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Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 124

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New user group for editing sitewide CSS / JS

(Please help translate to your language)

Hi all!

To improve the security of our readers and editors, permission handling for CSS/JS pages has changed. (These are pages like MediaWiki:Common.css and MediaWiki:Vector.js which contain code that is executed in the browsers of users of the site.) A new user group, interface-admin, has been created. Starting four weeks from now, only members of this group will be able edit CSS/JS pages that they do not own (that is, any page ending with .css or .js that is either in the MediaWiki: namespace or is another user's user subpage).

You can learn more about the motivation behind the change here.

Please add users who need to edit CSS/JS to the new group (this can be done the same way new administrators are added, by stewards or local bureaucrats). This is a dangerous permission; a malicious user or a hacker taking over the account of a careless interface-admin can abuse it in far worse ways than admin permissions could be abused. Please only assign it to users who need it, who are trusted by the community, and who follow common basic password and computer security practices (use strong passwords, do not reuse passwords, use two-factor authentication if possible, do not install software of questionable origin on your machine, use antivirus software if that's a standard thing in your environment).

Thanks!
Tgr (talk) 17:45, 30 July 2018 (UTC) (via global message delivery)[reply]

Removal of right to edit site-wide CSS/JS

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T190015

Per m:Creation of separate user group for editing sitewide CSS/JS, the right to edit site-wide and other users' CSS/JS will soon be removed from sysops to mitigate security issues, and only granted to a new interface administrators group. This group is now live on the wiki, with local bureaucrats (and stewards) being able to add and remove them from users. This does not affect the ability to edit ordinary system messages in the MediaWiki namespace. On our end, we as a community should consider the bar we want to set for granting this set of user rights.

This transition period is expected to end by around next week, following which all sysops will not be able to edit site-wide CSS/JS without being a member of the new user group. Chenzw  Talk  15:53, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Another non-issue that is fixed. As we never had any issues, I would suggest we either give out this flag to all admins per default; alternatively, admins needing/wanting to edit these templates can request the flag (I see no reason to not grant it). Thoughts? --Eptalon (talk) 20:46, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think transition period is four weeks.
Reading through the discussions over at Meta, I'm told (pace BEANS) that the concern is that someone would hijack an account with the rights and cause trouble. So probably this should be handled more like "flood" or "account creator" (albeit generally only available to sysops), and granted as needed, only for the period needed, and always auto-expiring. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:38, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'd just grant the flag just to all admins. Also, I'd like to get the flag and it's nice to see that wiki hasn't changed in years. Manpower is being wasted to fix non-existing problems. -Barras talk 12:16, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Enabling a helpful feature for Template editors

Hello.

The team working on TemplateStyles at the Wikimedia Foundation would like to enable TemplateStyles on this wiki.

TemplateStyles is a feature to allow non-administrators to write and manage CSS styles for templates. It allows contributors who edit templates to separate content and presentation. A good web practice that makes it easier to manage the layout of templates. If you don't edit templates, this will not have any impact on your contributions.

TemplateStyles is useful for a few reasons.

  • It makes it possible for templates to work better on mobile.
  • It cuts out confusion on where to apply CSS rules.
  • Editing CSS is currently limited to administrators, which is a major barrier to participation.
  • All stylesheets must be loaded on all pages (whether they actually use the page or not), which wastes bandwidth and makes debugging style rules more difficult.

You can learn more about TemplateStyles on MediaWiki.org. Technical documentation is also available.

This is an optional feature and no one must use it, but template contributors are encouraged to do so! Please discuss and let us know if there are any concerns. If there are no concerns we will proceed to deploy the feature on the 9th of August.

Thank you.

CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 21:28, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Is this backwards-compatible with everything that has ever been created before deployment day? StevenJ81 (talk) 15:06, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

How to create new article

I am new to Simple Wikipedia, and I can see that it is probably relatively new as there are many articles that can still be added. But, I have been clicking all over the place and can not find how to create a new article. Please help. Chloe2330 (talk) 07:57, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Use the search box, to search for the term. If you don't find it, you'll have a red link. Clicking on the link will create the article. Saving your creation will mean the article exists. --Eptalon (talk) 08:02, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Chloe2330: Yes, there are many articles that could be created here. You might first want to get familiar with the kind of simple language that's required here: I've left a welcome message on your talk page that includes links to pages that can help you learn about that. I also have information here listing other things that are different on this Wikipedia. If you have questions about any if this, feel free to ask. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:42, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Public domain sources published by the US govt

There is much information that I would like to paraphrase, simplify and add to the Simple English Wikipedia from the public domain and published by the US govt. Are there any special rules about this on the Simple English Wikipedia that I need to know about? I will provide full attribution and reference this content. Such content may alert a copy violation detector and I don't want to create a problem for other editors. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) (talk) 19:28, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Barbara (WVS): You may want to include the source itself as a citation (even tho you don't legally have to) to make it less likely that someone will push back against it. en.wp has templates like w:Template:PD-USGov-CIA-WF which could be easily ported here if you wanted. See Category:Attribution templates for the options that we have locally at the moment. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:32, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your reply. I will be able import and create attribution templates as needed. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) (talk) 19:35, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think you are pretty free as to what you create here. Note however that this is a small Wiki, so images/media go to commons, and larger source material should probably go to wikisource. As to the language, try to use shorter sentences, and avoid double meanings (yes, there are several manuals on how to write in simple English, but they ar easy to find). Other than that: be bold. If we need to tweak our edit filters we will know soon enough. --Eptalon (talk) 20:08, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I’m back from my wikibreak

Vermont (talk) 22:35, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

About time slacker! Get back to work! *kicks Vermont back to the admin place* (no really though, welcome back) :-) Operator873talkconnect 22:39, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Check Wikipedia schedule for Simple

For those who use Check Wikipedia, I learned that the info for our site is updated twice a month: a couple of days after the first, and on the 20th. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:35, 19 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

How simple?

Are the very good articles those I can use as examples of how to write for the Simple Wikipedia? I've been using tools to help me write Simple English. I may be writing too simply. Can an experienced editor take a look at a few of my contributions to let me know if I am doing okay? Barbara (talk) 11:37, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I looked at a few of the changes you made to articles about the female reproductive system. I think the level of simplicity is good.
One thing I did notice is that you changed wording in articles (for example, Uterus) to be primarily about human anatomy, whereas the article should apply equally to animals who also have the organs. Although it is we humans who write the articles and we may be more interested in our own anatomy, from an encyclopedic point of view we should not give humans more weight unless there is an objective reason to do so. Can you revise the articles you changed to reflect that? If not, we can revert them for now until someone wants to re-add the information to be more inclusive. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:07, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
When I began editing the Uterus article it did not contain any information on animals. The sentence that was there was unreferenced. I removed the sentence as I found references to support the information that is there now. I will be more than glad to cover animals in the organ articles I work on. It would be discouraging to have my contributions reverted. In the meantime is there a template that can be added to the top of the article that would indicate that information on animals is lacking? Best Regards, Barbara (talk) 20:13, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Uterus is only one of the articles I looked at. In Vulva, you removed the mention of animals (mammals). I don't know of a specific template to say that particular info is lacking. I only noticed this because you asked. Other than that, I think you've done good work here! --Auntof6 (talk) 20:45, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Editing of sitewide CSS/JS is only possible for interface administrators from now

(Please help translate to your language)

Hi all,

as announced previously, permission handling for CSS/JS pages has changed: only members of the interface-admin (Interface administrators) group, and a few highly privileged global groups such as stewards, can edit CSS/JS pages that they do not own (that is, any page ending with .css or .js that is either in the MediaWiki: namespace or is another user's user subpage). This is done to improve the security of readers and editors of Wikimedia projects. More information is available at Creation of separate user group for editing sitewide CSS/JS. If you encounter any unexpected problems, please contact me or file a bug.

Thanks!
Tgr (talk) 12:40, 27 August 2018 (UTC) (via global message delivery)[reply]

Is consensus to give this permission to all administrators? If not, how should we process requests for this permission? Vermont (talk) 13:12, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As I think I've mentioned elsewhere, if the community notionally agrees that all sysops should have this permission, then the preferred way to execute that (for the purposes of security) would be that if a sysop needs the right, s/he contacts the 'crats, who without further delay would grant the flag for however long the sysop needs it. Ordinarily, though, it's better (for security) if people not making active use of the flag not have it in their account. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:58, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah we should just handle it as we always have for these types of flags. If you need it add it and then remove it. -DJSasso (talk) 15:08, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Could you add it to me for a few hours? I need to use it to fix Operator873's broken user scripts. Vermont (talk) 16:35, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Above is confirmed by me Operator873talkconnect 16:37, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Vermont: Added it for an hour. Hopefully you are still around. -DJSasso (talk) 16:50, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It's fixed. Thanks! Vermont (talk) 16:58, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to delete Simple English Wikiquote and Wikibooks

There is a now a proposal to delete Simple English Wikiquote and Wikibooks. Agusbou2015 (talk) 22:11, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal withdrawn, and the projects will not be deleted. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:48, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Read-only mode for up to an hour on 12 September and 10 October

Read this message in another language • Please help translate to your language

The Wikimedia Foundation will be testing its secondary data centre. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

They will switch all traffic to the secondary data center on Wednesday, 12 September 2018. On Wednesday, 10 October 2018, they will switch back to the primary data center.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop when we switch. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.

