious persecution, which in the US was a historically and culturally important aspect of the entire European colonization process. The story of the Plymouth Colony's survival through their first winter, culminating in the "first Thanksgiving" is an iconic story that substantially all US children learn in school. (Whether they learn it with historical accuracy ... is another matter!)

So at some level US citizens see almost everything pertaining to the history of that voyage of Mayflower as noteworthy at a certain level. The noteworthiness comes from a combination of the Mayflower voyage itself and the subsequent founding and building of Plymouth Colony, but as a perhaps-sloppy shortcut we tend to think of it mainly in terms of Mayflower.

In comparison, when you look at Titanic, a Titanic survivor (I think) would need at least something beyond pure presence on the ship to qualify. Astor (above) was certainly noteworthy in her own right, even if Titanic added to her fame. Andrews (above) was Titanic's naval architect, not just a passenger and hero. So he was inherently noteworthy, too. (It's at least arguable that even if Titanic had never existed, he would still have been noteworthy.)

With respect to Dean, it's more borderline. But the fact that she was the youngest passenger, and the last survivor, gives her a certain cachet, too. I'm not sure that she'd have been considered noteworthy if we were doing this 100 years from now, but I'm not sure we're wrong for including her now.

So I come to the conclusion that to be noteworthy, a passenger needs something besides mere presence on the ship. With Mayflower the critical difference is that all the passengers have something else: they have Plymouth Colony.

StevenJ81 (talk) 14:19, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm... In terms of Humility Cooper I'd tend to say that she isn't notable. The ship is, and those on the ship collectively would be notable - for example the fact they collectively created the Mayflower Compact. Individually, I'd say no. Especially when almost nothing is known about her. I'd suggest merging all the passenger articles (of which there are some, but also many redlinks) into Mayflower passengers and possibly a list with the little info known about them? If individuals have notability for some other reason, such as John Carver who was the first Governor of Plymouth Colony they can have their own article... Basically; if they are notable as a group then they should have a group article, notable on their own, own article in this instance... Kennedy ^(talk) 14:23, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I would like to thank Eptalon for notifying me of this discussion and allowing me to state my opinion here. I have to respectfully disagree with the editor who does not think her notable. You cannot "lump" these people together. They came from different places, different countries and for many different reasons.

Humility Cooper, is, in my opinion, not only notable, but especially notable to Simple Wikipedia whose articles are mainly directed to readers who are young in age. She travelled as a one year old child and was the youngest of the passengers, except for one other who was born on the ship. She was orphaned in Europe and travelled with persons who were probably her aunt and uncle, The Tilley family. Unfortunately, she also was soon to lose them to the cold and sickness of the first winter that took so many who had been passengers on the Mayflower and was then placed with yet another family. Humility witnessed the first encounter with the Native American population and the First Thanksgiving and did not returned to Europe until late in her teens, probably at nineteen years of age.

It is true that there is little information of Humility at this time, but more records are, even today, being gathered and discovered by professional researchers in Europe and the United States.

I think the young readers would not only find her notable but also would benefit greatly to know of her story. It is a story of courage that would inspire many young readers. I would also add that I believe that all of the passengers were notable just for being a passenger on the historic and momentous voyage of the Mayflower, its extremely dangerous voyage which few ordinary people especially children had experienced before 1620 and for their part in the discovery and the settlement of Plymouth Colony. Humility grew and prospered even while more than half of the passengers died.

I would hope that we would treasure this young child's story and that of all Mayflower passengers and to know that more information is actively being gathered even now on Humility and all of the other Mayflower passengers. While to adults, Humility's story may seem short of facts, to child readers, I think there is much there, spoken and unspoken.MySweetMelissa (talk) 17:20, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

We have to distinguish between who is an interesting person to know about, and what makes a worthwhile encyclopedia article. The way we do that on Wikipedia is through our notability guidelines. I would make the following points:

• The reason Humility was on the Mayflower was that her guardians made the trip. They were the people who made the decision to go, not Humility. One of the notability guidelines specifically says that a person is not considered notable just because they have a relationship with someone who is notable.
• Simple Wikipedia's articles are not mainly for young readers. They are for several classes of readers: children, yes, but also people whose first language is not English, and people with poor English skills. We do not cater to any one group over the others.
• A person is not notable for Wikipedia purposes because of what might be discovered about them in the future.
• Articles exist on Wikipedia based on the notability of their subject, not based on whether someone might benefit from having them there. A person is not notable because of what they experienced in their life. The passengers as a group may be notable for Wikipedia purposes, certainly at least notable enough to be listed in the main article about the ship. Individuals might or might not, depending on their individual stories.
• Wikipedia articles are, first and foremost, encyclopedia articles. They are not popular biographies or inspirational tales. Wikipedia articles deal with verifiable facts, not how much "unspoken" information there might be. In Humility's case, it is not a lack of facts, but a lack of notability according to our guidelines.

I am not saying that it is not worth knowing about Humility, or any other individual Mayflower passengers. I am saying that here we have specific criteria to determine who or what is notable enough for a separate article. Humility may not meet those criteria. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:12, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

I think we should revisit the basic point of notability - "A person can be notable if he or she has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources". I think all the Mayflower passengers have met that requirement. As it is an iconic historical event it is important that we give it full coverage. Also, as it is used in schools, then Wikipedia should be an accurate and informative source for students, and even more so for Simple English Wikipedia. In the specific case of Humility, until I read the article I knew nothing about her. But the article was simply written and well researched. --Peterdownunder (talk) 06:55, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

The simplest answer – on which decisions should be based – is at the top of the guideline: A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject (emphasis mine). This does not include trivial mentions in historical records. If the passenger has been written about extensively in multiple reliable sources, then they are notable enough to have an article. That's the guideline. It's not about whether they made an impact or did something else with their life. I don't know how much Humility Cooper features in the sources that have been provided. Osiris (talk) 06:50, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

We have a list of Mayflower passengers. All we know about her as facts could be put in a short paragraph there, and linked by redirect. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:10, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

I believe that Mayflower passengers meet WP:Notability standards because they are Mayflower passengers and all that infers to Americans, both spoken and unspoken. We see articles about persons that have done nothing notable except hold a title. While that might not be notable in some countries, it is in others and they are respected and considered notable for that reason. The WP:Notability requirement is somewhat subjective as to country but should, I believe, be respected by all countries.

While I admit there is very little known about Humility Cooper at this time, more information is being found about these early Americans all of the time. She did come over on the Mayflower and that makes her as notable as any other Mayflower passenger, in my opinion and the opinions of many others who have sustained her and other Mayflower passenger articles for years now on En-Wikipedia.

Yes, I am aware that Simple Wikipedia had slightly different goals, those to children, language challenged persons, persons to whom English is not their first language, and to others and I applaud that goal. I think Mayflower articles are appropriate for all of the persons to whom Simple Wikipedia is directed.

I have seen many extremely complicated articles here which are near duplicates of those on EnWikipedia, unattributed and language nearly identical and have wondered to whom these articles are directed? Yet, because they pass the notability standards as interpreted by the administrators, I raise no objection.

I would think that since there is no space issue, and the Mayflower story being of such significant to both young readers and immigrants there would be no question that Humility Cooper could stay as a stand alone article and I respectfully request that she remain as such. Thanks. MySweetMelissa (talk) 12:52, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I am fully on Melissa's side. And at this point I don't think one can say there is a consensus to delete this and similar articles. StevenJ81 (talk) 13:35, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Keep in mind that no one has even nominated any of these articles for deletion. We're just having a conversation. That being said, we need to keep in mind that this is an encyclopedia. We do not decide on keeping articles based on whether they are appropriate for our perceived audience. We have plenty of articles that are not appropriate for children. The fact that more information might be learned about someone is also not a consideration. In my opinion, the Mayflower passengers are not equally notable. The ones who had leadership roles are more notable. The ones who accomplished more later in life are more notable. Yes, our notability guidelines talk about being mentioned in publications. But if the mention is always in connection with someone else, such as a child's guardian, you have to ask how much of the notability really belongs to the child.

As for the articles you see here that you think are questionable, question them! The administrators do not decide what meets notability guidelines, the whole community does. If you challenge something and consensus does not agree with you, you lose nothing. On the contrary, you learn something something. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:44, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
I would strongly urge people to create one article, where all the passengers are listed; in my opinion, a separate article is necessary onlly if at least one of the following criteria is met:

• The passenger had a political role in the future colony, or was important for its political success (this includes the people negotiating with the natives, eg.)
• Leaving out ships registers, and the registers of churches (marriage/death/baptisms), there are other contemporary sources that illustrate the notability of the passenger.

