Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 133

How many edits do you need to get to be an admin?

Hello, I'm Astronomyscientist124. I would just like to know how many edits you need to be an admin because I would really like to be an admin here.Astronomyscientist124 (talk) 19:07, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

@Astronomyscientist124: There is no clear count, you must do a large number of good edits over a number of months. However, adding false information to articles as you did at Eddie Van Halen is not a good way to go about becoming an administrator, to say the least. --IWI (talk) 19:43, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Hello there, we are a small Wiki. Admins are users the community trusts to do certain things (such as deleting articles, closing requests for deletion, and similar). Please don't get into counting-mode, there is no set number of edits. Also note, that users have their own editing style, some do small edits, others do larger ones. If you are an active member of the community (several edits a day, to articles), and you have been active for six to nine months, you have a realistic chance to be granted the admin flag. See the full list of criteria. The last who tried was ImprovedWikiImprovment; his request showed that in general, people support him to become an admin, but he did not reach the 75% support required by the guideline. My first request failed miserably (back in March 2006), the guideline wasn't there yet. At that time I had been an active editor for about half a year. My second request was successful, in November 2006. At that time I had been active about a year. Also note: You don't need adminship to be a good editor. There are many good editors here who aren't admins; still they do a good job. In short: Stop the bean-counting, do good edits, work actively with the community, and about 6 to 9 months after you started you can try to your first request for adminship.--Eptalon (talk) 20:10, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

RFA

• Please note a RFA is open for discussion --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 02:43, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages

On this wiki, a lot of disambiguation pages were copied from English wiki, so they have a lot of red links. For example, Trump has 5 blue links and 28 red links. I've heard that this is recommended so we know which articles need to be created, but I don't agree that it's helpful here. If this is meant for editors, there are probably more important articles to work on than all the articles with "Trump" in the title. If someone decides to create the article The Trump (horse), for example, they can add it to the disambiguation page after they create it. If this is meant for readers, they would benefit from blue links to English wiki more than red links. I think we should discuss if these red links are serving a useful purpose. Naddruf (talk) 19:11, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

I definitely disagree. Articles might link to the disambiguation page when they should link to one of the entries that would be red. In such cases, the link in the article should be changed to link to the appropriate entry, even if that entry is red. Those red links, as you say, indicate that the redlinked article is needed here.

Linking to enwiki is problematic in several ways, even on a disambiguation page. The enwiki article is likely not in the kind of simple language that our readers are looking for. We lose the indicator that we need the article. If the article is ever created here, we are left with links to enwiki that should be to the local article.

Finally, other Wikipedias are considered to be other websites. (If they weren't, we wouldn't have the requirement of attribution when we copy from there.) Links to other websites aren't supposed to be in the body of an article, per Wikipedia:Links to other websites. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:35, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

While Naddruf points out a legitimate question of whether we need a disambiguation page just because enwiki has it, I don't think linking to enwiki is the answer. People come to Simple because they want Simple English. They already know the English Wikipedia exists and has more articles than this one does. I think the "think of Simple English as a separate language" model works well here. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:26, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

I also disagree with Naddruf as 99% of people will not add a new page to the disambiguation page, thus meaning that the page will not be effective. Red links are not only left so that we know what to create, but also so that they will have incoming links when created. This is why we have DAB pages with all the possible pages for that word or phrase. --IWI (talk) 09:35, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Red links also help the readers in tell them a subject they be looking for is missing. And as someone mentions above, the vast majority of article creators never think to add the links to the disambiguation pages when they create an article. It is very important to us to have red links on disambiguation pages on this wiki. -Djsasso (talk) 22:36, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Requesting Comments for my enwiki block request.

Hi all, I would like recommendations and suggestions for my unblock request for enwiki on the linked page's talk page. I understand this is not directly related to the wiki, however I hope that you all may assist me. I will remove this if requested by an admin.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

User:Fnafpuppetmaster/Drafts/EnWiki Unblock Request

rollingbarrels (talk) 03:14, 9 November 2020 (UTC).