  • You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Wednesday, 12 September and Wednesday, 10 October. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST, 10:00 EDT, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Thursday 13 September and Thursday 11 October).
  • If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:

  • Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
  • There will be code freezes for the weeks of 10 September 2018 and 8 October 2018. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. Please share this information with your community. /User:Johan(WMF) (talk)

13:33, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Infobox person template

Would any roaming sysop please import a fresh copy of Template:Infobox person when able? I want to start working on fixing the deprecated errors and have learned it's best to start with a fresh import. Thanks! Operator873talkconnect 02:41, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Done; doesn't look like there was much change. I imported both the template and its doc page. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:32, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A million thanks Auntof6. Operator873talkconnect 04:54, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]


Notice on the National Museum

Hello,

Please, someone could turn the article Notice on the National Museum into Simple English? Thanks, Erick Soares3 (talk) 01:50, 10 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

IRC Participation

Have you checked out the Wikipedia community IRC channels?

Several members of our community are very active on IRC and I wanted to invite those of the community who do not currently participate to join us. There are a few different channels specifically for Simple English Wikipedia. If you are an editor who enjoys monitoring New changes, you should really check out the Counter-vandalism Network channel called: #cvn-simplewikis connect. Would you rather participate socially while editing? Check out #wikipedia-simple connect. While standalone IRC clients are preferred by some, no special software is needed. Just click the word "connect" and join us via your web browser. If you have any trouble, feel free to reach out to either Vermont or myself and we will help you get set up. I'd really like to see an uptick in IRC participation and socializing. While we can't make decisions, influence guidelines, or attain consensus via IRC, it does help bolster interpersonal rapport. Hope to see everyone there! Operator873talkconnect 04:21, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Would you talk about the issues of privacy when using IRC? When I used it (which was only a few times), there was something about hiding your identity or something like that...? I don't remember the specific term(s). My discomfort with that is a reason I didn't continue. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:08, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
When using freenode, you can get a username registered, with a login/password. Several channels are restricted in who can join them; there's also one for checkusers, one for stewards. As a comparison: Mail is transferred as plain text, all systems it transits through see it (yes, there are ways to encrypr, but they are rarely used). --Eptalon (talk) 07:16, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Auntof6, If you means by /whois IRCnick and it shows your IP address, then you can get a cloak (not a proper way but it works) or use a VPN, but other than that I don't think there's any such issue. ‐‐1997kB (talk) 09:52, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Auntof6: I believe, like 1997kB was saying, you are referring to the visibility of your IP address. Anyone on the IRC server can use the /WHOIS command to obtain information about the connection you are using. The information obtained looks like this: Nick!Ident@IPaddress(orHostmask). With that information, another user might be use a website like our IP Address tool to look up your IP. As you'll note, I randomly selected an IP address from our New Changes feed to demonstrate no personally identifiable information about the user is available to the public.
In addition, Wikipedia editors are able to obtain a cloak to hide their IP address so the information would be changed to Nick!Ident@wikipedia/WP_nick. For example, my cloak is currently Operator873!sid305313@wikipedia/Operator873. My ident (sid305313) is set by the IRC client I use, is unique to me, but provides no personally identifiable information. If you need help obtaining a cloak, connect to IRC and limit your activities to /join #wikipedia-simple. From there, I openly welcome anyone who wants help getting their account setup and their information masked with a cloak to type in /msg Operator873 help me or say hello to me in one of the channels I mentioned above. IRC may be somewhat intimidating if you are not familiar with it, but the fact of the matter is IRC is fun, easy to use, secure, and safe. I remind anyone concerned about privacy issues that there are plenty of IP editors active across all WMF projects and most veteran editors are familiar with how to WHOIS an IP address and the information it provides. Only the Internet Service Provider information is readily available. And most typical residential IP addresses are not static.
Again, I welcome anyone to email me, leave me a message on my talk page, or find me on IRC if you have questions. I will help you anyway I can including getting the steps taken for you to feel your information is secure. Thanks. Operator873talkconnect 22:03, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Auntof6, what I believe you're referring to are IRC cloaks, which hide your hostmask (which could be your IP, gateway address, etc.) from common view. If you connect to Freenode (the IRC server Wikimedia uses) via their website or most other usual means website, the worst that can happen is people see your IP address in the hostmask. This usually isn't an issue for most people, although if it is I recommend creating an account with IRCCloud (irccloud.com), as they replace your IP address/hostmask with a series of letters from the moment you connect, and is generally user-friendly for those who are new to IRC-based communication. If you decide to try IRC, join #wikipedia-simple and ping me by typing "Vermont", and I'll help you get setup. Although nothing binding can take place on IRC, I believe it's a great way for editors to discuss and brainstorm solutions to problems, as well as collaborating together. Vermont (talk) 22:39, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
To support the above, I currently use IRCCloud as my IRC client. It's web based, and nothing directly connects to your computer from IRC. IRCCloud is a bouncer which means there is a middle man between you and the IRC server which makes your connection more secure. It also means you can connect from your smart phone or any computer you happen to be on. Operator873talkconnect 22:48, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
We used to have a very active IRC community for this wiki. I stopped using it because I found that an active IRC community lead to a lot of rule breaking such as making on wiki decisions based on discussions that occurred off-wiki. It often led to a lot of problems on wiki. -DJSasso (talk) 12:30, 10 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes but I think that depends on the user and how they use it. One should always remember that IRC is not the community and the discussions in IRC are not formal. It is an informal way of interaction used to share information, help and opinion.-BRP ever 07:15, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oh its definitely on the user, but I noticed the more active the community got on there the more and more people and admins alike started to do it. So I personally no longer take part. -DJSasso (talk) 18:30, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

contributing?

i need a list of red links to create. thanks. Gassywood (talk) 21:22, 12 September 2018 (UTC) I like sports, history, and science primarily. Gassywood (talk) 21:22, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Have you visited the requested articles page yet? Operator873talkconnect 21:31, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Gassywood: You could also check Special:WantedPages, although you'd have to search for the kinds of things you're interested in. Another place to look is in navbox templates, because many of those have red links for articles we don't have yet. Try these for science-related Nobel Prize winners to start with:
Let me know if you want help finding other navboxes with red links. Hope that helps. --Auntof6 (talk) 22:05, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Long lists prone to vandalism

I want to suggest that lists like List of countries by continents are long-term protected because they are prone to collect fluff and cruft over time, and the content rarely needs appropriate changes, and when it does it needs a regular user to do it. Have just picked up all kinds of little things in List of countries by continents, no doubt by our usual IP visitors. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:11, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support as suggested by Mac. May need to find or develop a banner tag to direct those not autoconfirmed to the talk page to propose additions. Operator873talkconnect 04:11, 13 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I sympathize with Macdonald-ross on the issue. However, we are the wiki anyone can edit. And protecting pages just because they are lists goes against that key pillar. If it was getting hammered by vandalism of course I would protect it. But they odd vandal edit here and there really doesn't rise to breaking one of our key tenets. -DJSasso (talk) 16:15, 13 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Article footer order

Do we have a defined order for the bottom of the page? I know the English Wikipedia uses stub templates after categories, but I have seen both before and after categories here. Nunabas (talk) 14:17, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Technically they should be after the categories. But there is a bug in AWB for our wiki which causes them to get moved above the categories sometimes. I keep meaning to bug the AWB guys to fix that. -DJSasso (talk) 15:41, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And in case you were also asking about this, see WP:ORDER for the order of certain optional sections at the end of an article. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:53, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That's what I ran across, but there is nothing documented about category, stub, or navigational template placement. Nunabas (talk) 17:40, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Navigational templates go after all sections of text, but before categories and stub templates. Most navigational templates are graphics-intensive, take up the full width of the page, and visually look like a big block, so you want all the text stuff before that. So the order would go like this:

  • Related pages section (which is Simple's version of enwiki's See also)
  • References
  • Other websites (which is Simple's version of enwiki's External links). Links to sister projects usually go at the top of this section, but occasionally go in other sections.
  • Navigational templates: usually succession boxes would go before the usual kind of navbox because they're narrower and less dense.
  • Categories
  • Stub templates