So in other words: People travelling on the Mayflower, are not notable by default. --Eptalon (talk) 22:02, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

• I think the amount of historical research done by scholars and historians makes each one notable. If you go to WorldCat, there are 1,239 books about the Mayflower. If you use Trove, there are an equally large number of sources. I think the sources are out there and notability is not derived from original documents proving they existed. --LauraHale (talk) 23:30, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Those are books about the ship/the voyage, and most of them are secondary sources (of the 20th century). What I tried to say is: Take Humility Cooper, and leave out the "boarding documents" and "church records". There will probably be few documents mentioning her, which were published until about 50 years after her death. She was baptized in London, in 1638 or 1639. Someone wrote in 1651 that she had died in England. It very much looks like this is all there is. Based on this record we decide that she deserves her own article here? -It looks like there were agreements signed in 1626/1627. People listed on those agreements are likely candidates for their own article. As a counterexample, en:William Bradford (Plymouth Colony governor) probably deserves an article of his own, as he served five terms as the governor of the colony. --Eptalon (talk) 09:40, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

These are certainly well accepted sources, and they are not old or outdated. Only one is in the last quarter of the 20th century:

• Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, 1620-1691, (Salt Lake City: Ancestry Publishing, 1986)
• Caleb H. Johnson, The Mayflower and Her passengers (Indiana: Xlibris, 2006)
• Charles Edward Banks, The English ancestry and homes of the Pilgrim Fathers who came to Plymouth on the Mayflower in 1620, the Fortune in 1621, and the Anne and the Little James in 1623, (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2006)
• Nick Bunker, Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and their New World a History (New York: Knopf 2010)
• Nathaniel Philbrick, Mayflower: A story of Courage, Community and War (New York: Viking, 2006).

This is not to exclude the fact that every childhood schoolbook mentions the Mayflower passengers in depth. To children in the United States, the Mayflower and the passengers are a big deal. They are addressed in every history book in elementary schools and high schools. An encyclopedia like Single English WP has a duty to provide additional information not covered in the basic history books. I cannot imagine anyone not thinking any of the passengers as being notable. I also have personal knowledge that many of the immigrants that come to the US, both children and adults are extremely interested in the Mayflower and all of the early Americans and are anxious to read more about them. Are we running out of space here?

There are many more quality books on the subject, but these I found in five minutes of research. (Added after) There is already an article on William Bradford and more will be added to it soon. MySweetMelissa (talk) 17:07, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Those are all secondary sources. Which is exactly what you're supposed to be using when deciding notability. Why is anybody suggesting that primary sources or arbitrary criteria be used to determine whether a topic is notable? We already have a criteria. It's written at the top of WP:N. Surely, the only thing that's relevant here is whether the coverage in the sources listed on the article is enough to show notability. Not what the person did with their life. Osiris (talk) 17:15, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

I also see several secondary sources (not none or just one) and I agree with those above who have pointed out that this does meet the notability criteria. Also, is there a time limit for an article to be developed here? Because if not why the rush to delete an article not yet three weeks old? I fully understand why some might find this article uninteresting but in fact the readers here are children and those learning English. So the articles by their very nature seem to fulfill two objectives; to be of interest to the readership and to be good practice for improving their language skills. I've taught children but have also taught those new to the English language and from that viewpoint this is a decent article. It serves the stated goals of Simple English Wikipedia and is an article that may still improve as other editors contribute. We develop our rules through consensus and I don't agree to applying them in the most rigid sense. All things considered I see no good reason the article should not stay. Rus793 (talk) 18:10, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Looking at the policy on notability (significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject), we have 3 things to determine, significant coverage, reliable secondary sources, independent of the subject. I doubt that anyone can honestly question the last two (hundreds of books writen by hundreds of authors and historians centuries after the subjects deaths). Only significant coverage is questionable. "Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail. This is where it gets tricky - in detail. In much of the sources, the coverage of the "not main" individuals is not extensive. Not a lot is realy known about them. But for the most part, what is known about them is covered. This is not a case of them being mentioned in passing. All that is known, every detail, is often included. The lack of information still available to us should not be used to say something is not notable. This lack of information may certainly affect how we deal with the subject in other ways, but it should not affect if it is notable. Given the sheer number of secondary sources which provide most every known detail about these people, I feel notability is proven.

Auntof6 stated above "The reason Humility was on the Mayflower was that her guardians made the trip. They were the people who made the decision to go, not Humility. One of the notability guidelines specifically says that a person is not considered notable just because they have a relationship with someone who is notable." Aside from the fact that the notability here is not based on the events but on the coverage of them, it is not a question of notability being inherited. No, she did not chose to go, but Jon Benet Ramsey did not chose to be killed. Why she was a passenger does not matter, that she was one would be all that matters. Her choice (or lack of) in the situation is immaterial.

That all being said, I do agree, in part, with Eptalon. While there is no doubt to me that Humility is notable, I do not feel there is ample information of warrant her own article at this time. A page listing all of the passengers with the known information about them with links to full articles on those where enough information is known to warrant full articles would probably be a better way to handle this. A page similar to the various "Characters of <blah>" pages would be best. People like Humility, while notable are merely bit players in the history of the events - they are minor characters of history. Character list pages handle the major and minor characters in a fashion where the information of most characters is available - pertinent info for all with just a summary for the major characters with a link to the rest of the information we have (the main article).

tl;dr: Yep, they are notable, but not enough info available of many of them for separate articles. Merge into a "character list" style page. --Creol(talk) 13:01, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

The Simple English Wikipedia Notability guideline, under General Notability Guideline states: "Significant coverage is more than trivial but may be less than exclusive". As for degrees of notability, they can't all be Charlemagne or other famous historical figures and I also don't see degrees of notability mentioned in the guideline. In the List of Mayflower passengers a link to her page is desirable but that list has hardly a sentence on those without articles of their own. Also, the point wasn't addressed why are we even discussing this on an article not three weeks old when this was brought up. What happened to letting the article develop and allow other editors to edit and add information? We don't know these are the only sources available on her so why the rush to judgement? Common sense should tell us this is a conversation for some time in the future after the article and others like it have been allowed time to develop. It's a good article and I definitely think it should stay. Rus793 (talk) 17:24, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Some of these characters don't deserve a separate article. The only stuff known about them is birth, baptismal, marriage, and death dates. Most lived the ordinary lives of settlers -- tilling the fields, eating, sleeping, praying, and making babies. This is not enough to merit a stand-alone article puffed up with speculation, 19th century oil pictures of the first Thanksgiving, and long paragraphs about the uncomfortable conditions on the Mayflower. Oregonian2012 (talk) 18:20, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

If you really knew the history you would not make that statement. They interconnect in many ways. MySweetMelissa (talk) 20:40, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

I know the history. I'm a descendant of two pilgrims. This is an encyclopedia not a genealogy guide. Some articles contain info that does not need to be recorded in a general encyclopedia. This stuff is fine for a genealogy encyclopedia or a tome about everything Mayflower but this is neither. Oregonian2012 (talk) 21:12, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

There is no "List of Descendants living today" in these articles. I made a point of removing any such material when I brought these articles over from en-Wikipedia. The "genealogical information" you refer to does not exist. The immediate children are listed and you will see that many of those children became notable in their own right, although, as yet, those articles are yet to be created on SW. Many people believed they are descendants of these people because of internet websites which are often unreliable. That is why they are not included in any SW articles and if in the future they are added, I would hope they are reliably sourced.MySweetMelissa (talk) 15:05, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

I worked for yeeeeaaarrsss in the genealogy dept. of a local library. I know what I'm talking about. Most of these "pilgrims" are notable ONLY for sailing on the Mayflower. There daily lives were very similar one to another and should not be recorded here in detail. There is no reason why every pilgrim in the Division of land or the Division of cattle needs to be documented in these articles. Why? This stuff is of interest only to genel. and desc. of pilgrims who (for some baffling reason) need to know every itty-bitty detail about their illustrious ancestors. Most of this stuff can be found at length in sites devoted to the pilgrims. SEW is NOT one of those sites. This is a general encyc. not a history book. Oregonian2012 (talk) 00:03, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Hermann Einstein (1847-1902) was a pioneer of electrical engineering, and a German entrepreneur; in Munich, over 300 people worked for him. He was responsible for brining electrical light to the Oktoberfest, and to Schwabing, which is now a part of Munich. Today, people mostly remember him for being the father of Albert Einstein. English Wikipedia does not have an article about him.You won't find any articles about the parents of Marie Curie either, even though they were Polish nobility. In short: being the parent of someone who is notable, does not make you notable. --Eptalon (talk) 09:05, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Changing usernames

How can I change usernames? One administrator went ahead and reverted all my work and did not even tell me what I should have done! --Aaqib Hola! 19:35, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't even know why you are commenting/complaining here in the first place. If you had bothered to read WP:CHU you would have seen that I have merely moved your request from the section "SUL unifications" to the section "General rename requests". You do not need to do anything else, and your request was definitely not "removed" or "reverted". Your request was moved (by me) because you are not asking for a rename due to problems in the SUL merge process. You are asking for a rename because you want the name changed - such requests should belong in the first section of WP:CHU. Chenzw  Talk  02:42, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I should first check it! --Aaqib Hola! 23:41, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Tech news: 2013-24

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes.

Recent software changes

(Not all changes will affect you.)