Project Wiki needs a designated space for people to ask questions about navigating the disciplinary system. A buddy and I proposed one a while back, but it didn't take off. Good luck with this. Being blocked on enwiki suuuuuuuuuuuucks. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:50, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

IAB management console

Hello, I will like clarification of the usage of IAB management console to analysis a page, we have consensus here to deploy the bot and use the console to analyse a page. Basically is manually typing into the console the page we want to archive and then the bot will run to add the sources link to the internet archive site and a link to the archive will be added to the page. This is to prevent linkrot. I will like to clarify the usage of this function as there is bot editing (but using our usernames to be published). To be clear, I had did some of these edits and will like to clarify is it ok before going on further. This is semi-automated (something like reFill, enter a page and it will run). First of all, is it okay to run the bot to analyse a single page here on simple? If no, sorry for making the mistake. If yes, what will the frequency be, in zhwp the guidelines is no more than 5 / min, what shall be the rate here? Thanks much. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 11:58, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

The FAQ of the bot on meta seems to support such use. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 12:46, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

It isn't technically you running the bot so it isn't an issue. You are just requesting an approved bot to do it. You aren't actually the one running it so to speak. -Djsasso (talk) 22:31, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Djsasso for the clarification. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 13:44, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-46

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes

• You can see reference previews. This shows a preview of the footnote when you hover over it. This has been a beta feature. It will move out of beta and be enabled by default. There will be an option not to use it. The developers are looking for small or medium-sized wikis to be the first ones. You can let them know if your wiki is interested. [1]
• From November 16 the categories will not be sorted in order for a short time. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the internationalisation library. They will use a script to fix the existing categories. This can take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [2][3]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:50, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Simple Stub Project#Singer-stub

Hello everyone, I request you to give your opinion on the creation of new stub. --Saroj Uprety (talk) 16:00, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Corpora Size

Good afternoon! Can you tell me the size (number of documents or pages) of the Simple_Wikipedia Corpora? As a study essay, I must build a searcher engine, and I was told to chose a big set of corpus to test it. I chose Wikipedia for the variety of subjects, of course.

Thank you!

Julio Bruce julio_bruce@hotmail.com

You can see the statistics for Simple English Wikipedia at Special:Statistics. -Djsasso (talk) 17:01, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Confirmed user

Is there a "Confirmed" user right or a way to be manually autoconfirmed so that I don't need to keep filling out captcha requests after I try to submit edits. Because I want to keep editing but I have to wait another 4 days before I get autoconfimed. I have 1900 edits on en.Wiki. Thanks, Terasail^[Talk] 18:14, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

There is Wikipedia:Confirmed users, needs a crat to grant, WP:AN will be better but here seems okay too as we are so small @Terasail:Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 18:18, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

 (change conflict) @Terasail: According to this and this page we do. I'm not sure whether an admin can grant it or if it needs to be a crat. --IWI (talk) 18:19, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Needs a crat, see my latest edit to the info page. :) Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 18:20, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

@Camouflaged Mirage and ImprovedWikiImprovment: Thanks, I just posted a request on WP:AN aswell. Terasail^[Talk] 18:28, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

As I posted on the other page we don't typically give that out as we consider editing there somewhat separate from editing here. -Djsasso (talk) 20:04, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Hakodate

• How can I put in the Wikimedia Commons link, in the other websites section. It doesn't seem to be working for me --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 20:57, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

  Done. Just copy paste en version? CM-Public (talk) 21:28, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

That never came up to me. Thank you for fixing it! --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 21:29, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

No issues, happy to help as always CM-Public (talk) 21:31, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Special:CNReporter

What is the point of the special page Special:CNReporter? It's just a special page that blanks your screen. --FdPATgg 😃 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 05:51, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

• See this Explantion on PHAB --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:45, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Most viewed articles

Is there a way to review the most viewed articles? I found this when I looked in the archives, but it appears to not be working right now. DoSazunielle (talk) 21:14, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

@DoSazunielle: There is a tool named pageviews which shows the top viewed articles.-Jinoy Tom Jacob (talk) 18:19, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Moving Yahadut HaTorah HaMeuhedet to United Torah Judaism

