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Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 12

< Wikipedia:Simple talk

A bot to propose very good articles

Hello, it is that guy again, with his very good article process. Of the Requirements for very good articles, items 1, 4, and 7 cannot be checked automatically. The rest of the checks can be done automatically. This would allow to write a bot, that browses through the articles, and proposes some of those which meet the criteria. This would allow for the proposition process to get going. I could write such a bot, if there is the need.

Any oppositions? --Eptalon 16:45, 23 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, sounds like a good idea. Btw, fixed a typo in the header :) Majorly (talk) 16:52, 23 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Eptalon, what news? Did you write the bot? - Huji reply 18:03, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I have created a user named Eptabot for doing some basic tests. I have also started to write the bot. I will do it in Java, as I know that language best. The problem there is that the current API is not complete for Java, so I am extending those API classes at the same time. Once I have written the bot, and done some basic tests, I will apply for bot status for Eptabot (will probably also require a code review). So, do not count on anything soon. --Eptalon 20:31, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Board of Trustees election open

Voice your opinion at Special:Boardvote. I will be updating MediaWiki:Sitenotice momentarily. Sean William 00:25, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Does that mean "for a moment" or "in a moment"? It could be either, you know. I assume it means "in a moment," since the notice is still there. :D --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 00:43, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Administrator

Konnichiwa! (That's Japanese for Hello.) I was wondering, do you think I would make a good administrator? Panda Bear 02:58, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is too early to answer that without being unfair. Ask the question again when you have more edits under your belt (136 mainspace edits at the moment), and have been active here for a longer time. --rimshottalk 08:17, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To be more specific, users usually have around 1000+ edits and three months of editing before requesting for adminship. --Isis§(talk) 20:59, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Panda Bear, I think it is better for you to become an expert editor and a peer reviewer here, than an administrator. This is my personal point of view though. - Huji reply 07:52, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't requesting for adminship. If I was, I would go to WP:RFA. Panda Bear 18:28, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure to whom your above statement was written, but I'm pretty sure you know what to do pretty well - Huji reply 15:19, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

More buttons for the edit window

Can we get the same buttons that are on the English wikipedia, please? Redirect, strikethrough etc. Thanks, --Rajah 05:42, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If it was only about the buttons, it could be easily done with some User JS. But I really miss the links on the bottom of the edit box, like that for <noinclude></noinclude> etc. I strongly support their being set up for Simple English WP, which takes only a few seconds for an admin. - Huji reply 13:13, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I really don't care either way because I've gotten used to just typing it out. --Isis§(talk) 13:17, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if an admin needs to intervene for adding buttons and other links, etc., or if that requires a few minutes of a developer's time, but either way, I'm all for it. However, if a developer does it, I would ask that it apply for all the SE projects, each according to its corresponding English project. I posted a bug on bugzilla.wikimedia.org about special:import, asking for it for all the SE projects, and they did it within a day or two. If an admin checks here, they'll find that import works here as well. It does not work the way that the meta help page says it works, but it does work. If someone doesn't understand it, I can probably explain it more, since I'm already using it on SEWT, importing things from here. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 00:55, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is there Featured Article status (or anything similar) in Simple? Universe=atom 14:29, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We have Very Good Article status, which is still under development. Go to WP:VGOOD for more details, please - Huji reply 15:00, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Universe=atomTalk•Contributions 16:01, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Changing Username

Is this possible? --Haya 22:38, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Usually, yes. You should talk to a Bureaucrat though. (ours are Archer7, Blockinblox and Vector) --Eptalon 22:48, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. --Haya 02:53, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some images not working

The image on the article ladder (which I put there myself some time ago) does not work anymore. This is odd, as the image is still on commons, like it was before. There is no image missing message either. The same thing happened on the Ernest Hemingway article. Does anyone have an idea what would cause this? --rimshottalk 09:32, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. --Isis§(talk) 20:30, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I still wonder what the problem was, though. It would be nice if normal-sized thumbs worked, you know ;) --rimshottalk 09:22, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I wonder if this is a bug of MediaWiki or something. I'm gonig to discuss it with people who know more about these things - Huji reply 14:05, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Kanji and Ceremony

I was wondering if someone would expand these articles. Thanks. Panda Bear 19:11, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I expanded Ceremony, but I don't know enough about Kanji to pull out important information from the English article. --Isis§(talk) 23:29, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I edited Kanji and added some information, it's still a stub though. 19:58, 12 July 2007 (UTC) (Trav1085 on full wikipedia)

New Tag?