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf6) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 6, and to non-Wikipedia wikis on June 10. It will be enabled on all Wikipedias on June 13. [1]
• An alpha version of the VisualEditor was enabled on all Wikipedias on June 6. Please test it and report problems. [2]
• Several VisualEditor bugs have been fixed; users can now add, edit and remove categories using the editor's "Page settings" menu.
• Wikimedia error messages will no longer link to the #wikipedia [[<tvar|meta-irc-chans>:m:IRC/Channels</>|IRC channel]] on Freenode. [3]
• The logo of 16 Wikipedias was changed to version 2.0 in a fourth group of updates. [4]
• A test instance of Wikidata is now available at test.wikidata.org. [5]
• Users can now patrol the first version of a newly created page if they visit it from Special:NewPages or Special:RecentChanges. [6]
• Translation pages will no longer include edit section links (bug #40713). [7]

Future software changes

• A report on mobile upload errors was published, and software changes to reduce their number will come soon. [8]
• A request for comments on updating MediaWiki to use RDFa version 1.1 was started on MediaWiki.org (Gerrit change #67608).

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Unsubscribe.

20:13, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

New students

I'll be introducing a very small group of students (6) to SEWP in a few hours. These are generally higher proficiency English learners. Please don't hesitate to edit their work, even if it is marked as a class page. One of the reasons for bringing students here is experiencing writing for a real audience--and that includes feedback.

Thanks, ELTted (talk) 03:47, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

User:Nagomi

Two pages created by this user are in capital letters.Is that correct or should i move the articles to normal letters?Reception123 / Receptie123 (talk) 11:30, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

It's possible that those bands always put their name in caps. If that's the case, then they can stay. Otherwise you could move the articles. If you move them, you might want to leave a message on tge user's talk page -- that user is part of a class project. --Auntof6 (talk) 13:05, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

The standard format in English is capitals ("upper case") for the initial letter of a sentence, and initial letters of proper nouns. Apart from some special cases (acronyms, for example) the general text should be in lower case. See also WP:Style Guide#Capital letters. You should explain this to him/her and ask them to retype it. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:09, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

I have  'Move'd the page as the article was written normaly on en.wiki.Reception123 / Receptie123 (talk) 14:24, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

According to their articles on the English Wikipedia, the names of both of the bands are stylised in capitals. But not a big deal. Osiris (talk) 04:06, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Ok.Sorry, i didn't notice.Reception123 / Receptie123 (talk) 14:30, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually, Osiris the actual title of one of the articles is in small letters : One Ok Rock (en).Only My First Story is in capital letters.Anyway, it will be easier for users learning English to understand if we leave it like that.Reception123 / Receptie123 (talk) 14:51, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Tech news, and archival time..

Hello, for some time now, we have been getting "Tech news" on this page. These news are published weekly. This forum is archived every 14 days. So we get at most three such postings. What about shortening the archival period, say to 10 days?--Eptalon (talk) 18:03, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

No it should stay where it is. This page is rarely too long. -DJSasso (talk) 12:56, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

TDYK categories?

Hello there, As I already announced on the admin noticeboard, I am in the process of developing a bot to archive/delete "stale" DYK nominations. This bot expects a given format, which was the format that the "news items" were level four headings, and that we had level three headings which are "categories" (such as Arts, and Nature). I would prefer to re-introduce that format: An empty section "Arts" might likely entice people to nominate an Arts-related hook, which would mean that in the end we have a "more varied" DYK. At the time of this writing, there are seven hooks I think. One could be classified as Math/Thech/Engineering-related, the others would be "People" hooks. I am stopping work on my bot, until we reach an agreement on the format. --Eptalon (talk) 18:10, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

The categories made sense when there was a backlog. Now that DYK is back to more reasonable (and typical) numbers they are pointless; they were not particularly well defined, there is far too much overlap and the page looked a mess, imo at least. It certainly did not seem a useful way to proceed, but it did have a purpose when we had so many unreviewed nominations. I'm also not sure what point there is in making a bot to archive old nominations. Again, there are that few nominations that it seems a waste; DYK has survived for nearly 5 years on a manual basis, aside from the one recent backlog incident. Goblin 18:14, 15 June 2013 (UTC) I ♥ GoblinBots!

So you are opposed to defining 3-4 mutually exclusive categories, and a "catchall" ("Others")?- Unfortunately, about 70-80% of the hooks we get are about people. Wouldn't it be good to incite people to write about arts, drugs or technology? --Eptalon (talk) 18:48, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes. I see no need for them particularly when they will be largely empty. It's redundancy that just isn't needed here, and I don't buy that point about them inciting people to write about specific topics. People will stumble on DYK and write whatever they want to: an empty category isn't going to promote that, and all it does is make DYK seem stagnant when large numbers are empty. The only reason that we get mainly hooks about people are because those are the ones that people nominate: they don't have to (because most of the time people are just finding already sourced facts) but that is what is happening - with or without categories. If we want to promote a wider diversity, let's slap on a restriction that the user has to have written/contributed to the article they're nominating... although that will probably kill of DYK. Goblin 21:23, 15 June 2013 (UTC) I ♥ Mh7kJ!

Huggle

Hi people. I have just downloaded Huggle, but can someone please tell me what project it is when I log into the program (because I have been trying te.wiki and test wiki)? Also please tell me how the program works properly. Thanks, ~ curtaintoad ~~ talk ~ 11:26, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

PS: Also does it cause any viruses? Because I really want to use this program properly. I would be very panickied is this program causes any viruses. Thanks again, ~ curtaintoad ~~ talk ~ 11:31, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

• It's simple.wikipedia. Don't worry, it doesn't cause viruses. I use it daily on the English Wikipedia and I've never gotten any viruses from it. Lugia2453 (talk) 23:22, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Free Research Accounts from Leading Medical Publisher. Come and Sign up!

The Wikipedia Library gets Wikipedia editors free access to reliable sources that are behind paywalls. I want to alert you to our latest donation.

• Cochrane Collaboration is an independent medical nonprofit organization that conducts systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials of health-care interventions, which it then publishes in the Cochrane Library.
• Cochrane has generously agreed to give free, full-access accounts to medical editors. Individual access would otherwise cost between $300 and $800 per account.
• If you are active as a medical editor, come and sign up :)

Cheers, Ocaasi 21:19, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Cochrane Library Sign-up (correct link)

My apologies for the incorrect link: You can sign up for Cochrane Collaboration accounts at the COCHRANE sign-up page. Cheers, Ocaasi 21:53, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Tech News: 2013-25

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

(Not all changes will affect you.)

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22wmf7) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 13. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on June 17, and on all Wikipedias on June 20. [9]
• The Narayam and WebFonts extensions were successfully replaced by Universal Language Selector on June 11. [10]
• VisualEditor news:
  • VisualEditor was temporarily disabled on Wikipedia sites on June 14 due to an issue that inserted a lot of HTML code. The issue is now fixed and VisualEditor works as before.
  • Users can now use VisualEditor to add images and other media items from their local wikis and Wikimedia Commons. [11].
  • VisualEditor also allows editing references. [12]
• The new Disambiguator extension, which was previously part of MediaWiki itself, was enabled on test wikis. It adds the magic word __DISAMBIG__ to mark disambiguation pages. [13]
• The newly enabled Campaigns extension allows Wikimedia Foundation data analysts to track account creations that result from a specific outreach campaign.

Future software changes

• Universal Language Selector will be added to the Catalan (ca), Cebuano (ceb), Persian (fa), Finnish (fi), Norwegian Bokmål (no), Portuguese (pt), Ukrainian (uk), Vietnamese (vi), Waray-Waray (war) and Chinese (zh) Wikipedias on June 18. [14]
• Starting on June 18, VisualEditor will be randomly enabled by default for half of newly created accounts on the English Wikipedia to test stability, performance and features. [15]
• Two new webfonts (UnifrakturMaguntia and Linux Libertine) will be added to wikis that use Universal Language Selector. [16] [17]
• It will now be possible to hide the sidebar while using the Translate extension to reduce distractions (bug #45836). [18]
• A patrolling link will now be visible for un-patrolled pages, even if users don't visit it from Special:NewPages or Special:RecentChanges (bug #49123). [19]
• A request for comments on enabling a new search engine for MediaWiki was started.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Unsubscribe.

EdwardsBot (talk) 22:37, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Official colors for Historical geology/Geological period articles/templates

I think we should adapt official colors from the International Commission On Stratigraphy. We have Template:Period color for use of the colors. The template has been updated to use the values at (https://engineering.purdue.edu/Stratigraphy/charts/RGB.pdf). Plus it had been upgraded to include all geological periods. We can not use the United States Geological Survey (USGS) colors ,because this wikipedia unites the english world. And that is more then USA and USGS. Some of them is the UK,Australia,and more. Preview shown at Template talk:Geologic History. It has all templates and tables with the colors. I have one quick example here.