This party does not use the name the page uses. It uses a different name in English, which is United Torah Judaism. MatryoshkaNL (talk) 20:03, 15 November 2020 (UTC) (I do not use Simple English Wikipedia, sorry if this is not fully inSimple English)

Doesn't matter, mot of us understand regular English. I will move the page, if you can provide a reference (reliable source) for the English name...--Eptalon (talk) 20:06, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Moved the page to its new name--Eptalon (talk) 21:45, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-47

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• Listings on category pages are sorted on each wiki for that language using a library. For a brief period on 16 November, changes to categories will not be sorted correctly for most languages. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the library. They will then use a script to fix the existing categories. This will take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [4][5]

Changes later this week

• If you merged two pages in a namespace where pages can't redirect this used to break the merge history. This will now be fixed. [6]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 November. It will be on all wikis from 19 November (calendar).

Future changes

• The Community Wishlist Survey is now open for proposals. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals from 16 to 30 November. You can vote on proposals from 8 December to 21 December.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:37, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

The Future of SEWP

Hi. After browsing through the list of Admins, I see we only have 18 admins, and a few of them are inactive, so that leaves with an actual total of about 15 admins. Most of the 15 admins, are fairly active, some semi-active, but not inactive. We won't have the same 15 admins forever, and there might come a time where we run out of a sufficient amount of Admins, due to the lack of size of Editors here. If we do come to a point where this happens, what steps are we going to take? What actions will be carried out? Will the stewards act as temporary Bureaucrats and Admins? I invite everyone to start planning now, so if this does happen in the future, we can refer to this plan we make today. --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:31, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

I am not sure if there is a point in making plans here. Global sysops/rollbackers and stewards can step in if this wiki doesn't have a large enough community to handle abuse, as with most other small wikis. Chenzw  Talk  02:28, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Would the wiki shut down, if there was a lack of active users (admins) here for a extended period of time? --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 02:30, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Not necessarily. There are plenty of other wikis with very few active users. Chenzw  Talk  02:32, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Is that when Abuse Filter can start giving out blocks? --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 02:36, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Abuse Filter can start giving up blocks anytime, there just need community consensus to allow admins to activate the block feature. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 08:50, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
So far, some abuse filters prevent a user from performing an action; in some cases, they throttle the speed, at which pages can be created/changed. To my knolwedge, there's currently no abuse filter which blocks the user. As to the number of admins: There are several smaller wikis, which do not have their own admins. In this case, "global sysops" or stewards handle the requests that admins usually handle. As to the number of admins: Note that we require some level of activity from our admins; accounts which do not have this level of activity will get their flag removed. I have to say though: In the time I am around, we never had the problem of running out of admins. --Eptalon (talk) 09:01, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@Eptalon Our abuse filter here on simple doesn't have the function of blocking, in some other projects, after community assent, the filter can be configured to allow blocking. In projects like meta, we blocks some spambots via abuse filters and some LTAs too. If there is consensus here, we can turn the featue on. The rate of false positive isn't that high but to be honest, I don't think simple needs a blocking abuse filter yet. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 09:55, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

What do we do with all these geo stub pages?

We have a bunch of location pages that have "X is a Y in Z" format, and that's kinda sad, so I have an idea: attribute and simplify from en.wiki. I suggest doing this for these pages as they really have nothing on them, aside from a sentence, maybe an image and a stub. Thanks, Derpdart56 (talk) 15:27, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

The general consensus is that such places are notable. Look at Arab, Alabama (just a random pick): About 7-7.5k population, in what looks like the rural United States. What can you say about such a place (thats not in the article yet)? - Even if I were born there, and had lived there all my life, there's probably not much to add. Canaan, Connecticut has about 1.500 people (also random pick). So where can we add something? - The idea is not to "get them all", but to get reasonable articles with room for improvement. US cities with a population in the hundreds, or perhaps low thousands are likely not what you can use to write long articles about. --Eptalon (talk) 18:03, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes even cities that size can have lots written about them. And yes those articles should be expanded. But they are notable and perfectly acceptable to be there in their current form as Wikipedia has no deadline for when that expansion has to occur. -Djsasso (talk) 13:06, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Delete Arthur Page