While we're on the subject, I'll remind everyone that any article with references should have a References section explicitly coded, including a header and {{reflist}} or equivalent. If that's missing, the software now displays references at the very bottom of the page, but we want the section actually coded. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:18, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Help needed: Something is broken and making Pakistan look wrong

For some reason, it looks like template documentation is displaying at the top of Pakistan. I suspect a template or module was changed. Could someone who knows the code better than I do take a look at it? I haven't checked to see if any other articles are affected, because I don't know what might be causing this. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 00:17, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Without looking at the code, it looks like Template:Infobox country has a missing noinclude tag. Xenrose 00:20, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I moved a noinclude tag in Template:Lang-ur, and that seems to have fixed it. Jared837 (talk) 00:22, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. It looks like the change by User:Wekeepwhatwekill caused the problem. --Auntof6 (talk) 00:32, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I ended up updating that template as it wasn't using the module yet anyway. And ended up fixing a bunch of other issues that they made. Decided to take the time and make sure the all the other templates were on the lua module now since I think that might have been what caused the mistaken edits. -DJSasso (talk) 13:41, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If the problem was in Template:Infobox county then no I hadn't. I hadn't touched that template. I did touch Template:Lang-ur, and the change I made was cosmetic. | I added in Template:Lang-x/doc , I did this as a test because I saw an error in the Zulu language template and was checking to see if that template was buggy itself, short story, it isn't. It's fine. The | second addition was to close the noinclude tag opened in the wikilink. Thats pretty standard in any mark up language, close the link so it doesn't spill into the next section. (For example, in my first attempt to make my signature I missed neglected to close a span and caused all text below mine to take on the same characteristics of my signature. Necromonger Wekeepwhatwekill 14:00, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That second edit wasn't done by you. That was Jared fixing your edit. -DJSasso (talk) 14:04, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Wekeepwhatwekill: Just to be clear, your edit that added documentation to Template:Lang-ur caused the problem, because you put it outside the noinclude tags. No worries, though: it's fixed now. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:59, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Dr.Kumar J. Doctor

Can someone figure out what this person's actual name is? We need to rename the page to 1) eliminate the title and 2) use his actual name. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:38, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like the surname is Doctor here so it's probably best to move this page to Kumar J. Doctor. And I think this page should be taken to RFD as most of the sources are unreliable and the awards are not significant.-BRP ever 09:12, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've moved it to remove the title. Vermont (talk) 09:33, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to adjust Level 2 warning templates

Hello community. I've given this alot of thought recently, and I'm aware this issue was previously discussed a couple of years ago. However, I want to approach the subject of the Level 2 warning icon in user warning templates. It was previously proposed   be changed to   to mirror English Wikipedia. This proposal failed as the community felt the orange icon was too threatening. The problem is, with the same icon, there is no apparent progression from the point of view of the warned editor. Therefore, I suggest   be replaced with   on Level 2 warnings. This would make the warning progression look like this. The blue color is preserved, it doesn't seem to be as threatening, but does indicate a progression towards a limit. I feel this progression towards a limit is very important to deterring further vandalism. I request community input on this issue and consensus. Operator873talkconnect 16:49, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I am able to custom make an icon for this purpose, if needed. Operator873talkconnect 17:36, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Counter proposal: I suggest that   is kept as the Level 2 warning icon, but that   is used as the Level 1 warning icon. This would make the progression look like this. Jared837 (talk) 17:30, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That is partially the point, in the first couple warnings there really isn't a progression. (It is why many of us start at 2. The first one is more a heads up than a warning) It isn't till the 3rd or 4th that we have progressed. The wording itself is what indicates the progression. That being said I don't really think it matters one way or the other. -DJSasso (talk) 18:28, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I tend to start at 2 or 3 if it's blatant or really bad. Perhaps we should distinguish in warning templates. Vermont (talk) 18:30, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I only use 1 if it could in some way be seen as good faith which is rare. I almost never use 1. But then I also think too many here stick too stringently to the warnings. We were never meant to go step by step through them. They are only different levels so we could use stronger wording when necessary. There are times when 1 warning is necessary, there are times when 2 might be necessary, and there are times when no warning is necessary. -DJSasso (talk) 18:33, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly agree that often, 4 warnings are not needed. However, I have encountered issues with VIP reports being declined for users not being warned 4 times (both on SEWP and enWiki), and that being the only reason. This is why I tend to go step-by-step through the process as an anti-vandalism editor. Granted, sysops have much more latitude to make actions. Operator873talkconnect 19:55, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oh I understand, some admins here started declining if they weren't all done, I try to encourage them to not do that but they still often do. -DJSasso (talk) 19:59, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Recently I've tried blocking editors for 2-3 hours after they begin a blatant vandalism spree, regardless of warnings. It seems to work well. Vermont (talk) 22:04, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yup you just have to block them long enough that they are bored and go away. That is why I usually use times like 31 instead of 24...cause it effectively blocks them for 2 days when it comes to bored kids in the school computer lab etc since the block will lift later in the day than when they are in the lab. Which for kids is enough time to forget that simple exists and not come back. -DJSasso (talk) 22:47, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Wekeepwhatwekill: just a heads up, I was not proposing the orange icon. I was proposing the blue triangle. Operator873talkconnect 20:32, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
^^^^ @Operator873: The above comment is from an IP you reverted yesterday , he's been pestering @Auntof6: as well. He's been blocked as well too, so I'm thinking this comment is meant to be a poke at you. Necromonger Wekeepwhatwekill 21:40, 25 September 2018 (UTC) Striking out my comment Necromonger Wekeepwhatwekill 14:12, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Wekeepwhatwekill: I'm aware of the IP. WP:AGF and/or WP:DENY apply here. This sort of comment isn't really necessary. Let's stay on topic please. Operator873talkconnect 22:06, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia Asian Month

Hi all. Wikipedia Asian Month 2018 is fast coming up (in November). It's an online edit-a-thon related to Asian topics - participants create articles on Asian related topics, and editors whose articles meet requirements get a nifty little postcard(s) from Asia (I received one from South Korea for last year's competition). The requirements can be found in the linked page, on the Q&A, and on the local page (which will be updated soon).

If anybody is interested, please do not hesitate to leave a message here or contact me - I will be organising this year's event. Hiàn (talk) 19:00, 29 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Helpful, humorous essay from The Signpost

The latest Signpost has this essay on "Principle of Some Astonishment". It's a fun read, and at the same time illustrates some things we can use to make articles simpler here. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:37, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I write for the Signpost. Would you like to set a Simple English Version here? Best Regards, Barbara (talk) 21:42, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
See Wikipedia:Simple News. It's been inactive since 2011. Vermont (talk) 23:04, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If some users are interested, I think we can restart it. We need a group of 5-7 editors for that.-BRP ever 03:08, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've been an intermediate-editor on Wikipedia for several years, yet today is the first time I've seen Simple English Wikipedia. I immediately wanted to know more and be involved in this project, and I was looking at this Talk page for something like the News page. I would be interested in it restarting, and would be willing to help as an editor if that would be useful. (And this is my first time trying to write a Talk reply in Basic English - it's harder than I thought it would be.) CleverTitania (talk) 04:27, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'll note that we don't strictly keep to Basic English. Rather, we use a simple version of English; we have the use of most words except we commonly wikt:link them to Wiktionary or articles. Anyways, welcome to the Simple English Wikipedia! I don't think we currently have enough activity to support a monthly news, although I would be in support of a periodic news source, not strictly set so as to allow more time for the smaller community. (note that this post is not in Simple English; I don't usually keep to it on administrative/discussion boards) Vermont (talk) 09:52, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Reminder: No editing for up to an hour on 10 October

Note: The normal delivery of this message failed, so I am copying it from elsewhere. --Auntof6 (talk) 17:10, 4 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Read this message in another language • Please help translate to your language

The Wikimedia Foundation are testing its secondary data center. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster.

They switched all traffic to the secondary data center 12 September 2018. On Wednesday, 10 October 2018, they will switch back to the primary data center.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while we switch.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.

You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Wednesday, 10 October. The test will start a bit after 14:00 UTC (15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST, 10:00 EDT, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST). If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. Please share this information with your community. /User:Johan(WMF) (talk)

12:03, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Google+

Hi, I've just added a bit on Google+ being shut down in 2019 but I wanted to ask if someone could check to see if it's simple enough ?, I've tried the best I can but I wasn't sure if it was simple enough ?, Thanks, –Davey2010Talk 19:06, 8 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Davey2010, your changes seem to be fine IMO. I've split the one sentence into two and other than that "expose" might be a bit problematic. Hiàn (talk) 03:48, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I simplified a little more. I found a different way to say "exposed", and I unpiped "software bug" so that readers can immediately see what is meant (jargon can be tricky). --Auntof6 (talk) 05:07, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the long delay not usually on here these days, Many thanks Hiàn and Auntof6 very kind of you both, Thanks, –Davey2010Talk 23:16, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Too much detail on userpage?