Official color preview for Historical geology/Geological period articles/templates
Supereon	Eon	Era	Period		Epoch	Start
	Phanerozoic	Cainozoic	Quaternary		Holocene	11,700
					Pleistocene	2.588 million
			Tertiary	Neogene	Pliocene	5.333 million
					Miocene	23.03 million
				Palaeogene	Oligocene	33.9 million
					Eocene	56 million
					Palaeocene	66 million
		Mesozoic	Cretaceous		Upper Cretaceous	100.5 million
					Lower Cretaceous	145 million
			Jurassic		Upper Jurassic	163.5 million
					Middle Jurassic	174.1 million
					Lower Jurassic	201.3 million
			Triassic		Upper Triassic	237 million
					Middle Triassic	247.2 million
					Lower Triassic	252.17 million
		Palaeozoic	Permian			298.9 million
			Carboniferous		Pennsylvanian	323.2 million
					Mississippian	358.9 million
			Devonian			419.2 million
			Silurian			443.4 million
			Ordovician			485.4 million
			Cambrian			541 million
Precambrian	Proterozoic	Neoproterozoic2	Ediacaran			635 million
			Cryogenian			850 million
			Tonian			1,000 million
		Mesoproterozoic	Stenian			1,200 million
			Ectasian			1,400 million
			Calymmian			1,600 million
		Palaeoproterozoic	Statherian			1,800 million
			Orosirian			2,050 million
			Rhyacian			2,300 million
			Siderian			2,500 million
	Archaean	Neoarchaean				2,800 million
		Mesoarchaean				3,200 million
		Palaeoarchaean				3,600 million
		Eoarchaean				4000 million
	Hadean					4,567 million

24.218.110.195 (talk) 01:23 30 May 2013 (UTC) 9:23pm 05/29/2013 EDT.

Many of these do not comply with the Manual of Style guidelines for accessibility. The contrast between text and background colours is too low — blue on reds, blue on blues, blue on purples, etcetera, don't work. It might be better if you tried softer shades of each colour in order to make the text more distinguishable. Osiris (talk) 02:32, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I've commented elsewhere on how the USGS colours are better for screen use than the ICS colours. A blaze of vivid colours might be suitable for a wallchart, but it is not suitable for screen viewing. Many of the ICS colours obscure the print, and lower readability. It is irrelevant whether the system is American or not; we make decisions based on our perception of what improves our pages.
On a related point, I suggest that templates should usually be set up so they present to the reader in closed format. Both graphics and text should not interfere too much with the flow of test, which is the primary content of a page. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:47, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

There is a discussion at English wiki [20] where the same user pushes the same or similar changes. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:10, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I would also recommend that you use only one of these templates in each article. Phanerozoic, for example, has three different navigational templates for the same thing (links to periods on the geological timescale). Not necessary, especially for such a short page. Osiris (talk) 07:06, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Does enwiki have a standard? That shouldn't automatically be our standard, but I do think we need to think twice before proceeding in a completely different way. StevenJ81 (talk) 12:34, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

The color choices for Triassic and Precambian are very bad, and I am not color-blind. Color-blindness seems to be common in men, which probably heightens the need for high-contrast images. We should however not be the only one to adapt the colors... --Eptalon (talk) 13:40, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Why not pad the text white like this?:

Triassic	Example left
Example shown above

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) colors can not be our standard. Users at en:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geology/Archive 3#Template color changes said that "USGS colors is only for US-only websites." and "I support the international standard colors" The colors listed above is our international standard. Plus Wikipedia is international and the United States Geological Survey (colors) is for USA 24.218.110.195 (talk) 22:00 30 May 2013 (UTC) 6:00pm 05/30/2013 EDT.

User:Eptalon en.wiki does have a standard. All pages about geologic time and using colors use the colors shown here at en.wiki. Our standard is here "Template:Period color" and en.wiki's standard is at "en:Template:Period color". Plus most wikipedias "e.g English,Spanish,German,Hungarian,and more" do use these same exact colors for their geological period articles.

User:Osiris, en.wiki has the same 3 templates to the same thing. At en wiki 1 template links to the subdivisions of a geological period on the top right corner on the page. The 2nd template is a footer that links to the geological stages of the geological period. And the 3rd template links to all Geological time articles.

24.218.110.195 (talk) 22:18 30 May 2013 (UTC) 6:18pm 05/30/2013 EDT.

You have already made this point before, and you are quite wrong. We can use an American (or any other) standard if we think it is right for us. We are concerned with readability and usability by our users, not where an idea comes from. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:51, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Macdonald-ross I do not like the USGS colors. The bad things about it are:

• Lots of Blue colors. It makes it hard for partly colorblind users to see the text.
• Some grayish dark and gray colors. If a user is badly colorblind they might not see the text.
• The colors are not for International websites. e.g Wikipedia, Simple English Wikipedia, 284 more Wikipedias, etc.
• There are no colors of geological stages. e.g Kimmeridgian.
• It is missing colors of geological periods, from the Stenian to Siderian.

Here are text turned white already. It is shown below.

ICS colors (text turned white) 6 total
Supereon	Eon	Era	Period		Epoch	Start
	Phanerozoic	Cainozoic	Quaternary		Holocene	11,700
					Pleistocene	2.588 million
			Tertiary	Neogene	Pliocene	5.333 million
					Miocene	23.03 million
				Palaeogene	Oligocene	33.9 million
					Eocene	56 million
					Palaeocene	66 million
		Mesozoic	Cretaceous		Upper Cretaceous	100.5 million
					Lower Cretaceous	145 million
			Jurassic		Upper Jurassic	163.5 million
					Middle Jurassic	174.1 million
					Lower Jurassic	201.3 million
			Triassic		Upper Triassic	237 million
					Middle Triassic	247.2 million
					Lower Triassic	252.17 million
		Palaeozoic	Permian			298.9 million
			Carboniferous		Pennsylvanian	323.2 million
					Mississippian	358.9 million
			Devonian			419.2 million
			Silurian			443.4 million
			Ordovician			485.4 million
			Cambrian			541 million
Precambrian	Proterozoic	Neoproterozoic	Ediacaran			635 million
			Cryogenian			850 million
			Tonian			1,000 million
		Mesoproterozoic	Stenian			1,200 million
			Ectasian			1,400 million
			Calymmian			1,600 million
		Palaeoproterozoic	Statherian			1,800 million
			Orosirian			2,050 million
			Rhyacian			2,300 million
			Siderian			2,500 million
	Archaean	Neoarchaean				2,800 million
		Mesoarchaean				3,200 million
		Palaeoarchaean				3,600 million
		Eoarchaean				4000 million
	Hadean					4,567 million

USGS colors (text turned white) 15 total
Supereon	Eon	Era	Period		Epoch	Start
	Phanerozoic	Cainozoic	Quaternary		Holocene	11,700
					Pleistocene	2.588 million
			Tertiary	Neogene	Pliocene	5.333 million
					Miocene	23.03 million
				Palaeogene	Oligocene	33.9 million
					Eocene	56 million
					Palaeocene	66 million
		Mesozoic	Cretaceous		Upper Cretaceous	100.5 million
					Lower Cretaceous	145 million
			Jurassic		Upper Jurassic	163.5 million
					Middle Jurassic	174.1 million
					Lower Jurassic	201.3 million
			Triassic		Upper Triassic	237 million
					Middle Triassic	247.2 million
					Lower Triassic	252.17 million
		Palaeozoic	Permian			298.9 million
			Carboniferous		Pennsylvanian	323.2 million
					Mississippian	358.9 million
			Devonian			419.2 million
			Silurian			443.4 million
			Ordovician			485.4 million
			Cambrian			541 million
Precambrian	Proterozoic	Neoproterozoic	Ediacaran			635 million
			Cryogenian			850 million
			Tonian			1,000 million
		Mesoproterozoic	Stenian			1,200 million
			Ectasian			1,400 million
			Calymmian			1,600 million
		Palaeoproterozoic	Statherian			1,800 million
			Orosirian			2,050 million
			Rhyacian			2,300 million
			Siderian			2,500 million
	Archaean	Neoarchaean				2,800 million
		Mesoarchaean				3,200 million
		Palaeoarchaean				3,600 million
		Eoarchaean				4000 million
	Hadean					4,567 million

24.218.110.195 (talk) 12:38 1 June 2013 (UTC) 8:38am 06/01/2013 EDT.

User:Eptalon no no no there's only 2 templates that link to the same thing. One on top one on the bottom. The 3rd one shows how much of Earths history (eon,era,period) it takes up. 24.218.110.195 (talk) 14:59 1 June 2013 (UTC) 10:59pm 06/01/2013 EDT.

I decided it that to add the official colors on timelines only. Plus this section can't be archived. There has not been a consensus and voting thingy yet. 24.218.110.195 (talk) 22:42, 15 June 2013 (UTC) 6:42pm 06/15/2013 EDT.

Apparently it's not enough to give one's opinion once, so I'll give it again.

1. I am in favour of the USGS colours because they make the template more readable, and less visually obtrusive.
2. It makes no difference where or by whom the templates were designed. The only thing which matters is the suitability for our readers. The scientific data the two versions contain is identical. Macdonald-ross (talk) 05:13, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

In 2 1/2 weeks, not one person has agreed with your points. With the exception of one statement only of caution in moving forward, all other views have been against your proposed changes and reasoning. Certainly looks like there is a consensus to not make the change. --Creol(talk) 12:51, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

What do you think of the colors. Should we add it or not to the pages/templates Creol. The users had post a comment once. So how can a consensus be reached when most users posting only 1 comment (not including "Macdonald-ross" and me). You just posted your 1st comment Creol. Any 1st (plus 2nd) comment here needs to have something related to these colors.