To spread the word about our wiki, do you think there should be a tag in EWP that says "this article can be viewed in simple english" or something like that? --Liam.gloucester 23:43, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

 
Simple English Wikipedia

--Isis§(talk) 01:06, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like the top box is mine, but I added the second one. Don't know how to fix the formatting on it. --Isis§(talk) 01:15, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think saying "This page can also be viewed in the Simple English Wikipedia" is sort of like saying "This page can also be viewed in the Japanese Wikipedia." But maybe not, since Simple English Wikipedia's purpose is to help people who are not good in English. Panda Bear 05:26, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why does Simple English get a big box and none of the other languages do? I think the interlanguage link is enough.--Werdan7T @ 07:28, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Don't like this idea, it's like we are being biased. Why does Simple English get the tag when the other wikis don't. It's not fair with the other languages. RaNdOm26 07:51, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Let's say you can't read english well. Simple English Wikipedia isn't advertised enough, and I assume the person will type in wikipedia.org. Then, they will click the English Tab, as Simple English isn't a choice there. Then, let's say they type in Caffeine. The article goes on to discuss the cafffeine molecule and such. The reader then sees the tab that says 'this article can be viewed in Simple English, using easier words and smaller sentences.' I think that would serve a good purpose.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Liam.gloucester (talk • contribs) 13:43, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Still, I don't think the idea would be supported on English Wikipedia; we need a better idea to advertise for Simple English Wikipedia I think. Perhaps... we could ask the "simple" interwikis to be shown a little bolder or something. I don't know - Huji reply 14:19, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Simple English" is not another language. It's English. Just... well, simpler. Panda Bear 19:26, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I discovered simple english by interwiki links without a large box. Really, I don't think a box is needed if there is already an interwiki link. I don't agree that it would be like creating boxes for other langauges, though, seeing as to how Japanese and English aren't the same langauge, but english and simple english are. Some less-advanced english speaking people may not know about simple english, but may come across the interwiki link while finding the interwiki link to their native language.
Another option would be to create a box on very good articles only. Such a link would provide another resource for everyone reading wikipedia, not just less-advanced english speakers. Or, don't have interwiki links, just the box, like witionary. --Isis§(talk) 20:44, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think the interwiki option is good. Simple EN is a different "wikipedia" not a wikitionary like wiki. It still is in the same category of encyclopedias.
But about very good articles idea, I know there is a template in En WP, which makes the interwiki look like a star, which is used to show an article is a feature article of another wiki. We can use it for our featured articles, to attract people to here - Huji reply 21:45, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But you see, you have to scroll quite a ways down the page to find Simple English, especially on more common topics, as it starts with S. Maybe it could be moved to the top of the interwiki box and be bolded. Liam.gloucester 21:55, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I know that all of us here want to promote SE in other places, but I can tell you from experience that a box like the ones above will not be accepted on EWP, and will likely be immediately and repeatedly deleted, as a type of interwiki spam. I don't think that is the approach we are looking for. I think Huji is absolutely right in that we are another Wikipedia, not a sisterproject, despite the fact that English and simple English are variations of the same language. For this reason (among others), the box is a bad idea, IMO. But the FA interwiki star is a great idea, and exactly what we should do. We are no more important (even there) than any other language, and therefore should be treated like all the others. Some people would feel that we are less important than other languages, and if we start adding obnoxious (in their opinion) boxes to articles, they may decide to do something about it. The interwiki link with a star is not too big, not too little, but just right. (No, I wasn't Goldilocks in another life...;) Besides, people who see the star will likely get interested, and people who know about SEWP will likely keep an eye out for those stars anyway. It should definitely not be moved to the top of the iw links or be bolded. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 01:10, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I find it more obnoxious to have a star then be in the top of the box or bolded, but either way is better then the current system. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Liam.gloucester (talk • contribs) 10:28, July 4, 2007 (UTC)