Can someone delete the Tropical Storm Arthur page? I accidentally moved something there and now it is blank. CodingCyclone (talk) 22:18, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@CodingCyclone: Actually, that looks like it would be a good disambiguation page. What if we just change it to one of those? --Auntof6 (talk) 03:16, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

@Auntof6: Done! CodingCyclone (talk) 04:35, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

@CodingCyclone: Um, no, it wasn't, but I just changed it to a dismbiguation page. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:45, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

@Auntof6: Sorry, I'm new to all of this. Thank you! CodingCyclone (talk) 18:46, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Is Hong Kong a city-state?

This one IP keeps referring to it as such and I don't know anymore.Derpdart56 (talk) 15:28, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Technically it has special status within China. It sounds like a NPOV issue. --IWI (talk) 15:38, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

No will be the answer, it is a special autonomous zone (SAR) within People Republic of China (PRC), city yes, state no, autonomous zone yes. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 15:54, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

As far as I can tell the only other Zone with that status is Macao. It used to be a dependency of Portugual (Hong Kong was of the UK). So, yes, it probably has some autonomy. If that autonomy is different from another Chinesec city about the same size is another matter.--Eptalon (talk) 17:53, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

QD tagging of new articles

I know that Twinkle has saved everyone a lot of time and effort when QD tagging articles, however it has led to some ridiculous situations such as at here: User talk:90.224.198.255. While editors may wish to do so, it is not mandatory to inform the article creator about their page being tagged.

I ask that editors please do a little bit of due diligence and use the usual vandalism warning templates where appropriate, instead of blindly accepting the Twinkle defaults. Spamming {{QD-notice}} is not useful, especially so for anonymous editors who may not actually be vandalising. Note that {{QD-notice}} does not really point to supporting resources, unlike {{uw-create1}} or {{firstarticle}}. Chenzw  Talk  12:23, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Is there an option to turn this off then in TW? --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 01:02, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

@Thegooduser Untick the "notify the page creator" option on the top of the TW CSD menu when notifying deletions. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 14:02, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Arthur

Hi, I'm back. Could someone help me simplify Tropical Storm Arthur (2020) or provide a peer review? I would like to get it to Very Good Article. Thank you so much! CodingCyclone (talk) 19:24, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm whacking away at it section by section, but my native tongue is Snooty English, so I've made it simpler, but another go-over could help. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:34, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

@Darkfrog24: Thank you! CodingCyclone (talk) 18:42, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Muted

• If you were to accidentality mute yourself from emails, can media wiki, still send password resets, once you log out? --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 03:21, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

  @Thegooduser Should be able. If you mean mute is to say no one can send you emails, then it's okay. Password resets are override the muting system. (i.e. not an user email you but the system itself) Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 09:06, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

List of current senior officers in the Royal Air Force

This list copied from En will give us the same headaches as other lists have. It will get forgotten and need updating. We can control this by removing the less important sections, and limiting it to the top categories. A first step would be to delete the bottom section on Commodores, who are of less general interest. We know from experience that we cannot handle very long lists of ever-changing personnel. Air Vice-Marshalls should probably go, too. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:49, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

None of your points stand. They are all notable. I have reduced their names and appointments.— Preceding unsigned comment added by BlueD954 (talk • contribs) 2020-11-19T08:08:25 (UTC)

Aviation Concepts Technical Services, Inc.

Request for Assistance. My page was deleted, hence the page that I created was similar to Metrojet Ltd., Jet Aviation, and Execujet and they were up here at Wikipedia. Dianne Jornacion (talk) 01:50, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Hello! I can't find the logs for that page, but judging from the name, I'm guessing it was deleted for promotion. Wikipedia is not a venue for promotion, and everything must be written in an Neutral manner, and with Reliable Sources. Thank you! --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 01:53, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, a lot of companies want to make Wiki articles so they'll become better-known, but the Wikipedias only want articles about things that are already well known. Just keep being awesome and someone will write an article about you sooner or later. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:40, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey 2021

The 2021 Community Wishlist Survey is now open! This survey is the process where communities decide what the Community Tech team should work on over the next year. We encourage everyone to submit proposals until the deadline on 30 November, or comment on other proposals to help make them better. The communities will vote on the proposals between 8 December and 21 December.