Macdonald-ross I apply the "International/regional (American)" rule when I make decisions based on our perception of what improves our pages or if it is right for us. The only exception is on spelling (color - colour) measurement (50'F - 10'C) and time (2:46pm - 14:46) to me. Plus it should read "types of templates" then "Where or by whom the templates were designed". 24.218.110.195 (talk) 21:35, 17 June 2013 (UTC) 5:35pm 06/17/2013 EDT.

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Several users have already raised their concerns over this change (and sometimes even more than once):

• "No, I think not: it looks good as it is... it's time to leave this alone and move on." -Macdonald-ross on Template talk:Geologic History
• "Many of these do not comply with the Manual of Style guidelines for accessibility." -Osiris on this page
• "A blaze of vivid colours might be suitable for a wallchart, but it is not suitable for screen viewing." -Macdonald-ross on this page
• "The color choices for Triassic and Precambian are very bad" -Eptalon on this page

...and I am also going to say that I disagree with the proposed changes, especially with how aggressive you have been in pushing for them. Not a single person has stated their willingness to allow this change, yet you have been modifying the template and replacing the existing colour codes with the ICS colours. Please revert your changes immediately. Where there is no consensus for any proposed change, we keep things as they are. Chenzw  Talk  02:58, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Band vs. musical group

What, if anything, distinguishes a "band" (the musical variety) from a "musical group"? I'm not seeing a clear distinction in Category:Bands and Category:Musical groups, and I'm thinking they should be merged. Please share your thoughts at Category talk:Musical groups. --Auntof6 (talk) 09:53, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Without looking at the way it has been used, I would suggest that musical group is a parent style category, as it could include any type of group music making such as a choir, or accapella group, or string quartet, and of course a band. What then--Peterdownunder (talk) 05:46, 6 June 2013 (UTC) is a band?

band a small group of musicians and vocalists who play pop, jazz, or rock music (COED). This definition does not include other groups such as string quartets, so I assume groups such as the Kodály Quartet would come under Category:Musical groups. DJDunsie (talk) 09:22, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Moving Wikipedia:Administrators

I am requesting to move the following: Wikipedia:Administrators because it says more than just about administrators information. I want to move it to Wikipedia:Support Staff. And if it is permitted, I will move the page. Thank you. --Aaqib Hola! 23:40, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with leaving it where it is. Wikipedia:Checkusers, etc. also redirect to that page, so if you need to find something, you will. Regardless, moving it to a page with the word "staff" in it would be bad because there are Wikimedia Staff, and it could confuse people. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 02:31, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Note: That page used to be located at Wikipedia:Administrators and Bureaucrats, but was moved back in 2008 to the simpler name. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 02:34, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Philos: things that are basically OK should be left alone. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:33, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

User like checkusers etc have to be administrators per our policy. So because of the redirects everything is where it should be and the name is much simpler. -DJSasso (talk) 11:44, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Two Issues with Simple English Wikipedia

Hi, I think the Simple English Wikipedia needs to start a massive bot work, which will place the original English Wikipedia language link on top of every "in other languages" wiki page here. It's absurd that people using this wikipedia will have to struggle to find its sister site. Any thought/suggestions about the matter? Also, even though this wiki has reached 100,000 articles, it still appears as if it only has over 10,000 here. Thanks, Yambaram (talk) 03:52, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

In the interest of keeping this discussion in one place, please see Talk:Main Page#Two Issues with Simple English Wikipedia instead of discussing here. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:11, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikiprojects

Hi, I am becoming re-active after a long absence. I had a question about the various projects and how they are run. I noticed that the various projects seem to be subpages of users (some of which have not edited in a while). The projects also don't have templates to add on the article's talk page. This is differant than how projects are run on the English Wikipedia. Wild Wolf (talk) 17:15, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

It is because we don't officially have Wikiprojects here for the most part. People are allowed to create them in their user space but in general we don't have them because we only have a very small userbase. About 20-30 active editors. See Wikipedia:WikiProject for more info. -DJSasso (talk) 17:23, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

I just came across User:Project, used for the User:Project/WikiProject History and a couple other projects. Wild Wolf (talk) 17:00, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Yeah that was a suggested way of doing it. Should probably be deleted. Like mentioned in the link above, we don't really do wikiprojects here but if you really feel the need to do one and you have a number of people who have agree to work with you on it then you can create one in your userspace. -DJSasso (talk) 17:02, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Looks like it was renamed from "Wikipedia:WikiProject History". I would be interested in keeping it active. Out of the four other participants listed, one is blocked and three haven't edited in several years. Wild Wolf (talk) 17:08, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Yeah that is sort of the point I am making, by all means edit history pages. But don't expect a lot of talk or anything on a project page. Most talk on this wiki happens on this page here or individual users talk pages. :) -DJSasso (talk) 17:15, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Split in 3 (like en.wiki split in 5)

This talk page at times crosses 100 kilobytes (100,000 bytes), and it's kinda slow loading the page. The talk page guidelines says archiving once at 75 kilobytes (75,000 bytes). I think we should split into 3 pages. This is what it says below:

• Example - what to post there - my predicted activity - my predicted memory - archiving time

They are:

• Proposals/Suggestions/Ideas - what do you think this wiki should do - least active - 25,000 bytes - 2 months

• Technical problems and Announcements - Tell the world something or need help that goes there. Examples are like "There's a new wikiproject", "The scripts not working", and "This new user needs help" - 2nd active - 30,000 bytes - 5 weeks

• Others - discussions that don't fit into any other pages - Most active - 35,000 bytes - 25 days

This discussion belongs into the "Proposals" page. 24.218.110.195 (talk) 22:15, 17 June 2013 (UTC) 6:15pm 06/17/2013 EDT.

When it gets too big we manually archive. It very rarely does get very big. Because we are a small wiki we prefer to keep discussion in one place. I would be very against splitting. At times there is almost nothing on this page. It is very common for project wide talk pages like this to get as large as 250k on other projects so the fact we once in a blue moon hit 100k isn't really that big a deal. -DJSasso (talk) 12:54, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Whatever DJ said above. Chenzw  Talk  13:27, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

We currently have two boards, this one an The admin noticeboard. Currently there are 17 topics and the board is around 80k in size. Old threads are archived automatically. Splitting would only mean that we have two boards that are more or less empty, and one that takes the function of what we have now - so splitting off two "low-traffic" boards doesn't change much - other than possibly confusing newcomers where to post a topic.--Eptalon (talk) 14:18, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

• I think that would be a pretty unnecessary change for a wiki that small. More (sub-)pages would mean more pages to watch and new users then don't know where to post what and get finally yelled at because they post something on the wrong board. Absolutely not needed. -Barras talk 15:39, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

• I also think that this is unnecessary.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  04:00, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Proposal for blocking template

When a user is reported to WP:VIP there should be a template you could paste saying : I proposed your blocking (or something like that).What do you think?Reception123 / Receptie123 (talk) 18:39, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Confused? Near the same Reception123. --Aaqib Hola! 19:00, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Not really necessary. Once on VIP they have already been warned 3 or 4 times. So don't really need a template a 5th time. -DJSasso (talk) 19:14, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

For that matter, even the blocking templates ({{uw-block1}}, {{uw-block2}}, and others) are optional, because editors will see MediaWiki:Blockedtext once they are blocked from editing. Chenzw  Talk  02:36, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

The user warning templates already say that the user may be blocked if they continue whatever it is that he/she has been doing (spamming, blanking pages, etc.), so this isn't necessary.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  03:54, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

X!'s Edit Counter

(Sorry for writing in English. You can translate the proposal.)

Should X!'s edit counter retain the opt-in requirement? Your input is strongly encouraged. Voice your input here.——cyberpower ^Chat_Automation 04:59, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

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

04:59, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Tech news: 2013-26

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

(Not all changes will affect you.)