Actually, Simple English is a conlang created by C. K. Ogden. j. rand|talk| ε contribs|email 14:43, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Redirecting spelling errors of articles

Okay, say you were looking up Japan on Wikipedia. But you had a habit of spelling it "Japen." You end up in search, instead of the article. Then you realise your mistake. If you checked out the Japan article every once in a while for updated information, it could start to get annoying. So then, do you think it would be okay to redirect spelling errors? Panda Bear 20:07, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is practiced on En WP and other wikis. But it is only done for common misspellings, not every possible one. I support that idea to that extent - Huji reply 21:40, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that maybe a little more than common misspellings, since this is for people who might not be the best spellers in English. Am I being confusing? Let me put it this way: Since the people reading these articles are learning English, they might misspell more words than the readers on other wikis. --Isis§(talk) 23:12, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Our readers may make more spelling mistakes (and I make may bold, because this is not proved yet that our readers make more mistakes than those reading English Wikipedia), but there is no point of creating a redirect from Jaoan to Japan, only because someone may type the wrong (adjacent) character. Sometimes (but not always) a Google search may help - Huji reply 06:13, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Not for typos, just misspellings. Like, green and grean (Okay, that was really bad example but it gets my point across) --Isis§(talk) 13:24, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of Sonic games

Sonic Rivals is a redirect to Sonic the Hedgehog. However, there is absolutely no information about the game, which may frustrate people wanting information about the game. So then, do you think there could be an article entitled "List of Sonic the Hedgehog games"? Panda Bear 02:39, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What I know, Sonic Rivals is a loop redirect now, and should be deleted. - Huji reply 06:08, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

10,000th and 15,000th article?

What were the 10,000th and 15,000th articles? --70.133.218.43 11:56, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

the 10000 was Florence Harding. --Isis§(talk) 12:19, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The 15K article was Giant tube worm created by Eptalon.-- Creol(talk) 05:37, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Question

While I was on wikipedia, the font became really, really small. Does anyone know how to fix this? --Isis§(talk) 12:19, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it must be a problem with browsers, it goes like that for me on NetBSD, but it's fine on Fedora Core. Are you using a different computer than you normally use? Archer7 - talk 12:23, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm using the same computer. It's like I pressed some keys that made it small. --Isis§(talk) 12:45, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's something to do with the encoding. I can fix it, but when I go to another page, it goes back to being small. I need to get it so it stays big. --Isis§(talk) 12:49, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind. I fixed it! --Isis§(talk) 13:42, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A friend on another Wikipedia suffered a similar problem a few days ago. Could you please let me know the exact solution to your problem? - Huji reply 18:26, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Does your friend user internet explorer? If s/he has the same problem I did, then go to to the "view" tab at the top of the screen, go down to "text size", and choose the font size to the one you want. Hope this helps, --Isis§(talk) 18:32, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also holding down shift and scrolling the mouse scroller has the same affect :)