User:Fiery3 has a very detailed autobiography on her userpage, including claims of illness and lots of personal details that would be useful to scammers. Not sure if that's against your rules here, but on basic common sense grounds, perhaps an established user should have a word with her? 129.67.118.138 (talk) 18:51, 14 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The user is now blocked indefinitely for Long-term abuse so I replaced the user page with {{Blocked user}} after consulting vermont. Thanks-BRP ever 20:55, 14 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
None of those details are real. Vermont (talk) 20:57, 14 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
 (change conflict)  for future reference, if the person is an adult, they can put personal details on their user page. (Minors can put some, but certain information such as their age is not allowed.) We have at least one other user page with that kind of detail. However, the content on that page has now been replaced anyway, with a template saying that the user has been indeffed. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:00, 14 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Might be good to remember that this is not Facebook, and so user pages should probably be project focussed.--Peterdownunder (talk) 21:11, 14 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I prefer not to see user pages used this way, but I think WP:User page (which is a guideline, not a policy) allows it. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:24, 14 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Weird personal attack apparently posted by an admin

Okay... this is strange. Am I the only person that noticed it?? 95.252.214.67 (talk) 09:48, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging Auntof6 for an explanation. Vermont (talk) 09:55, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Just per Vermont's edit summary, looking at her edits for that day she did revert some edits on the Adolf Hitler page that day so she may have had something queued up and somehow it got intertwined with that edit. Seems pretty out of character for her. -DJSasso (talk) 10:45, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. It's possible she had "Adolf Hitler" on her clipboard and misclicked. Vermont (talk) 11:11, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's what happened. I certainly didn't intend to replace the user's name, just to add the paragraph about restoring the article. It looks like I meant to copy the user name from the existing paragraph (to paste it into the ping), but I accidentally did a paste instead of copying. My tablet's controls sometimes seem a little off: I've caught many similar things before I saved them. I apologize, and I will pay closer attention in the future. --Auntof6 (talk) 17:37, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]


Feedback requested

I'm writing up a page on IPV6 for simple wiki over here in my user space. It's not quite yet done, but I'm looking for feedback on this because I'm a major geek and want to make this as simple as possible so it can be suitable for wiki, and secondly to check for errors. Feel ffree to check it and make corrections as you see fit! Necromonger Wekeepwhatwekill 00:00, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Wekeepwhatwekill: I made some changes in the introduction for tone, grammar, and simplicity. I can do more later. Let me know if you have any questions about what I did. --Auntof6 (talk) 00:36, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Wekeepwhatwekill: I reallly nuked your article... please revert if you like, I won't be offended... and please don't be offended by my edits. See your talk page. Operator873talkconnect 01:02, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

merge of articles

Can someone please merge List of hurricanes in Connecticut into List of New England hurricanes? 'Cause I don't think we need two articles about the same thing. Furthermore, the latter article is more specific. Angela Maureen (talk) 05:22, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Stub articles on Greek literary concepts

These two IPs, probably the same person and both tracing to University of California, Berkeley, have created a number of poor and unreferenced stub articles on Greek literary concepts (example). They all relate primarily to Homer's epic poems Iliad and Odyssey. They are:

I and another editor have repaired and referenced them all. But most of them should probably be merged into the articles on Homer's poems except for Aristeia and Ekphrasis, which are broader in scope and can stand alone. I'll leave it for others to decide. Voceditenore (talk) 15:09, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Spacing around stub templates

Please remember to leave two blank lines before a stub template. (That includes the {{multistub}} template.) The reason is so that the text from the stub template is visually set apart from the article text instead of potentially looking like a continuation of it. Thanks! --Auntof6 (talk) 05:55, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I wanna create a separate wiki w/ articles copied from this wiki but w/ different writing system

So i have an idea to create a wiki with all or some articles from Simple English Wikipedia, but in Cyrillic Script. I also have an idea of writing Hawaiian Wikipedia articles in Japanese writing system, but i'm currently not gonna do that. I don't really need any media like pictures, videos and audio from the wiki so i don't want to import that, only text and write it in Cyrillic. It's just for fun and experimental purposes. So am i allowed to do all that? I gotta feeling the answer is NO but at least i asked Vetterkaese (talk) 13:13, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Vetterkaese:. You can absolutely do so if you wish as all articles on the Simple English Wikipedia are licensed freely under the CC BY-SA 3.0 and GNU Free Documentation licenses as long as there is some form of attribution. I highly suggest reading this page for more info. Hiàn (talk) 13:17, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
OK so i guess then when re-writing an article in Cyrillic i shall also post a link to the original article as a reference, if that's what you mean by attribution, right? BTW thanks very much for permission :D Vetterkaese (talk) 13:57, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I will note that if you follow all the rules, you can do this on a non-Wikimedia wiki (even if it runs the MediaWiki software). Wikimedia's Language Committee will not approve an English-in-Cyrillic project. For LangCom: StevenJ81 (talk) 13:45, 29 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mass message delivery failing to Wikipedia:Simple talk

A look at Special:Log/massmessage (the mass message log) shows that attempts to deliver mass messages here appear to have been failing for some time. The log messages say "failed with an error code of readonly", but the protection level seems to be set appropriately. Does anyone know how to fix this? --Auntof6 (talk) 18:08, 30 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Generally that means the database is locked, but that doesn't look right in this case. I'll dig in and see what's happening or if this has happened before and what solutions were found. Operator873talkconnect 18:28, 30 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Auntof6: There is an open ticket on this issue. Seems to not be related to page protections or any sysop actions. Users who've posted on the ticket believe something to be broken in Mediawiki itself. Operator873talkconnect 18:33, 30 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I've subscribed to that ticket and the related one. When I see these, I'll try to remember to copy the intended message here from another wiki. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:39, 30 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I originally linked to the wrong ticket. I've since fixed the link. Operator873talkconnect 18:41, 30 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah this has been an issue for like years and years. I think you have asked about it before. I don't expect it to be fixed anytime soon cause its been an issue for as long as I can remember. To be honest its nice that they don't always hit the page as they are far to spammy a lot of the time. -DJSasso (talk) 11:00, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Community Wishlist Survey

Note: This is User:Auntof6 adding this message, because the automated message delivery failed. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:52, 30 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Community Wishlist Survey. Please help translate to your language.

Hey everyone,

The Community Wishlist Survey is the process when the Wikimedia communities decide what the Wikimedia Foundation Community Tech should work on over the next year.

The Community Tech team is focused on tools for experienced Wikimedia editors. You can post technical proposals from now until 11 November. The communities will vote on the proposals between 16 November and 30 November. You can read more on the wishlist survey page.

/User:Johan (WMF)

11:05, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Editing News #2—2018

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

 

Did you know?

Did you know that you can use the visual editor on a mobile device?

 

Tap on the pencil icon to start editing. The page will probably open in the wikitext editor.

You will see another pencil icon in the toolbar. Tap on that pencil icon to the switch between visual editing and wikitext editing.

 

Remember to publish your changes when you're done.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has wrapped up most of their work on the 2017 wikitext editor and the visual diff tool. The team has begun investigating the needs of editors who use mobile devices. Their work board is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are fixing bugs and improving mobile editing.

Recent changes

Let's work together

  • The Editing team wants to improve visual editing on the mobile website. Please read their ideas and tell the team what you think would help editors who use the mobile site.
  • The Community Wishlist Survey begins next week.
  • If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly. We will notify you when the next issue is ready for translation. Thank you!

—Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)

14:17, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia Asian Month is now on! (again)

Hi all! Another reminder that Wikipedia Asian Month has begun. It's a great way to get a prize (postcard straight from Asia) for contributing high-quality articles related to Asia. Please don't hesitate to sign up and contribute articles throughout November, there's a lot we can do here. Hiàn (talk) 23:46, 2 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"English Americans"

I see we are gettting more of these pages. I think we discussed them before, and reached a conclusion that they led to ridiculous categories. After all, almost all Americans are immigrants or descendents of immigrants. Can anyone find our previous discussion? Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:21, 4 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yep.
I nuke these on sight, although another admin has questioned whether QDing them under WP:QD#G4 is valid after several years have gone by. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:30, 4 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
PS: My answer was about the categories. I don't remember any RfDs about the articles, but they can be deleted for having no content if all they say is restating the article title. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:36, 4 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah at 4 or 5 years on, its probably best not to G4 them anymore as consensus can change, especially after such a long time. And that isn't saying I think they should stay, they should go. And that was only about the categories, don't recall any discussions about articles. -DJSasso (talk) 12:30, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Coincidentally, in fixing the Claes Oldenburg page this morning, I looked in vain for an equivalent to en:Category:Swedish emigrants to the United States. Considering the rising and conflicted local/global issues surrounding cross-border migrations past-present-future, I suggest this is content of interest to Simple WP readers. How would they easily access such information? Fair disclosure: one of my favorite activities is creating and populating categories Categories offer a unique, condensed view of granular content plus are easier to maintain than List-of pages. -- Deborahjay (talk) 12:47, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Redacted 13:03, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
Yeah a Swedish emigrants to the United States would be a valid one and you could go ahead and create it, as it is specific to a group of people who emigrated. The categories like "Swedish Americans" were an issue because it was used on anyone with a single drop of Swedish blood in them and was hard to police. -DJSasso (talk) 13:42, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

cv-type articles in general

I bring attention to Carol wilder, a new page with a copy of her curriculum vitae. She seems notable, but it is not an article as it stands. Probably the work of an agency or even the person herself. It is an advertisement of herself, but it has no commercial element. If we commit to editing such pages we might be overwhelmed. If we don't edit them, they will stick out like a sore thumb. I thought it best to alert others to this issue, as it is certainly going to grow in future. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:38, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps suggest a new type of speedy deletion or a proposed deletion like at English? I agree that it will grow but otherwise it's just a matter of marking them for cleanup and waiting until they are done. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:38, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As the subject seemed sufficiently notable, associated with reputable institutions and in a field (media) that interests me, I spent some time wikifying the page mainly with MOS section headings, removing embedded interwiki links to EN WP, and for one section fixed other web sources in proper ref format using the Template:Cite web. On return inspection I encountered further problems mentioned on Talk:Carol Wilder#Content. Actually some red links indicate pages I'd like to create here, e.g. Fulbright scholar, The New School, etc. I'll get back to Carol Wilder, especially to create a Wikidata item - based on finding reliable, verifiable sources. It remains to be seen whether she merits a page here and in the EN WP - or neither. -- Deborahjay (talk) 17:39, 10 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Change coming to how certain templates will appear on the mobile web

Change coming to how certain templates will appear on the mobile web

Please help translate to your language

 
Example of improvements

Hello,

In a few weeks the Readers web team will be changing how some templates look on the mobile web site. We will make these templates more noticeable when viewing the article. We ask for your help in updating any templates that don't look correct.

What kind of templates? Specifically templates that notify readers and contributors about issues with the content of an article – the text and information in the article. Examples like Template:Unreferenced or Template:More citations needed. Right now these notifications are hidden behind a link under the title of an article. We will format templates like these (mostly those that use Template:Ambox or message box templates in general) to show a short summary under the page title. You can tap on the "Learn more" link to get more information.

For template editors we have some recommendations on how to make templates that are mobile-friendly and also further documentation on our work so far.

If you have questions about formatting templates for mobile, please leave a note on the project talk page or file a task in Phabricator and we will help you.

Thank you!

CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 19:35, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Words

Hi, Are words like: selfish, insensitive. cynical and reckless simple words ?, Personally I would say the last 3 aren't but I don't really know what could replace them, Many thanks, –Davey2010Talk 23:50, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That depends on what your criteria are for being simple. There are various word lists you can check. As far as what could replace them, that depends on context. Are you looking at something specific that uses these? --Auntof6 (talk) 01:18, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Auntof6, The words are currently used at User:Davey2010/sandbox7#Characters, I didn't think these words could be considered simple, Anyway thanks, –Davey2010Talk 18:56, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
i'd have to be familiar with the characters before I could tell you what to replace those words with. We have the articles Selfishness, Highly sensitive person, and Cynicism you could link to, although I'm not sure that second one is a good match. Another option is to leave those parts of the descriptions out. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:17, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Auntof6, I think that's probably the best option really, Okie dokie I'll take them out, Thanks for replying and helping it's really appreciated, Thanks, –Davey2010Talk 19:41, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Section placement to follow graphic file

On the page 43rd Canadian federal election, what's the way to place and anchor the next section heading (References) to follow the Opinion polling section that consists of a graphic image file with caption? -- Deborahjay (talk) 12:09, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Deborahjay: I moved the image to the center which I think is a better place. But I think adding {{-}} will also work.-BRP ever 12:26, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

merge of articles-2nd time

Can we please merge List of hurricanes in Connecticut into the List of New England hurricanes article? We do not need two articles on the same topic. I don't know how to merge, so can someone merge the articles? Angela Maureen (talk) 14:47, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@September 1988: There's no special trick to merging: it's a manual process, not automated. You take the information in one article, figure out how to fit it into the other, then either delete or redirect the first one. In this case, at least some of the hurricanes shown in the Connecticut article are already listed in the New England article, so there might be very little to merge: you might just need to get a little information from articles on the individual hurricanes so you can match the format of the New England article. Why not give it a try?
First, though, you might want to get consensus that we want to do this. It might be better to change the New England article into articles for individual states: why should those states be grouped when others aren't? --Auntof6 (talk) 18:51, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
How can I get consensus prior to merging the two articles into one another? Also, why would it be better to change the New England article into individual states instead of being grouped together? Angela Maureen (talk) 06:13, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You get consensus by having a discussion where you get input from a variety of people. That could be this discussion, or a discussion on the talk page of one of the articles.
I don't know if it would be better to break up the New England article: we could have both. I would wonder why we'd want to group the hurricanes for that region when we don't group them for other regions. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:36, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Swaziland vs. Eswatini

This topic has been raised again at Talk:Swaziland. Apparently enwiki and some other Wikipedias, plus Wikidata and Commons, are using the new name. Please comment on the talk page. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:01, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I also note that the article for the country has already had some name changes applied, just not the actual article name. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:20, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Character table

Hi again, Just wanted to ask would our readers understand the tables at User:Davey2010/sandbox7
(Pupils, Teachers, Headteachers and "Last characters in Waterloo Road" would all be in seperate individual articles (ie List of Waterloo Road pupils, List of Waterloo Road teachers etc as I know having it like en:List of Waterloo Road characters would be waaay too much),

I just didn't know if specifically the green series bits in the tables would be understood ?, I could remove the "a, b, c"s from the tables if that would help ?,

Thanks, –Davey2010Talk 23:09, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about our readers, but I don't understand the a, b, c stuff. It's not a question of complex language, though. Maybe the series column could just list the series numbers instead of using the color coding. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:46, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Auntof6, To be honest doing it that way was the first thing I thought of but I guess I was afraid of making things too simple if that makes sense, Many thanks again for your reply, Thanks, –Davey2010Talk 01:15, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Auntof6, Really sorry to bother you again, Just wanted to ask are the tables at User:Davey2010/sandbox7 okay ?,
Should hyphens be replaced with "to" (Series 5-6 > Series 5 to 6, and
Should the commas be replaced with "and" (Series 5-6,8 > Series 5-6 and 8),
Thanks, –Davey2010Talk 13:51, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there are several ways you could do it. If it were me, I think I'd just list each number, not ranges, and not include the word "series" (except in the heading, of course). For example, instead of "Series 3 to 5, and Series 8", I'd just put "3,4,5,8". --Auntof6 (talk) 20:15, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi again, Okie dokie I'll do it that way, I did notice "series" seems reduant but at the same time thought just "4-6" looked odd, Okie dokie I'll do that, I shan't bother you now :), Thanks again, –Davey2010Talk 20:25, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

New page with copy-paste minimal content

I was wrong to propose QD for The roman god faunus [sic] for being identical to an existing page, Pan (mythology). A further check shows they do have separate Wikidata items. So what to do with a IP-user-created page whose only content, unsourced, is the verbatim lead paragraph from the English WP page? Even the page name is copy/pasted, nonstandard and would require a move. -- Deborahjay (talk) 14:00, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Simplify and attribute, rewrite, or A3. Vermont (talk) 14:01, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A humble request to the editing community

  Since the voting phase of the Community Wishlist Survey 2019 has started, I would like to invite all interested editors (particularly those who edit from mobile devices) to vote for the proposal to add a undo functionality to the mobile interface, so that a strong message may be sent out to the Wikimedia Foundation and its employees to take its mobile user-base seriously and eventually bring the mobile interface at par with other major websites of the internet. Regards.FR30799386 (talk) 06:22, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

 

A mock-up of how the undo functionality may look on the mobile interface

Community Wishlist Survey vote

The Community Wishlist Survey. Please help translate to your language.

Hey everyone,

The Community Wishlist Survey is the process when the Wikimedia communities decide what the Wikimedia Foundation Community Tech should work on over the next year.

The Community Tech team is focused on tools for experienced Wikimedia editors. The communities have now posted a long list of technical proposals. You can vote on the proposals from now until 30 November. You can read more on the wishlist survey page.