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22wmf8) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 20. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on June 24, and on all Wikipedias on June 27. [21]
• Universal Language Selector was successfully enabled on the Catalan (ca), Cebuano (ceb), Persian (fa), Finnish (fi), Norwegian Bokmål (no), Portuguese (pt), Ukrainian (uk), Vietnamese (vi), Waray-Waray (war) and Chinese (zh) Wikipedias. [22]
• The new interface for account creation and log–in is now the default on all Wikimedia wikis. The old look is no longer available (bug #46333). [23]
• The TimedMediaHandler extension now supports native FLAC files. A discussion to allow this file type is taking place on Commons (bug #49505). [24]
• After a test period, the Disambiguator extension was enabled on the English Wikipedia on June 18. [25]
• VisualEditor news:
  • A VisualEditor bug temporarily made all new accounts unusable. The issue is now fixed and account creation works as before (bug #49727).
  • A high importance file insertion bug has been fixed, but the feature does not work perfectly yet. [26]
• It is now possible to synchronise local CSS and JavaScript files with the beta cluster. This should make it easier to test software features before they are enabled on live wikis. [27]

Future software changes

• The default link to a help page on editing, visible below the editing window, will change on almost 600 Wikimedia wikis and will now link to MediaWiki.org (bug #45977). [28]
• Universal Language Selector will be enabled on wikis without language versions (such as Wikisource and Wikispecies) on June 25. [29]
• The AbuseFilter extension will allow filtering links and HTML code for page creations. [30]
• The related changes special page will now include upload log entries. [31]
• It will soon be possible to choose the language of SVG files that contain translations. [32]
• MediaWiki will now allow converting audio files from one format to another. [33]
• The Wikidata technical team has started a discussion about how Wikidata can support Wiktionary. [34]
• The search feature on Wikimedia sites is planned to be modified to use Solr on all wikis by the end of 2013. [35]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:16, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Geological navigational boxes

There appears to be some kind of edit war going on over several pages on geological periods. It concerns the placement of navigational templates. I'm raising it here to alleviate any further warring over the issue. I don't know how many of these nav templates 24.218.110.195 has brought over, but for an example, Proterozoic is using four of them. They all appear to serve more or less the same purpose. Two of them are using colour schemes that I'm pretty sure we rejected a few weeks ago. The rationale behind having all of them is weak at best. Can we come to some sort of agreement on using just one or two? Osiris (talk) 13:01, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

This is some pretty messy edit war we have here. Also refer to related incident Wikipedia:Simple_talk#Official_colors_for_Historical_geology.2FGeological_period_articles.2Ftemplates. Per my edit here, the changes are unwarranted because there is no consensus for any change (so we have to stick with what we have). I warned the editor in response to another conflict and also gave early warning for the reversion of his changes to {{period color}}. Template has been reverted to version before all the colour changes were made, and left full-protected for the time being, until we settle this problem. Chenzw  Talk  13:42, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot something else: as much as I understand that we should be bold in making changes, the edits by the editor has raised concern within the community pertaining to readability (accessibility). Furthermore, the template is considered a high-risk template in that any mistakes made will be evident on a significant number of pages which have that template transcluded. Such aggressive pushing of "proposed" (which is not really proposed in the sense that we did not get to discuss/approve it before the change went live) changes, in my opinion, is really not the way to go. Chenzw  Talk  13:48, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

The main nav template has to be on all geological period articles. The official colors has to be on timelines because without them it would look bad. Chenzw your changes on Template:Period color is messing up alot of pages (main problems "missing colors" "lost/incorrect spelling" "invented values"). I shrunken the templates on the top right corner to the most narrow as it can get. 24.218.110.195 (talk) 00:31 21 June 2013 (UTC) 8:31pm 06/20/2013 EDT.

A nav template is fine. Four nav templates on an article of less than 200 words is not helping anybody, it distracts from the text and it makes the articles look terrible. One editor pointed this out to you, and you reverted him without comment. Another editor then agreed that it was excessive, and your response in your revert was "en.wiki has lots of templates in it's pages". As Chenzw says above, there is no consensus for any of these changes. In another thread at the top of this forum, at least three editors (myself included) disagreed with adopting your proposed colour scheme. But you added it anyway and your reasoning for it is that it "has to be on timelines because without them it would look bad" -- Nothing to do with guidelines, purely an aesthetic opinion. And the consensus was against it: every editor that has partaken in the discussion disagreed with your changes. You've demanded that the templates be restored to your version, and that's been done, but then you make no effort to appease the consensus or engage the other editors in discussion. So how would you like to proceed? Osiris (talk) 04:35, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Behind all the changes made by this user are:

1. An unwillingness to discuss openly what he is doing
2. An unwillingness to accept consensus
3. Pre-empting discussion, and making changes when it is clear other editors do not agree
4. Making satisfactory pages look very complex and forbidding by swamping the pages with navboxes
5. A complete rejection of our identity as a wiki, and our mission to address a different audience than English wiki. His oft-repeated mantra is "English wiki does it like this".
6. Continuing warfare from En wiki, where (on some key issues) he has been engaged in a similar way.
7. A complaint I have is that much of this was not needed for our purposes. I mean, if a navbox was required, I would have put one in, or asked someone to do it. Allowing that there might be a case for one or even two navboxes, it is clearly wrong for the templates to dominate the page as they do. Much of the information is not needed for understanding the page, and some is completely irrelevant.
8. He has introduced period-level pages in the Proterozoic, plus all the navboxes. He has done this by copying info from En wiki with virtually no changes. The reason they were not there before is that IMO they were not needed. And the science behind them is not so well established, whereas, from the Ediacaran onwards, the science is stable and well established. I am not denying that another case might be made, of course, but he has not made it.
9. In all these cases he has rejected the idea that we can decide for ourselves what is best for our wiki.
10. My point of view is that the pages were at first non-threatening and readable, even though they had to use some technical terms. Now they look very off-putting, and that really does matter to us.
11. As a matter of principle, the text on a page is the main thing. Graphics and templates are secondary, and should not interfere with the readability of the text. A case in point is the vivid colours of the IDS templates, where (if we must have a template) the USGS version is much less offensive, and clearer, and just as accurate.
12. Single-issue warriors have done a lot of damage to English wiki, and have been very difficult to control. This user is a case in point. He has come here to push an agenda, much of which was resisted over there.

Macdonald-ross (talk) 05:34, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

I also suspect violations of WP:RETAIN occurring within our templates (eg. Archaean vs. Archean). Can't find the exact diff links, though - this behaviour has been in place since April, apparently. Chenzw  Talk  05:56, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

The text of pages I put up mostly use English spelling (except for US topics). The original text for many geology pages were fresh-written rather than copied over. In theory templates should spell the same way as text, though I'm not too stressed about that. Because of all this I suspect we may have to set limits on the number of templates on a page. We could require imports of templates to get permission. Same level, maybe, as for rollbacker (unregistered users and inexperienced registered users). Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:19, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

I had to make those footer templates at the bottom of the page, because the graphical timeline on the right only shows it's eras. Besides Template:Proterozoic needs to go back on Ediacaran, it's already the most narrow as it can get. Now I can not make a direct link from Hadean to Cambrian without searching it, because the main nav template is gone. I suggest that you guys put the main nav template back up for eon pages.

• Osiris what other colors can we use for the timelines, if I can't put the official colors? Do not answer "none" or "USGS" 24.218.110.195 (talk) 11:23 21 June 2013 (UTC) 7:23am 06/20/2013 EDT.

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Why not? The USGS has its own set of standards. Also, your definition of "official" is very vague. Chenzw  Talk  11:40, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

But you had two footer templates, plus a tabular template, plus a timeline template -- all of which more or less do the same thing. Some might contain more links than others, so why can't you just choose the one with all of the links you think readers need. As for the colours, I don't understand why we can't use the original scheme we had. If you won't accept them, then what about increasing the white levels on these "official colours"? Osiris (talk) 11:56, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

We should also consider simplifying the content of the boxes. We do not have to cover content to the same level of detail as English wiki, and our templates and boxes should reflect the level of detail we think best for us. We could even delete some boxes, and ban re-creation. Also, we need to stop this sort of thing happening in other areas. As I've suggested, one good way to go is to limit the importation of templates more than we do at present. The guideline should be "what might our readers reasonably need?". If they want the full works, they already know where to go. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:42, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

I remove the table template when I apply the timeline template (excluding Hadean because it has no subdivisons). Osiris if you increase the white levels of the offical colors, it then becomes unofficial (invented values). There is not 2 footers, only 1 is. The other is the main nav template, which needs to go back up on the eon pages (e.g Archaean). Oh and Macdonald-ross those 2 images of the continents during the Ediacaran is the exact (so very close) width of Template:Proterozoic. 24.218.110.195 (talk) 20:57 21 June 2013 (UTC) 4:57pm 06/21/2013 EDT.

24, I wish I knew why you were so obsessed with "official" colors, or with avoiding USGS colors for international articles. Concerning formatting, the point here is about "easy to read" and "easy to follow". Your additions do not seem aimed at those goals. StevenJ81 (talk) 21:31, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

I noticed that the page Phanerozoic on en.wiki is holding 4 templates while en:Geologic time scale is holding 7 templates. Many pages here have 0 or 1 or 2 or 3 templates. I recommend that we can hold at most 3-5 templates. Some doc pages here hold 5 templates. If no one is gonna post a new comment to reach consensus (no consensus here yet), I will revert the pages to the version before you guys reverted. 24.218.110.195 (talk) 14:18 23 June 2013 (UTC) 10:18pm 06/23/2013 EDT.

No, absolutely not. We make our decisions based on what is good for us. It is quite obvious that the templates as you had them were interfering with the main content of the pages. In addition, the content of the templates is quite out of proportion with the contents of our pages. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:14, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

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Just a comment that no consensus means we remain with how things were originally, i.e. the current state of play (or the reversion before the reversion before the reversion, if you're with me). I've not been following this discussion closely so haven't got an opinion, but reverting to the 'disputed' version mid-discussion or because there is "no consensus" would be disruptive editing. Goblin 02:11, 24 June 2013 (UTC) I ♥ Jersey!