SimpleWikiProject: Cities

yay or nay ? Liam.gloucester 15:31, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No. Only cities with high notability should be descussed on Simple English Wikipedia. Examples are capitals of coutries, or cities with an important historical notability, which have been linked in other articles. - Huji reply 18:25, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Why can't we start a WikiProject in cities? I'll be glad to join in. There are thousands of notable city articles that will fall into that project. RaNdOm26 13:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say we can't do that. I just said I don't support the idea. Please pay attention that a big part of my edits in June were about capital cities of African countries. Nevertheless, I don't think it is the time to have a WikiProject for that. But that is what I think now, and I may change my mind if I see there are many people supporting the idea :) - Huji reply 16:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'd join a wikiproject: cities. If EWP can have info on about every city and town in North America, why are we limited to capitals of countries and cities with important historical notability? Liam.gloucester 12:48, 7 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Good question! The answer is here. Simple English Wikipedia is not another English Wikipedia. It should only address most common subjects. - Huji reply 15:36, 7 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
So basically, what you are saying is Simple shouldn't contain wide multitude of subjects, just common ones which the reader probably is already familiar with. When I had to a research paper on Zaha Hadid, I went to EWP for some information about the architect. Now let's say I was using Simple. I couldn't find it. Is that really what we are aiming for? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Liam.gloucester (talk • contribs) 21:05, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, we just want to get the more important subjects here first. --Isis§(talk) 22:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Huji is implying that it shouldn't be detailed, not containing important subjects. He said "It should only address most common subjects". Am I wrong that the goal of our wiki is to be an encyclopedia using easier format to help people who aren't as good at english? Liam.gloucester 13:46, 12 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Liam, that did not came out of my head. It is clearly stated in WP:NOT that Simple English wikipedia is not going to be another English wikipedia. - Huji reply 16:50, 12 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Why would they say that? I have a feeling the goal of Simple isn't just make an online World Book. How can we expand to 100.000 articles if we discuss common subjects? LIAM ! 16:56, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
They "say that" because when pages get too long, it becomes harder to read. Small details make articles longer. The English articles are so long that even if you used simple language, they would not be simple, which is why they "say that". Only the most important details should be in these articles so that the reader gets an understanding of it. If they want a more detailed description, they can go to the wiki in their language. --Isis§(talk) 21:06, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You ignored the question ! How can we expand when we are confined to the most simple topics. BUT ANYWAYS... I believe there should be a WikiProject because most of the city articles are one-liners. (See Grand Rapids, Michigan)

Programmer assistance seems required

  1. Setting a different date format in 'my settings' seems to be ignored by the display routines
  2. Can we get at least the Wiki markup settings on the bottom of the 'edit' screen (Special:Allmessages - edittools) like on EN? Not the whole schmeer, just:

"Wiki markup: {{}} | [] [[]] [[Category:]] #REDIRECT [[]] <s></s> <sup></sup> <sub></sub> <code></code> <blockquote></blockquote> <ref></ref> {{Reflist}} <references/> <includeonly></includeonly> <noinclude></noinclude> {{DEFAULTSORT:}} <nowiki> • (templates)</nowiki>"

Sohelpme 04:40, 5 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User:Rajah asked a relevant thing above. I again want to show my support. - Huji reply 16:40, 5 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Any admin can do this by editing MediaWiki:Edittools. ...Aurora... 11:14, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Babel

I was setting up my Babel box when I noticed there was not a template for Icelandic. I was wondering if it would be to much trouble for someone to make one, and if so, I'd like to make one on my own (but don't know how). Liam.gloucester 12:52, 7 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Icelandic already exists. See {{User is}} or category:User is. -- Creol(talk) 18:42, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The templates are named User is-1, to User is-4, as well as User is-N. They can easily be copied form enWP (if possible to templates with the same name), and then adapted here. Also, when copying please copy all of them, this makes life easier. --Eptalon 20:36, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can anyone please tell me how to add a interwiki link to simple wiktionary. Eg. how can I link "proportion" to simple wiktionary? Thank you. RaNdOm26 16:37, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Like this: [[:wiktionary:proportion|proportion]] :) RedCoat 18:06, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the leading colon is only needed if linking a term to another wikipedia so it isn't treated as an interwiki link for the whole article. Also, linking with wiktionary will link to the full English Wiktionary, not Simple Wiktionary. For linking the term from an article to Simple Wiktionary, [[wikt:proportion|proportion]] (proportion) works fine. -- Creol(talk) 18:29, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lists