/User:Johan (WMF)

18:13, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

US history/geography categories maintenance task

In Category talk:19th century establishments in South Dakota, I've outlined a problem with category and subcategory names associated with the pre-statehood Dakotas. Are there identified "project people" among the regular contributors here, e.g. American history or geography buffs? I'd rather refer tasks like this one to them, or to solely Anglophone contributors, while I focus on the less-served and larger global sphere aligned with my particular (peculiar) skills set. -- Cheers, Deborahjay (talk) 12:33, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Why presume it's a problem first and then discussion afterwards? As I pointed out before elsewhere, these categories have existed for years here. We also have categories like Category:19th century establishments in Germany even though Germany as a country didn't exist in the 19th century (at least the exact German borders didn't exist). Nevertheless, then we should have a policy-based discussion about it. Perhaps propose that category for renaming and allow for a general discussion there and see if the people who proposed and created the vast amount of those categories support renaming on that basis. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:06, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Ricky81682: I won't insist on precise grammar when the resultant rename process would badly impact the pragmatic allocation of editing resources. So let's focus on one concern: the correspondence of each Simple English category with an English WP category to which it can be interwiki-linked in Wikidata. Here the value lies in accessing the additional and likely larger bodies of content via the left-hand sidebar links under "Languages." As each Wikidata item may link only to a single page in the other WP projects, linking a pre-statehood North Dakota or South Dakota to the item for the "Dakota territories" is problematic. Should an editor noticing this be unable to individually complete the indicated changes - or perhaps to explore the possibility of a purpose-made bot to accomplish part of the work (with which I have no experience, just supposing) - would the proper move be to comment on the related category's talk page, and then - on which Simple English editors' forum? -- Deborahjay (talk) 20:07, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There is currently a class working on China-related articles. Their teacher is User:Mr Spear. I recently acquainted him with our processes for school projects, so I hope he will follow them the next time he has students work here.

Some of the students have been changing Talk:Main Page. The teacher said he would tell them not to do that when they next meet, which I believe he said would be Monday. In the meantime, could we not escalate warnings for that too far? I'm sure that would be appreciated. --Auntof6 (talk) 13:13, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Local change to Template:Infobox album

This template was assigning the category Category:Album infoboxes lacking a cover‏‎. That category makes sense for English Wikipedia, because when there is no usable album cover image on Commons (which there often isn't, because album cover art is often copyrighted), they can host local images. We don't host local images, however, so this category would just fill up even though there's nothing we could do about most of the entries.

Therefore, I removed Category:Album infoboxes lacking a cover‏‎ from the template. If anyone strongly objects, we can discuss and possibly restore it (and create the category), but I don't think that category helps us here. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:58, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Advanced Search will become a default feature on your wiki on November 28. This new interface allows you to perform specialized searches on the search page, even if you don’t know any search syntax. Advanced Search originates from the German Community’s Technical Wishes project. It's already a default feature on German, Arabic, Farsi and Hungarian Wikipedia. Besides, more than 40.000 users across all wikis have tested the beta version. Feedback is welcome on the central feedback page.

Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 11:03, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

911 (emergency telephone number)

911 is the number people in the us and Canada dial in case of an emergency. There is also a 999 emergency telephone number used in other countries. I believe it is vitally important to document the number used in each country, since people’s lives may depend on it.

Please see: Talk:9-1-1. Ottawahitech (talk) 13:55, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Treatment of objectionable talk page content

How does the Simple English WP treat nonsense or offensive content on an otherwise valid article's Talk page, when it's the only posting? As it's over a year old and the last posting from that IP address, I didn't bother to apply the Template:Unsigned. I'm quite sure the content doesn't belong here, just need advice how to proceed. -- Deborahjay (talk) 19:27, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I usually replace the bad content with {{talk header}}. I've made that change to the page. Vermont (talk) 19:29, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Getting to simple articles from English

I know this is more an issue for Wik/En, but has anyone noticed that with the new language connection system, Simple English Wikipedia linking has become hard or impossible to find? When I tried to find the Simple English links to Bay City, Michigan and to Lake Huron on the English sites, I could not find them at all. The links used to be alphabetical (which made it easy to see if there was an SE link), but now they are grouped by geography: I couldn't find SE under global, Europe or North America. Subjects that only have SE and EN do have the link to SE easily visible. Can anyone help me understand what's going on? Are they there, but I just don't see them, or whatKdammers (talk) 14:15, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I started a ticket at phab:T210840. Vermont (talk) 14:31, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Wierd, I still have the old style interwiki links everywhere. Didn't know there was a new geographical version.-DJSasso (talk) 17:29, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mentorship?

I know that there's no formal mentorship or adoption process on this Wikipedia, but is there an informal one? I'm interested in creating articles to improve Simple, but my current articles are too complex. Is there an experienced editor able to help me with this? Thanks. Diadophis (talk) 01:41, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

New Wikimedia password policy and requirements

Please help translate to your language

The Wikimedia Foundation security team is implementing a new password policy and requirements. You can learn more about the project on MediaWiki.org.

These new requirements will apply to new accounts and privileged accounts. New accounts will be required to create a password with a minimum length of 8 characters. Privileged accounts will be prompted to update their password to one that is at least 10 characters in length.

These changes are planned to be in effect on December 13th. If you think your work or tools will be affected by this change, please let us know on the talk page.

Thank you!

CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 20:03, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

How to merge and maintain both page histories?

While doing maintenance among Special pages/Uncategorized pages and then following up in Wikidata, I encountered the following:

  • Shahmukhī (created 8 June 2017) with a fair amount of content, which I wikified.
  • Shahmukhī alphabet (created 4 September 2016) with little content, somewhat mismatched with the above; the EN WP uses this page name.

Neither page has any sources. I could contact the earlier page's creator, who's only been active intermittently on any WP. But were I to perform a manual (?) merge myself, how are the two page histories maintained? -- Deborahjay (talk) 16:25, 5 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That requires a histmerge, which administrators can do. Vermont (talk) 16:32, 5 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Great! Reposted to the Admins' noticeboard. -- Deborahjay (talk) 16:55, 5 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Done. -DJSasso (talk) 21:25, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Interface administrators policy

Hi all. I've been working on an interface administrators policy draft (since we do not have one yet) based on the corresponding policy at simple.wikt. Please feel free to suggest improvements (or add to the draft directly), we need some sort of consensus on how to handle this right. Hiàn (talk) 19:57, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think we already did in a previous discussion unless I am totally imagining it. It will be handed out the same way we hand out flood. Temporarily and the person who hands it out will be responsible for checking what the editor did to make sure it was ok. Don't need the whole formalized request area like rollback etc. Just like we don't for flood. Just grab a crat and ask them. -DJSasso (talk) 21:29, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're right (looks like my memory's failing me already). Sorry for wasting your time. Hiàn (talk) 03:50, 7 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Adopt an editor program

Hello friends! After a few conversations with a other Wikipedians, I'm proposing beginning an "Adopt an Editor" program for Simple English Wikipedia. I'm volunteering to lead this effort to bring more editors to work on this project, even if it isn't their "home wiki." I would like to offer a way that new editors to our project can learn to constructively edit on SEWP and show them the unique ways our project is a bit different from other WP wikis. There will be some small requirements to admin this project which I'm happy to develop:

  1. "WP:Adopt an editor" guideline page with space for volunteering to be a mentor and a space to request a mentor
  2. Develop a template that can be placed voluntarily on an editor's talk page indicating they are being mentored
  3. Develop a template that can be placed voluntarily on an editor's talk or user page indicating they are a SEWP Mentor
  4. Develop a tracking category for tracking purposes
  5. Experienced SEWP editors willing to volunteer their time to help new editors to our project

If community consensus for this project is attained, I'll begin developing the proposed implements immediately. If consensus is obtained, I want this project to be for the community, by the community... so I will need to receive input from all editors of this project on how to develop this program and make it a success. I suggest an independent, uninvolved sysop determine if consensus is obtained in 7 days. Thank you all! Operator873talkconnect 04:29, 8 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We had one at one point, trying to think what the page was for it. Don't think it ever really accomplished much. With only 20-30 regular editors it often just became easier to have people just talk one on one to other editors. But hey if you want to give it a go have at er. -DJSasso (talk) 12:14, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I believe we deleted the infrastructure for the process. --Auntof6 (talk) 12:58, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I was thinking we might have done that. Too much admin effort for little gain. Figured it would be best if people just did it privately amoungst each other on their own talk pages. -DJSasso (talk) 15:35, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
E.g. User talk:Diadophis/Geranium, perhaps in response to the recent appeal above, re:Mentorship. Props to @Macdonald-ross: for stepping up. -- Deborahjay (talk) 12:50, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Attributing content to another WP