The Community Tech team is focused on tools for experienced Wikimedia editors. You can write proposals in any language, and we will translate them for you. Thank you, and we look forward to seeing your proposals!

SGrabarczuk (WMF) 05:52, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Requested move

• Category:Pornographic actors → Category:Pornographic movie actors
• Category:American pornographic actors → Category:American pornographic movie actors
• Category:LGBT pornographic actors → Category:LGBT pornographic movie actors

This is a more standardized version. Enwiki also uses the same format. It will also coincide with other actors' categories. --Saroj Uprety (talk) 08:03, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

No, we should keep the most general title until numbers of entries force us to be more specific. And you should not have made the change before there were any replies. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:19, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Categories should only be extended/specialized when there are sufficiently many entries. Take the exampe of en:Mistinguett (1875-1956); she also performed at the Moulin Rouge. She had roles as an actress in over 50 movies. She also was an on-stage actress. Around 1900, she was the best-paid entertainer in the world. What do we call her episode at the Moulin-Rouge? - Remember, Can can was seen as lewd in former times - Was she a "pornographic actor"? ; There are probably other people where a similar rationale applies. In short: renaming categories needs discussion...--Eptalon (talk) 10:20, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

In fact, I kept it up for discussion. Not only some but all entries in existing categories must be moved. There will be no other form for pornographic actors except the movie. The requested name gives proper meaning and is parallel to other wikis. Saroj Uprety (talk) 15:31, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

I know it is pürobably easy to say these people starred in pornographic movies, and therefore to rename/move the category tree. But please keep in mind, that there are also Burlesque shows, where such people can become knowmn. What about Mata Hari? Esp. with Can Can, which was seen as erotic/forbidden, I don't think we should limit ourselves to movies. --Eptalon (talk) 16:01, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

But we are talking about movie actors. Category actors have only played in movies. It has no link with other shows. Let's take the example of Tom Cruise, in this article we are using 'American movie actors' instead of 'American actors'. This is because we are following a category tree. If we use such a tree, it will be easy for the readers as well. Like the mainstream actors, I don't think there are other forms of porn actors like television, stage. Saroj Uprety (talk) 04:43, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
It's not that simple, take Patrick Stewart (who plays Captain Picard, in Star Trek): He is an actor, and also plays in theatres. Similarly, I think it is wrong to limit ourselves to movies. How are we going to classify Dita Von Teese, who is a burlseque dancer? - Similarly, Bettie Page (who never starred in movies, to my knolwedge, but is credited as being among the first people to popularize bodage pictures)?--Eptalon (talk) 09:55, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

For the dancer, another category is 'American erotic dancers'. For Bettie Page, according to Enwiki, she is an 'American female adult model', not a porn actor. There is a difference in the two categories. For Patrick Stewart, there are different categories (stage, movie, voice, television). If an actor is active in various fields then we can add categories related to them. Saroj Uprety (talk) 11:15, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

I reclassified Carmen de Mairena, who was a transsexual. This leaves us with 9 pages in Category Pornographic actors. Of these 9, two are lists, and one is the generic "Pornographic movie actor" article. I don't think there's much of a difference between an erotic dancer and someone starring in a burlesque show. Men usually attend these shows because they either want to see women undress, or naked women on stage. Yes, there are probably differences in how classy the show is; if it is a pure stip show, women are usually not permitted. To my knolwedge, the Moulin Rouge also permits women to attend, as they don't perform strip shows. Anyway, if I look at the number of entries in the category, only 'American pornographic actors' is worth talking about (with currently 48 pages). Renaming this (or creating a subcategory, for 'movie actors') won't help much though; if I understand you correctly, most of them are 'movie actors'...--Eptalon (talk) 11:53, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, this is what I was talking about. Enwiki also has such articles, but they are used in the requested format. I think changing the name would definitely help as it would be easier for the readers. It will also follow the category tree and be parallel to Enwiki. Not only Americans, but others will also worth moving. If we see en:Category:Pornographic actors, en:Category:American pornographic actors and en:Category:LGBT pornographic actors, they are all empty. All the articles you mentioned are in Enwiki and listed in the above requested categories or categories suitable for them.. Saroj Uprety (talk) 12:23, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