Hello community. I perosnally do not consider Listing-type articles as a core responsibliity. This is especially the case if they turn out to be lists of redlinks. Therefore, please think twice before creating such lists --Eptalon 21:02, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Settlements

There recently were articles about a few settlements that were on the brink of notablity (and therefore noted for deletion). It is true that we are a small project, and should therefore give priorities to more notable settlements at the moment. Usually, this notability comes from one or more of the following:

  • A certain number of people living there
  • The settlement has town privileges (most notably in Medieval Europe)
  • The place was the location of a memorable event (battle, great person birth or death,notable edifice, revolution,..)
  • There is a monmument, or other notable location nearby

In general, I think we should not create articles for settlements with less than 5.000 people, if no other criterion applies. However, once the article has been created the focus should be to merge it into a bigger one, or to extend it, rather than deleting it. --Eptalon 21:02, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is absolutely something we need to discuss as a community and decide what our criteria are for notable cities. We are having way too many pages on tiny cities being created, in my opinion. I mean, we don't even have pages on the largest cities in most countries. Let's start with the most important. I'd even be willing to set the population criteria as high as 10 or 20,000 at this stage in our development. Once we have taken care of the larger cities, we can re-adjust our criteria. Let's put it to a vote: What should be the minimum population of a community for it to be added to our project at this stage? Of course, I agree that if the community is smaller than what we decide and has some sort of distinguishing notability, we can make exceptions. What does everyone else think? · Tygartl1·talk· 21:59, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's a good idea. --Isis§(talk) 22:18, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's a good idea for a minimum population guideline.. --wL <talk · hope> 23:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should put it to vote. Then we can have our own giudeline. - Huji reply 09:06, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

More formal: vote

(Vote will close, 23 July, Midnight UTC)

A guideline regarding settlements has been proposed, as below. Guideline will be in place till this WP reaches 20.000 pages of content. To be added to SimpleWP, a settlement must currently fulfil any of the following criteria:

  • The settlement is a place where humans have lived for at least 200 years continuously
  • The settlement is near a place which is of historic significance (and which is not a settlement where people still live itself)
  • The settlement is an administrative centre of a region or country
  • The place was the the location of a historic event (birth or death of a memorable person, battle, notable building, revolution,..)
  • If the above do not apply, the settlement must have at least ... population currently living there. Smaller settlements can still be added as a group, eg. the county.

Please select among the following, to be put in where the dots are

  • (A) Do not limit settlements by population
  • (B) 500
  • (C) 1000
  • (D) 2500
  • (E) 5000
  • (F) 10000
  • (G) 25000

Vote is by simple majority; any named editor can vote; in the case of a stalemate an Administrator decides. --Eptalon 14:42, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are we voting on the size of settlements for which we will allow 1-to-3-sentence articles, then? --rimshottalk 08:41, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder...sockpuppetry? --Isis§(talk) 15:39, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly, their votes won't receive the same weight as confirmed, trustworthy editors anyway. If their only changes are to vote, they won't be counted at all. -  BrownE34  talk  contribs  15:46, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking of sockpuppetry is anyone ever going to take care of these two: User:Babale and User:Akasablanka there most likely sockpuppets. Oysterguitarist 18:21, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The are listed as sock-puppets as shown in their user pages. Also I don't think this may be the place to discuss about sock-puppets in this section. --§ Snake311 (T + C) 19:16, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
NO! I am NOT a sockpuppet. I just came here today, and I am from EWP. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SNIPPIT (talk • contribs)
I didn't say you were, just that someone might be. --Isis§(talk) 21:22, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am sorrry. I am not a sockpuppet. What does that mean, anyways? The first place I visited was Simple Talk, and I saw I could vote. So I did. And I am guessing you think I ama sockpuppet because a bunch of other users voted for choice A, too? Egyptgal26 15:28, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yo, what is a 'sock-puppet'? Who is this sock-puppet? Poctagon 15:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A sock puppet means one User creates another account to participate with the same opinion. For example only, let's say that Isis had a sockpuppet. She created another account and the username is Isisghost. If she votes F, she will log out and log in to User:Isisghost. Isisghost votes for F, too, and it appears 2 users voted, though only Isis voted, twice. But is Isis implying I am a puppet because I voted for A and was the last person to? Chickliscous 15:33, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I ain't no sock puppet. Poctagon 22:04, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Statistics so far: 8x F, 4xA, 2xE, 1xG; 53% F, 27% A, 14% E, 7% G (1% rounding error) --Eptalon 13:28, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Results