What's the template I needed for this? All guesses failed. Meanwhile I faked a piped link to the relevant content, i.e. URL for current version of the EN WP page I copied to simplify here. See Talk:Ryukyu black-breasted leaf turtle#Content from EN WP. -- Deborahjay (talk) 17:42, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The best one to use is Template:Translated page. -DJSasso (talk) 18:20, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Um, @Djsasso: I neglected to specify above that I was only referring to content from the EN WP. Not only am I uncomfortable with the Template:Translated page text stating "...translated from...", I note the following, possibly historical (and abandoned?) options:
I didn't check dates when these various templates (populating the various categories) were in use, nor do I know the background of using "page" vs. "article." To be clear, my intention is to improve skimpy pages (e.g. Special pages/Short pages) by copy/pasting (including references) and simplifying content from Enwp, and to give attribution. I'd like to support the most informative, consensus-accepted practice and not waste anyone's time (unless a bot can be engaged...?). Thanks for your guidance. -- Deborahjay (talk) 11:14, 12 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Moving from complex English to Simple English is translating just like from any other language. That being said. Template:Enwp based is the other popular option, though I have slowly been changing the uses from that one over to the one I mentioned above when I see them and it is easy to do so (ie we already know the diff id's etc) so that it is more standard between all the different languages. I am not as big a fan of the Enwp based one because people often forget to use the whole URL which includes the exact diff they copied over, whereas the other makes it more obvious when that is missing and as I mentioned it is a variant from what any other language would look like. However, all that being said there is no one way to do it, use whichever you like. The one I personally use is just a note in my edit summary without using either template. Legally all we have to do is make a note of its origin when its copied over, how we do it is up to the individual. -DJSasso (talk) 11:42, 12 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oh and the category for Template:Enwp based was Category:Articles using content from the English Wikipedia. If you go to any page using the template and hit change and go to the bottom of the page and expand hidden categories you can see them. That being said I thought I had already fixed this category on the template to Category:Pages translated from English Wikipedia. It is fixed now. -DJSasso (talk) 11:56, 12 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Import Request

Can we get en:Module:ISO 3166/data/IN imported to simple? Mynagappally is throwing an error because its missing. Nunabas (talk) 14:43, 12 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Done. -DJSasso (talk) 14:52, 12 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Fixing category assignment

This seems beyond my present skill set. Described at Talk:Jiban Thekey Neya#Wrong category, per template or ?. I'd appreciate learning how to fix this - or, alternatively, whether to request here or elsewhere. -- Deborahjay (talk) 09:57, 13 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Was just wrong in the movie infobox template which is what added the category. I probably should have fixed that issue first so I could show you a diff, but I instead imported a more current version at the same time to fix other issues so its sort of mixed in with other stuff. -DJSasso (talk) 11:52, 13 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What would you say

...could (or must) be improved in these articles?

Of note is a massive simplification by an experienced contributor soon reverted by the page creator. With my interest in improving existing pages, I'm still unfamiliar with the banner template messages which would indicate what sort of treatment is needed, particularly if it puts the page in category for that purpose. -- Deborahjay (talk) 19:47, 12 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

First article: (Qizala Kurgans) is nearly incomprehensible, as it does not give any context. Apart from formatting issues, I'd exppect sentences of the form "Q. is a history site located in Azerbaijan. Today it is known mostly for its pottery, which dates from the stone age, around 7.000 to 5.000 years ago. The people who lived there have be called K., and several details about their culture have been found....". In its current form, the article is probably a deletion candidate; as it is difficult to understand and does not give any context. Second article: N. tepe: Apart from makup, mostly reading fluency, and simplification of sentences: " Although the existence of these connections was sometimes demonstrated by single finds, now however these connections are demonstrated by a complex of archaeological materials." - What does this sentence say? - what do we lose by leaving it out? - Also avid first person plural, "We". Compare, for example Hallstatt culture, Arkalochori Axe, Phaistos disc or Linear A. All the articles I cited are factually correct short stub-like articles, sometimes with references. The basic idea is always to get to something that our readers will understand, even if it is shorter than the original. --Eptalon (talk) 20:17, 12 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
They should definitely be wikified, but to be honest I don't feel like reading them at the moment to see if they should be simplified much as its too early in the morning. And just since you mention being verbatim, one thing to remember is verbatim from en.wiki is ok as long as the text isn't complex. It can be identical to en if the language is not complex. In some cases in the past I have actually replaced en.wiki articles with our articles, but that hasn't happened for awhile because we haven't had any very good articles that aren't already written about in an extensive way on en.wiki. -DJSasso (talk) 11:55, 13 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Import Request v2

Can someone import en:Module:Infobox/i18n? Its showing as missing from Vocabulario de la Lengua Bicol. Nunabas (talk) 15:38, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah that one is an odd one that isn't actually wanted. Sometimes happens that the wiki software thinks something is wanted when it isn't. There is a much more complicated answer, but basically it isn't actually needed. Its happening over on en.wiki as well. -DJSasso (talk) 17:20, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

R2 Quick Deletions

Should this criteria apply to all bad inter-space redirects, or just those between userspace and mainspace as stated in current policy? Vermont (talk) 03:15, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'd assume it would also apply to category and template space as well (and Wikipedia space under certain circumstances) - perhaps a wording change is in order. Hiàn (talk) 23:22, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Status of DYK

My apologies if this has been discussed in the past few months and I've missed it:

The DYK section of our main page has not been updated since December 8, 2017, over a year ago. The last non-vandal or minor edit to any of its associated pages seems to have been in August 2018. This aspect of the project is clearly dead. Do we continue to display these same facts on our main page without any update? Or remove it from the main page?

Do we make the DYK pages as "inactive" or leave them open hoping that activity comes to them again? Only (talk) 02:49, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It has been awhile since I looked but the DYK cycles just like the pages do they not? That might be an option so its not the same very single day/week. -DJSasso (talk) 17:28, 17 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
No, it’s a manual update only. It’s one single template that, in theory, gets updated weekly. There probably is a way to set it up to rotate several sets of facts in the manner that our “featured” article does, but that hasn’t been set up and I’m not 100% sure how to make it work.
it’s not a bad idea, though. If no one else can figure out the logistics behind it first, I’ll take a look over the holiday break. Only (talk) 17:49, 17 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
We definitely need to keep the DYK section, so it may be useful to automatically rotate between four or five different sets of DYK's, which could be updated at will. Vermont (talk) 17:51, 17 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
For christmas, it would be good to come up with a few hooks (ideally, for articles created or substantially revised in 2018)....--Eptalon (talk) 18:25, 17 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Do you mean hooks about Christmas specifically, or just that we need more hooks around that time? Diadophis (talk) 22:03, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
┌─────────────────────────────────┘
 I mean hooks in general, not about Christmas only. As to the 2018: Preferably, we select hooks about articles that are relatively recent.. --Eptalon (talk) 22:34, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello everyone. I was passing through, noticed that DYK was out of date, and updated it with the next set of hooks from the Queue (Queue 3). Vermont kindly pointed me to this discussion after I pushed the update and while I did not see it prior, I wanted to let everyone know that I updated DYK. I'm fairly active with DYK over at en: and would be happy to provide input if you find it helpful. Best, Mifter (talk) 04:12, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The problem isn't that we don't know how to do the updates. It's that we don't have enough participation to have enough new entries to cycle through. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:43, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I propose that we try to fill up the 6 queues, rotate between them daily (which could be done manually), and add/remove entries as needed. Vermont (talk) 04:14, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Do you mean rotate through them even if they have previously-used hooks? I guess that would be better than leaving the same ones there all the time. Personally, I find it difficult to get interested in this when we have so much broken stuff that needs fixing. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:43, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The current idea I have is to fill up 7 queues, one for each day of the week. See the source of User:Mifter/sandbox for how this would work. Basically, after the 7 queues are filled (likely only 4 hooks per day instead of 5) we would add {{Did you know/Queue/{{#time:N|+1 day}}}} on the main page in place of what we currently have, and it would cycle to the next queue every 24 hours. This would require a bit of work to get the queues filled, but from there, it would only need periodic updating. I'd be happy to go looking for hooks to fill up the queues. Vermont (talk) 13:48, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Vermont, just a note that you would want to use {{Did you know/Queue/{{#time:N|}}}} as the parserfunction returns numbers between 1-7 (corresponding to the day number of the week) which could correspond to the queues. Using "+1 day" would return numbers between 2-8 (I used it on the sandbox to have it display the contents of all the queues for illustration and have removed it to prevent confusion). Best, Mifter (talk) 20:45, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think it could be beneficial to look into archives of old DYK's, take the ones that are still interesting and work, and from there make 7 queues ready. Is there any opposition to this? I hope to have DYK's rotating regularly as soon as possible. Thanks, Vermont (talk) 19:21, 26 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation from Wiki Loves Love 2019

Please help translate to your language

 

Love is an important subject for humanity and it is expressed in different cultures and regions in different ways across the world through different gestures, ceremonies, festivals and to document expression of this rich and beautiful emotion, we need your help so we can share and spread the depth of cultures that each region has, the best of how people of that region, celebrate love.