@Eptalon Are you going to step in for the category that you thought was worth it? Saroj Uprety (talk) 04:10, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Ideally, when we rename or reorganise the categories, we should also be able to reduce the number of entries (from currently almost 50, for the 'American pornographic actors'). With the category system, we should be able to map the following cases:

• People doing erotic photography / 'pin ups' /'playmates'...
• People starring in 'Burlesque shows', people active as a naked/erotic performer in a revue (for example as part of a 'tableau vivant')
• People active in pornographic movies

Note that theatre actors which happen to do a scene where they are naked, or regular movies, with a sex scene are different, and outside this classification. So what is the way forward?--Eptalon (talk) 09:39, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

We can proceed by looking at the classification of English Wikipedia. Saroj Uprety (talk) 09:49, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-48

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• Timestamps in Special:Log are now links. They go to Special:Log for only that entry. This is how timestamps work on for example the history page. [7]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes

• The Wikimedia Cloud VPS hosts technical projects for the Wikimedia movement. Developers need to claim projects they use. This is because old and unused projects are removed once a year. Unclaimed projects can be shut down from 1 December. Unclaimed projects can be deleted from 1 January. [8]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:19, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Global bot policy proposal: invitation to a Meta discussion

Hello!

I apologize for sending a message in English. Please help translate to your language. According to the list, your wiki project currently is opted in to the global bot policy. Under this policy, bots that fix double redirects or maintain interwiki links are allowed to operate under a global bot flag that is assigned directly by the stewards.

As the Wikimedia projects developed, the need for the current global bot policy decreased, and in the past years, no bots were appointed via that policy. That is mainly given Wikidata were estabilished in 2013, and it is no longer necessary to have dozens of bots that maintain interwiki links.

A proposal was made at Meta-Wiki, which proposes that the stewards will be authorized to determine whether an uncontroversial task may be assigned a global bot flag. The stewards already assign permissions that are more impactful on many wikis, namely, global sysops and global renamers, and I do not think that trust should be an issue. The stewards will assign the permission only to time-proven bots that are already approved at a number of projects, like ListeriaBot.

By this message, I would like to invite you to comment in the global RFC, to voice your opinion about this matter.

Thank you for your time.

Best regards,
Martin Urbanec (talk) 11:49, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Error

The link in my userpage's userpage disclaimer notice, leads to my EN wiki userpage, and not here. How can it be fixed? --つがる Let's Talk! :) 🍁 03:36, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

 Fixed Saroj Uprety (talk) 03:45, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, the link displayed, seems wrong, but it does lead to the right place though... --つがる Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:46, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Arkzin

I'd welcome your views on this page. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:12, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

I think it needs simplification. I just did some work on the opener. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:46, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Repeated Vandalism

User:Timothy29694 has been repeatedly vandalizing the page Apple. Can someone block him from editing, as he has been starting to slowly get aggressive whenever I revert his vandalism/give him a warning. ShadowBallX2 (talk) 23:36, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

• Update: Thank you to User:Chenzw for blocking him, as he was starting to get annoying to deal with. ShadowBallX2 (talk) 23:37, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

ShadowBallX2, You should report to Here in the future. Thanks --つがる Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:21, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

つがる I didn't realize that existed. Thanks for letting me know for next time. ShadowBallX2 (talk) 02:13, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Happy to help :) --つがる Let's Talk! :) 🍁 02:14, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Special:UnwatchedPages

• I propose a that a new userright be made for non-Admins to see the pages at Special:UnwatchedPages. Mainly to help combat vandalism, and spam on pages listed there.