It looks like 73% are favourable to the idea to limit the ceration of new settlemenrs (That are not notable otherwise) to a certain population. Of the different numbers proposed, 10k people has won the most support. Almost one in three however thinks that we do not need such a limitation at the current time. --Eptalon 16:57, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statistics, etc

I recently got an account on Wikimedia toolserver. I'm going to use it to gather statistics about different wiki projects. It can include Simple English Wikipedia as well. If you have an idea, post it on my talk page. - Huji reply 09:07, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

TV.com templates

Hi all! I'm currently focusing my work on movie & TV actors and actresses. Therefore, I've noticed that, while we do normally employ the very useful Imdb title and Imdb name templates, we are lacking others to simplify the task of linking to TV.com, which is also a very popular database. For this reason, I've taken the liberty of importing and adapting the English Wikipedia TV.com templates to suit our own needs. I've created them at Template:Tv.com person and Template:Tv.com show, along with detailed and simple instructions of use. I'd like your input before starting to use it in large scale. Please, feel free to comment and share your thoughts. Best regards, Phaedriel - 06:40, 18 July 2007 (UTC) [reply]

Good idea I would have no objections if you used it large scale. Oysterguitarist 06:47, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Simple English Wikipedia as translation hub

I hope you are not tired of questions about the goals of Simple English Wikipedia (SWP) yet ...

This wikipedia has a number of goals, of which I want to focus on one which I think is very important, but which seems to be neglected somewhat. The page linked in the title names translation of articles as one of the main goals of SWP. These translations, naturally, go in two directions:

  1. From SWP to other language Wikipedias. This is one reason to put articles from the English Wikipedia into Simple English, especially articles of general interest.
  2. From other language Wikipedias to SWP. Through this, SWP acts as a springboard for topics which are not yet covered by EnWP because they are of interest to a particular nationality (and language group). SWP allows editors with a native language other than English to write articles about topics that are important within their country, but underrepresented in EnWP. I am thinking in particular of articles about people and about settlements.