Wiki Loves Love (WLL) is an international photography competition of Wikimedia Commons with the subject love testimonials happening in the month of February.

The primary goal of the competition is to document love testimonials through human cultural diversity such as monuments, ceremonies, snapshot of tender gesture, and miscellaneous objects used as symbol of love; to illustrate articles in the worldwide free encyclopedia Wikipedia, and other Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) projects.

The theme of 2019 iteration is Celebrations, Festivals, Ceremonies and rituals of love.

Sign up your affiliate or individually at Participants page.

To know more about the contest, check out our Commons Page and FAQs

There are several prizes to grab. Hope to see you spreading love this February with Wiki Loves Love!

Kind regards,

Wiki Loves Love Team

Imagine... the sum of all love!

--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:13, 27 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Personal particulars on a new User page

Are there any actual prohibitions of particular personal content on User pages so that SE WP isn't exploited as an electronic bulletin board a la social media sites? I'm not talking about advertising a commercial entity but persons (e.g. User:Razaulqadriashfaqi complete with social media links, or User:Brighton Niwomurinzi who essentially posted a resume of education and work experience). I can recall seeing phone numbers and email addresss removed (on EN WP) but hadn't noticed by whose intervention. What would be a helpful action, if any, on the part of a non-Admin here? -- Deborahjay (talk) 10:45, 17 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As long as they aren't minors they can self identify if they wish, though we highly don't recommend phone numbers. Emails aren't an issue, some users actually use their email as their username. Advertising type info is of course no good. -DJSasso (talk) 17:27, 17 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's a question of whether they are here to contribute, or just to advertise themselves. This individual is clearly using us to advertise his social media pages. I don't think we should tolerate that, because he has made no contribution and is just here for a free ride. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:22, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Twinkle Preferences Message

Above the options there's a notice "Only you, Wikipedia administrators and Interface editors can modify your preferences, but the settings you choose are visible as JavaScript code to everyone." Isn't normal admins unable to alter users js/css now, so the message should change to interface administrators which is the term used by WMF? Wikipedia seems unnecessary and interface editors is not the precise term for it. Thoughts? Sorry if I am wrong in this.--Cohaf (talk) 08:35, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

We use interface editors slightly differently here. While the admin can't edit those things immediately like they used to be able to, on this wiki they just have to ask a 'crat for the flag temporarily for any edits they need to make. So they can technically still do it. Can try to reword it to make it clear I suppose, though probably not that important a distinction. -DJSasso (talk) 16:39, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Djsasso:Thanks. I think it's seems moot now. I don't know that sysops can be granted IA directly as on Chinese Wikipedia, normal sysops needs 3 days notice for IA. Thanks for your explanation. Best Regards,--Cohaf (talk) 02:13, 9 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

FileExporter beta feature

 
Coming soon: the beta feature FileExporter

A new beta feature will soon be released on all wikis: The FileExporter. It allows exports of files from a local wiki to Wikimedia Commons, including their file history and page history. Which files can be exported is defined by each wiki's community: Please check your wiki's configuration file if you want to use this feature.

The FileExporter has already been a beta feature on mediawiki.org, meta.wikimedia, deWP, faWP, arWP, koWP and on wikisource.org. After some functionality was added, it's now becoming a beta feature on all wikis. Deployment is planned for January 16. More information can be found on the project page.

As always, feedback is highly appreciated. If you want to test the FileExporter, please activate it in your user preferences. The best place for feedback is the central talk page. Thank you from Wikimedia Deutschland's Technical Wishes project.

Johanna Strodt (WMDE) 09:41, 14 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

1Lib1Ref

Are we participating in this? Just wondering.--Cohaf (talk) 02:23, 16 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't look like anybody is organising here. Hiàn (talk) 18:29, 19 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your reply Hiàn.--Cohaf (talk) 01:26, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

No editing for 30 minutes on 17 January

You will not be able to edit the wikis for up to 30 minutes on 17 January 07:00 UTC. This is because of a database problem that has to be fixed immediately. You can still read the wikis. Some wikis are not affected. They don't get this message. You can see which wikis are not affected on this page. Most wikis are affected. The time you can not edit might be shorter than 30 minutes. /Johan (WMF)

18:54, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

New York moves

New York needs to be moved to New York (state) and New York (disambiguation) needs to then be moved to New York, per the enwiki and the fact that the state is not what people usually mean when they say "New York". This move doesn't appear to be possible for a non-admin. IWI (chat) 23:10, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I am opposed to this move. New York City being referred to as New York is a colloquialism; given that most users of this wiki are not familiar with northeastern American colloquialisms, if they are looking for the state they will type New York and if they were looking for the city they will notice the "This page is about the U.S. state, but you may be searching for New York City." on the top of the article. Vermont (talk) 23:13, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Vermont: It's less of a colloquialism and more of just a disambiguating way of calling it, to distinguish it from the state. The point is to redirect someone who searches for "New York" with a direct choice between the city and the state. This is exacerbated when you think of other language's way of saying it: Spanish - "Nueva York" (literally "New York"), French - "New York", Portuguese - "Nova Iorque" (literally "New York"), Chinese - "Nie Yue". The list continues – it is clear thata disambiguation page is needed at New York. IWI (chat) 23:37, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Also, as someone from the UK (another demographic), I can say that I've never really heard people here call it New York City. IWI (chat) 23:41, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Okay; I'd support redirecting New York to the disambiguation page. Why did you change the name of New York City to New York in the prior linked article? Vermont (talk) 23:57, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
New York should not redirect to New York (disambiguation). The standard is to have the page with the "(disambiguation)" qualifier be the redirect. That allows for deliberate !inks to the dab page (through the redirect) without those links looking like unintentional links there. --Auntof6 (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I agree, Auntof6; New York should be the dab page, which was the approach used by enwiki. IWI (chat) 00:31, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, I was not saying that New York should be the dab page, just that if it were the dab page it shouldn't be a redirect. --Auntof6 (talk) 01:28, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
you can’t have it both ways. You cite English Wikipedia here as the reason to move, but then your edits that I just reverted at New York go against how the city is named in the English Wikipedia article on the state. You can’t cite English Wikipedia as precedent for some of your changes but ignore it for others. Only (talk) 23:46, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Only: No, the English Wikipedia simply gave me the idea, I don't think we should cite it as a reason to do anything; we are a separate wiki. My actual reason is outlined above, do you agree to that? IWI (chat) 23:58, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Whatever is done, make sure to double check !inks to any pages that are changed. If articles currently link to "New York" and the state is intended, and then we make "New York" a dab page, we need to change all the links there to point to the right thing.

That being said, I think that New York should remain as an article about the state, because that's its name, and it should keep the hatnote that it has. --Auntof6 (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes but since New York City is officially "City of New York", it could be argued that it is also the name of the city (like how "Los Angeles" is officially the "City of Los Angeles", but not called "Los Angeles City"). In my opinion, the phrase "New York City" exists in the same/similar fashion as "New York State", to disambiguate. A long debate occured at en:Talk:New York City, which determined that the primary name of NYC is "New York". IWI (chat) 00:23, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • New York should not deliver New York State. It should deliver the city directly, because that is what most users would want it to. The dab page should be New York (disambiguation). This way the mass of users can get to where they want to go with one click. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:30, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. "New York City" is a good self-disambiguator. "New York" should be the dab page; "New York (state)" should be the state's page. IWI (chat) 13:40, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It seems that different wikis have taken different approaches. English: New York is disambig, state and city has separate pages. Spanish and Chinese: Nueva York and 纽约 are about the city, and there is a separate "(disambiguation)" page and a state page. There might be simply no single correct approach. User670839245 (talk) 15:12, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
In English, we have the natural DAB name "New York City", which is different to other languages where none exists. "New York" alone however, is confusing, which is why New York should be a DAB page. IWI (chat) 15:18, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I am not saying we should do it because en.wiki is doing it. But the way they are doing it does make more sense as New York City is a natural disambiguator. Will be quite a bit of work to clean this up if we actually wanted to do it however. -DJSasso (talk) 15:34, 21 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Anything that helps the reader's understanding is well worth our time ;). IWI (chat) 20:02, 21 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes and no, as I said I am ok with the move. But that doesn't always mean that its worth our time. With such a small editor base sometimes other areas can be more worthy of our time. In the case of this though. It could probably be done pretty quickly with AWB. -DJSasso (talk) 17:00, 22 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Djsasso: An admin with AWB should do it, as the discussion has gone quiet. IWI (chat) 00:06, 26 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
ImprovedWikiImprovment, why would AWB be needed? Vermont (talk) 10:55, 26 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Vermont: Because doing it manually would be tedious; I guess it wouldn’t be needed though. I would do this myself but I don’t have page move rights (I can’t move pages to redirects with a page history). IWI (chat) 16:51, 26 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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