Elevation of WP:SSP to guideline status

While I was bored and flipping through the ST archives, I came across Wikipedia:Simple_talk/Archive_102#Unapproved stub types and realised that we did not really act upon it. Recalling recent editor interactions (one example that I can remember) and from the small murmur of agreement in the 2012 thread, can we try coming to a decision on this? Chenzw  Talk  08:48, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me! Osiris (talk) 08:58, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I'd agree with that. -Mh7kJ (talk) 19:10, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Me, too. StevenJ81 (talk) 01:30, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I still echo what I said in that discussion. :) -DJSasso (talk) 11:40, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I concur with DJSasso. There's no good reason to create a new QD type for this very issue. TCN7JM 11:44, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguator extension

I don't know anything about our policies or procedures on installing extensions, but could we consider the Disambiguator extension mentioned in the tech news above? It would give us up-to-date dab-related special pages. It would "make disambiguation pages easier to work with programmatically", which could be a benefit in maintaining dab pages. I've been doing some work with dab pages, and the new special pages could help with that. If the possible future enhancement of color-coding links to dab pages is ever implemented, that would help all editors. What do you think? --Auntof6 (talk) 18:46, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

I see no problem with it. You would need to put in a bugzilla ticket to have it happen I believe. -DJSasso (talk) 11:39, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, that's part one. Then part two is that one of you administrators needs to edit the tempate for dab pages to add the magic word. (I assume that template is protected.) StevenJ81 (talk) 11:57, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

...also, we need to remember to deal with some articles which are supposed to be disambigs, but do not have the template. I am pretty sure some articles have slipped through the cracks. (I support this change, just in case you aren't aware yet :P) Chenzw  Talk  12:14, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Well yes of course...but that part isn't any big deal. -DJSasso (talk) 13:35, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Western Sahara again...

Hello, List of cities in Western Sahara is a listing of settlements, with their approximate location, the controlling county, and two population counts. There are problems though:

• Most of the 30-odd settlements are red-links
• In many cases, the population is not known
• In the case of La Güera, the population of about 3.500 people is probably wrong; the city is basically a ghost town, home perhaps to a few fishermen. La Güera lies in the desert, the main problemwhich led to the city being abandoned is sand.

Since the terrirory of western Sahara is split between three contorlling countries, and that there is a (probably low-intensity) conflict, getting accurate figures for anything outside the Moroccan-controlled part will porbably be impossible. Knowing this, the big question becomes what to do:

• Try to find population number for the cities?
• Remove all the entries where nothing is known except the city name?
• Delete the "List", if less than 5-6 cities are left?

This posting is to start a discussion; I think this is better here, than in an RFD, because it does not suggest an outcome...--Eptalon (talk) 09:42, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, one could delete the list box, move the page to Towns in Western Sahara, and just put a list of those cities which are blue-linked plus any red-links which are notable. A list of places with no data is just meaningless. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:16, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree with pretty much everything Macdonald-ross just said. This list of places isn't doing much good other than wasting space. Although, I disagree on the proposed article name. It should probably be List of cities in Western Sahara. TCN7JM 12:46, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't really agree, the purpose of list articles is to list things, and not everything on a list article has to be independently notable. I would also leave it named as is. -DJSasso (talk) 11:48, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

The problem with the list is not that it lists settlements we don't have articles about, the problem is that some of the information is probably wrong and cannot be easily verified. "Western Sahara" is basically "people living in the desert", the (former, now occupied) country is one of the most sparsely populated places on earth. Go look up some of the settlements in Google Maps, and you'll find that many are like 2-3 housing complexes in the desert....--Eptalon (talk) 12:13, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

I realize that, but they still exist. Personally I would set it up like the en page which is a really good model for how something like this should be handled. If you don't have verified information you put a comment indicating that. Technically to make it a decent list you don't even need anything other than the name. -DJSasso (talk) 12:38, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

New opening

Hi everyone! I wanted to just volunteer to create Wikipedia:Adopt-a-user, the original Wikipedia has that. What we can do is, people who need help getting around Wikipedia and to avoid being blocked. They can put their name, and whoever is their to mentor the users, they can just simply add their name. The mentor will pick on "pupil" to teach, like what is vandalism and not vandalism. And its easier to not read threw the guidelines. --Aaqib Hola! 20:43, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

We aren't that formal here. A while back, we removed the editor review process because we don't have the manpower to keep up with a formal process. If an editor wants to be adopted or to adopt another editor, he or she can use this page to let the community know. When an adoption is done, the editors involved can work in their userspace. --Auntof6 (talk) 22:19, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Whatever Auntof6 said. Also, this should not be a replacement for the reading of our rules and guidelines. Chenzw  Talk  01:58, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Do we have any Germany experts here?

It seems to me that the articles on German districts need some work. Some entries seem to be on both List of German rural districts and List of German urban districts. Then there's List of German districts, which you'd think would have all the districts of both kinds, but doesn't seem to. Maybe we don't need all these articles. Is there someone more familiar with German local government who could take a look at these? Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 22:02, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

For starters, the List of German districts and List of German rural districts both purport to list the rural districts, not the urban ones. So I guess those two lists are redundant.

Beyond that, I would need to look a little further. But do note that some of the rural districts have their administrative headquarters (capitals, if you will) in cities that are technically urban districts (and technically outside of the rural districts). This is probably because the rural districts don't (or at least didn't) have the administrative infrastructure necessary.

To illustrate–and the following is not actually the case, it just makes it easy to visualize–if you look at a map of Germany, you will see that the State of Berlin is completely surrounded by the State of Brandenberg. The above situation would be as if Brandenberg were a rural district, but kept its administrative headquarters in Berlin anyway. So just because the same city is mentioned twice doesn't automatically mean there is redundancy. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:53, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

I think it is a little more complex: There are three entities, called "city-states": These are Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen; While the city-states of Hamburg and Berlin are just made of one city, that of Bremen contains two: The cities of Bremen, and Bremerhaven. These city states are at the same administrative level with the other Bundesländer (Baden-Würtemberg, Brandenburg, Hessen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Niedersachsen, Nordrheinwestfalen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Saarland, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein, and Thüringen). And no, the capital of Brandenburg is Potsdam, not Berlin; that of Niedersachsen is Hannover, not Hamburg or Bremen; so the case where one city serves as capital for two entities does not exist, except for Berlin, which is also the capital of Germany. Then there are (Landkreise) and Kreisfreise Städte, a Kreisfreie Stadt is basically its own Landkreis; there are exceptions here: Hannover is such a Kreisfreie Stadt, but at the same time it is the capital (and part of) the "Landkreis" Region Hannover. To distinguish from a normal Landkreis, whose capital is not a kreisfreie Stadt, Region Hannover is called: "Kommunalverband besonderer Art" (this construct also exists for Saarbrücken ("Regionalverband Saarbrücken") and Aachen ("Städteregion Aachen")). The other Landkreise are territorial communities, very often the biggest city in the Kreis is its capital, which is usually called "Kreisstadt" or "grosse Kreisstadt". There are 295 such "Landkreise" (including the three special cases mentioned). In short: the two articles can probably be merged, there are just Städteregion Aachen, Regionalverband Saarbrücken, and Region Hannover, where the capital of the Landkreis is a kreisfreie Stadt. --Eptalon (talk) 10:12, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

(FWIW, I already knew that Berlin is not actually the hauptstadt of Brandenburg; I was trying to illustrate, and to keep it simple. But I forgot that German is your Muttersprache, so that you would be able to answer more accurately. Mea culpa.) StevenJ81 (talk) 17:10, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I think you could probably easily cover List of German urban districts under Urban districts of Germany, and List of German rural districts under Rural Districts of Germany. And then have List of German districts to have the full list. Osiris (talk) 15:56, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Broken images

I am in the process of finishing up the cleaning up the backlog for broken images. Many of the pages listed at Category:Pages with broken file links in editors userspace. With active users, I don't want to go around editing their userspace without permission, advanced warnings, etc so I am asking if people could look at the pages in the category and clear any errors in their userspace. With inactive editors, I am a bit more bold in fixing errors by commenting them out (or removing in sandbox articles as if they were live articles). Certain archive pages on the list will need admin attention as they are protected. --Creol(talk) 17:02, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

That being said, broken links are not all that bad in userspace. I wouldn't comment them out in talk page archives for example because then you break the integrity of the archive where they should still be red links. -DJSasso (talk) 11:44, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

In most cases the context of the link decides the action. If an image is being discussed, I shift it to a link (which will be red). If it is something like an image on a barnstar, I comment it out. If it is a mock up of an article which was being worked on 3 years ago and has just been sitting there, I tend to treat it as a published article (although not as likely to hunt hard for a replacement).