It is a good idea to keep this in mind when deciding on the notability of some topics. In particular, if an article doesn't exist on EnWP that doesn't mean that its subject matter is not notable enough for SWP. --rimshottalk 09:01, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Rimshot, thank you for your message. I do focus on the message of what you said, not the writing, but I can't help insisting on this fact that if an article doesn't exist on EnWP that doesn't necessarily mean that its subject matter is not notable enough for SWP, because in some cases it realy implies that meaning. I know other non-English wikis who (more or less) refer to English WP's notability giudelines for articles about artists, etc. There is no point in having an article about a subject which is not generally notable. If a subject is notable to general (and general doesn't necessarily mean the whole people in the world, but means at least a big proportion of them, like the people of a country, and not the people of a city) it can have articles on both SWP and En WP, I guess. Its not having an article in En WP can be because no one has ever tried to create an article for it on En WP. On the other hand, having an artilce on En WP about a subject which has been deleted by consensus because of lack of notability, can be a good sign of its not being notable to have an article in any other wiki. It again depends on people's consensus, as people in a different wiki may think it is notable enough, but the idea of people on En WP can have an impact on the idea of others in other wikis. Excuse me for my long comment :) - Huji reply 13:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You mean, "excuse me for my numerous spelling errors :)"? LIAM ! 20:52, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You are right, of course. I was thinking primarily of articles that have never been created on EnWP. I might rephrase that last sentence to if an article doesn't exist on EnWP that doesn't automatically mean that its subject matter is not notable enough for SWP. A good measure of whether something is notable might be whether it has an article in the corresponding language-other-than-English Wikipedia -- German Wikipedia, for example, will have only very few articles that are notable only to the inhabitants of one city. It has articles that are notable nation-wide, or at least for a good part of the nation. Of course, we will never be able to check that for any but a few languages. --rimshottalk 17:59, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As there are cases where a perfectly notable article does not exist on the English Wikipedia (case in point was a translation of the week a couple months back where we were the first English language wiki to have an article on it), I tend to agree here. As most of the main Wiki's tend to follow either English's notability guidelines or have ones similar to them, It would follow that most pages found on any of the larger wiki's (the 100K plus ones) would likely be notable enough for inclusion. This goes along the lines of thought that since we are basically the "entry level" English language wiki that we potentially have a much larger base of people who could use us compared to the English Wiki which is much more difficult for non-native (and many native) English readers to comprehend. As such, topics which are mainly notable to groups who would/could not use the main wiki are more notable here than they would be there. They are as notable as they would be on the persons primary language wiki. -- Creol(talk) 18:19, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As long as there is more than one editor who knows the language and culture enough to confirm notability. I think there needs to be independent websites, in English, to confirm notability. I guess this would primarily pertain to languages that we do not have established editors that speak that language. I will not trust a new editor unless a trusted editor can confirm notability or there are sources, in English, that can be checked. -  BrownE34  talk  contribs  20:37, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think you say something that is true. It is hard to trust a newly arrived editor, who may be the only one speaking the language, to judge notability of a subject. Some of the Arabic-language articles are hard to translate into other languages; as they will probably not be notable for non-Arab-speakers. Yet, I am limited to the few languages I know to look up facts to judge notability; Alternatively I must trust the judgement of others. This is hard to do for editors that have not edited a lot here.--Eptalon 20:52, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Moving numbers to Wiktionary

Most of the articles in Category:Numbers should be moved to wiktionary, shouldn't they? --rimshottalk 12:02, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The should be moved to the wikulator (wiki calculator if there is one). I'm not sure, but as far I cab see, we should move it there for now, it's pretty unfitting to here, so Go ahead. --Zoey 20:46, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For those that are numbers.yes move them over; do not move the number categories, like prime numbers, though--Eptalon 20:56, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's what I planned to do. Is there anything I need to know before moving the articles? Like how to preserve the edit history? --rimshottalk 08:09, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
See Help:Transwiki on the Meta-Wiki. -- Creol(talk) 08:47, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Transwiki'ing is disabled by default on all Wikimedia wiki's, so unless it's been turned on, the edit history will have to be posted on the talk page because of copyright issues.--Werdan7T @ 01:25, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I followed the process laid out in the link Creol gave. I have also nominated the transwikied articles for deletion. I wonder what to do with articles like five and wikt:five. There is no point in transwiki'ing it, as the wiktionary article already exists. Can I just copy over the little number box, and nominate it for deletion? --rimshottalk 11:27, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I deleted all the numbers you had tagged as well as Five and the number template (as well as removed all the links or changed them to wikt links.. that was fun). The only single digits remaining are zero, one and three. These are encyclepedic (relatively so atleast). There are still several numbers that need to be checked to see if they need to be transwiki'd or if the page already exists for them on Wikt. Cat:numbers should have all the rest that need to be checked on. Also we need to look at the "place" number articles (hundred, thousand, million, etc) to ensure the table listing numbers is removed from them. -- Creol(talk) 07:06, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Is there someway I could support the nomination? I think all of the numbers are wastes of time. LIAM ! 13:41, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You can add a {{dicdef}} template to an article that you think is a dictionary definition and not an encyclopedia entry. Someone will sooner or later transwiki it to wiktionary, if it really is only a dictionary entry. Keep in mind that there are articles, like this one, that are encyclopedic. --rimshottalk 19:00, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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