While the userspace dead images have no real impact on the project directly, a category flooded with them makes it hard to notice the pages (such as Help:Images) that actually do need to be fixed. Once cleared, a quick glance during my daily check of the backlog will tell if anything there needs to be fixed. As is, I have been ignoring those pages as it was too time consuming to scan 2 pages of links daily for a handful of pages that needed the work. --Creol(talk) 14:46, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Makes sense. If that is how you are handling them then that works. -DJSasso (talk) 15:04, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Template:Geologic history

We seem to be in a loop between Template:Geologic history and Template:Geologic History. I can't get access to the editing, but the correct title is "Geologic history". 24 reverted Glaisher's setting, and may have added this loop. Anyway over to someone who understands how to deloop this pair. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:05, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I was the one who moved it to {{geologic history}} (lowercase h). Can't seem to find the loop. Can you elaborate a bit? Chenzw  Talk  06:36, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I pressed the "e" for edit, arriving at the other spelling; did the same and arrived back! But there's plenty I don't know about templates.... Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:46, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

The template name is now "Geologic history", but the text in the nav box remains "Geologic History" (capital H). I didn't modify the template text when I moved the template. Could that be the issue here? Chenzw  Talk  06:52, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I think the title should read as "Template history", but I got hung up on the rather strange feature of the little link "e", visible in the top left of the closed or open template. Anyway, if you think it's working OK, that's good enough for me. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:33, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Title is fixed (the first part of it's {{Tnavbar-collapsible}}), little "e" points correctly to the little history now (second part of that template call). --Creol(talk) 16:51, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Interwiki links, especially for new pages

Is there a bot or something adding our new pages to Wikidata's interwiki links? I've been adding some manually now and then, and I was wondering about this. I partly hope there is something automated, because it would be helpful. However, I partly hope there isn't, because there isn't a one-to-one match across Wikipedias. Whether there is or not, I'd like to mention the following for those who may not have thought about it. As I understand things regarding Wikidata's interwiki links:

• Categories, templates, and pages in mainspace can be entered in the interwiki part of Wikidata. If you enter categories or templates, be sure to put "Category:" or "Template:" at the start of the page name. Otherwise, it might match a category or template to an article because Wikidata doesn't know the difference.
• Interwiki matches in Wikidata are by content, not page name. This can be tricky for us, since our pages don't have to be named the same as on English Wikipedia and pages with the same name can be about different things. For example, en:Field theory is a disambiguation page, but here Field theory is not, so those pages do not match even though they have the same name.
• If a page is in Wikidata with interwikis, and that page is moved/renamed, Wikidata needs to be updated to show the new name.
• Only complete matches should be entered in Wikidata. For example, if we have a page about a person who doesn't have their own page on other Wikipedias, that page doesn't match another Wikipedia's article about their family or some other group they're in.
• Wikidata doesn't want interwiki links to sections like you might have seen in the past.
• If you enter an interwiki link manually in Wikidata, look at what's in the edit box before you save. Wikidata likes to guess what article you're typing in, and sometimes it adds characters you haven't typed. Before you save your entry, make sure it says what you want.

Just some thoughts. --Auntof6 (talk) 09:29, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Not really any bots doing it yet. I think because they are still pulling in interwiki links that are already on pages. From what I understand once that is done they will turn their attention to new pages. For now you need to go manually. -DJSasso (talk) 14:02, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

From my experience, there are bots that watch when pages are moved and update Wikidata accordingly. However I'm not sure whether this wiki is watched. Next time someone moves a page, wait a few hours and see if a bot picks that up. ...Aurora... (talk) 03:57, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

It's often not picked up on for over a month. I just got finished with fixing some from April, and there are more to fix here. In addition, if you move a page and then turn the previous title into something else (like a disambiguation page), the Wikidata links stay connected to the previous title. Osiris (talk) 04:02, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Guess this wiki isn't watched then. It'll have to be done manually until bugzilla:36729 is fixed. As for turning redirects into disambiguation pages, well, you can't expect bots to know the intention of the users. ...Aurora... (talk) 04:27, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

You can actually, the old bots could tell when a page was turned into a disambiguation page because of the dab templates on the pages. -DJSasso (talk) 11:48, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

DJSasso, if someone uses the template yes, which is not always the case.
Osiris, I removed some articles from your list which I (and DJSasso) fixed. If that is ok, I can continue. ...Aurora... (talk) 10:41, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Of course! Thank you for the help! Osiris (talk) 10:47, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

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Are you sure? My bot is supposed to be updating moved pages from all Wikipedias, and removing all deleted pages, except categories IIRC. Either way, on the part of adding new articles to Wikidata, that's a nice consideration, but it would need a good implementation in order to reduce duplicates.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  04:08, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

I just verified, my bot does check here. All I can assume is that the bot missed them because Toolserver was down? Example from 11:08, 11 June 2013 based on the deletion log. The most recent move I see made was, strangely, 03:07, 6 April 2013 based on the move log. Please note that since category renames include re-creating an entirely new category, by bot can't handle these.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  04:39, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

If your bot is updating them now, then that's great. One less thing I have to keep checking. I did a heap of them about a week ago, maybe about a hundred articles that had been moved up to two months ago. Since then I've been checking the move log every now and then to update the interwikis. This one was moved almost a week ago, but it hasn't been updated. How often are you running it? Osiris (talk) 04:55, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

It should run four times a day (every 6 hours), checking logs up to 7 hours old. I'm going to add an instance of the script to Labs now to run more frequently, and with better overlapping.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  06:04, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Revisiting this for a moment.. A fair number of pages were moved in the last few days, but none of the interwikis have followed them. I'll leave them for the moment in case you want to try and get your bot on them. Osiris (talk) 10:46, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, I'll look into as soon as I get a chance.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  21:48, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

In the News section

I am requesting in the Main Wikipedia section to have a In the News. Although I highly recommend In the News I'm letting the community decide. If we add In the News Like the English Wikipedia, fellow Simple English Wikipedians can know what's going on in this world. I'm new at this, so if I'm doing anything wrong let me know. By the way, there's enough room for a In the News section on the Main Page. Thanks. --TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 03:28, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

The big question there is do you see people writing about current events? - Yesterday I basically copied the header of the article on Hassan Rouhani, who won the presidential election in Iran,on the fourteenth of the month. We don't have anything on that election, that some of the candidates got excluded, etc. - There has been rioting in Turkey, do we have anything on that? Look at the world events of say the last two weeks (Other candidates: rioting at some football game in Brazil, G8 summit in Northern Ireland, NSA is listening to everything, whistleblower vanishes in Hong Kong, chemical weapons may have been used in Syria)? - In order to be able to provide an "in the news" section, we need people writing articles about "current" events. Since our readers are from all over the world, these events also need to be. As long as we don't have a "feed" of say 3-4 "current" (as in last two weeks) events, which are decently written, we can forget having a section "in the news". --Eptalon (talk) 09:55, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Before I forget: other things: Flooding occurs along the Danube (mostly done), and the Elbe rivers (ongoing); this causes major damages (Danube may be worst flooding in a century)... - You see there is plenty to write about, yet we have no one doing so...--Eptalon (talk) 10:04, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, we could never keep up with a news section on the main page. Macdonald-ross (talk)

We have no hope in being able to keep up with such a thing. Nowhere near the editor numbers to support it. -DJSasso (talk) 11:38, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

I have left a message at en wikinews (here), to see if some people from there are interested in helping... --Eptalon (talk) 18:13, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

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I would be willing to help out, I've created several articles that were current but I do agree that we don't have enough editors to operate it. Best, jona^{talk to me} 22:01, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Reorganising Cat:Economics...?

I have looked at Category:Economics, it contains about 130 pages, and some subcategories. I have started to introduce other categories, but was left stranded:

• Category:Economic policy currently contains two pages, one more is needed in the long run.
• Category:Economics models has the same problem

If we have anyone knowledgable enogh in economics, introducing new categories, and reducing the number of pages in Cat:Economics would probably be a worthwile task.--Eptalon (talk) 16:16, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Don't forget that 130 is not many articles in a category and that we try to use the fewest possible categories here so this set of articles might not need to be split into subcategories. So many of these categories you created only very few articles in them which is scraping the bare minimum. Really if you can't split into larger subcategories you probably shouldnt' divide. -DJSasso (talk) 18:35, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Wait a minute. Are you saying we shouldn't create a lot of categories if they have only the minimum number of articles? If so, then what's the reason for having a minimum? IMO, If the subcategory is reasonable and there are at least the minimum number of articles, then I see no problem with creating it. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:45, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Eptalon. I had looked at this, but I don't know much about it. I do have a question: what does Economywide country studies mean? --Auntof6 (talk) 20:45, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea, all i did so far was create the categories mentioned above, plus Category:Economic markets, Category:Inflation and Category:Market failure; I also moved a few pages from the main category, into its subcategories. --Eptalon (talk) 21:13, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I didn't mean that I thought you'd created that category. I was just trying to figure out what it was for, and whether we needed it. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

So I moved a few items into Policy and am likely to move a few more. Wow, "Fair trade" meant something very different 40 years ago when I studied the theory. Jim.henderson (talk) 20:12, 28 June 2013 (UTC)