Here could be the requirements for the user right:

Users must be 'Extended Confirmed' although it doesn't exist there, it would be 30 days old and 500 edits on an account

Users blocked on any other projects, will not be able to obtain this user right (unless they are unblocked on any other project(s) they are blocked on first)

Users must show understanding in identifying Vandalism, Spam, etc

Users must have rollback

Users must not have been recently blocked in the past 90 days

Users must be registered and not an IP (obviously)

Users must be active in WP:VIP, etc

Users must be active in community discussions, etc

• Having the Unwatched pages restricted to admins only, makes it harder for regular users to patrol changes for vandalism, etc, if they miss it on New Changes, or if it has been some time after the change has been made, and is gone from Recent Changes. I know it's important why this page is restricted, but I would like everyone's thoughts on this. This would make it easier for non-admins to fight vandalism and spam. --つがる Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:29, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
  • That special page is not designed to assist in anti-vandalism operations. With 170000+ articles on this wiki, it is expected that a huge majority of those articles are not on anyone's watchlist. You would not be able to do any proper patrolling by referring to Special:UnwatchedPages. In either case, the output of that special page has a limit of 5000 pages. Chenzw  Talk  00:40, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Doesn't the watchlist have contribution quality filters? --つがる Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:41, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but Special:Unwatchedpages does not. I hope you are not suggesting that you want to take it upon yourself to add 100,000+ articles to your watchlist. Chenzw  Talk  00:49, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

No, I am not trying to state that. Just a suggestion I have, definitely not trying to hat collect or anything like that. I don't see that page, so I don't/didn't know it puts those pages on your watchlist. I thought they are separate, from your own watchlist. Again, I've never seen that page, so I don't know it doesn't have the filters. This was just a friendly suggestion, and it was not meant to cause any disruption. --つがる Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:54, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

This proposal can be scrapped, seeing that the page has no filters. --つがる Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:55, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

No, that special page does not add anything to your own watchlist automatically, and I didn't say anything to that effect. That special page is a list of pages that is not on any user's watchlist, and is limited to 5000 entries. Chenzw  Talk  00:57, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Question about a recent QD

I saw the article The America, which was an exact copy/paste of Google Maps. I nominated for QD under A3, as I didn't know what to tag it. I want to know what QD tag I should have used. ShadowBallX2 (talk) 20:51, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Update: He keeps making these types of pages (The Russia and The Britain). I would recommend a block of the IP. ShadowBallX2 (talk) 20:55, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

@ShadowBallX2: I think the copy/paste tag was fine. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:12, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Wikidata descriptions changes to be included more often in Recent Changes and Watchlist

Sorry for sending this message in English. Translations are available on this page. Feel free to translate it in more languages!

As you may know, you can include changes coming from Wikidata in your Watchlist and Recent Changes (in your preferences). Until now, this feature didn’t always include changes made on Wikidata descriptions due to the way Wikidata tracks the data used in a given article.

Starting on December 3rd, the Watchlist and Recent Changes will include changes on the descriptions of Wikidata Items that are used in the pages that you watch. This will only include descriptions in the language of your wiki to make sure that you’re only seeing changes that are relevant to your wiki.

This improvement was requested by many users from different projects. We hope that it can help you monitor the changes on Wikidata descriptions that affect your wiki and participate in the effort of improving the data quality on Wikidata for all Wikimedia wikis and beyond.

Note: if you didn’t use the Wikidata watchlist integration feature for a long time, feel free to give it another chance! The feature has been improved since the beginning and the content it displays is more precise and useful than at the beginning of the feature in 2015.

If you encounter any issue or want to provide feedback, feel free to use this Phabricator ticket. Thanks!

Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 14:39, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-49

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 December. It will be on all wikis from 3 December (calendar).

Future changes

• The iOS Wikipedia app will show readers more of the article history. They can see new updates and easier see how the article has changed over time. This is an experiment. It will first be shown only to some iOS app users as a test. [9][10]
• The Wiki Replicas can be used for SQL queries. You can use Quarry, PAWS or other ways to do this. To make the Wiki Replicas stable there will be two changes. Cross-database JOINS will no longer work. You can also only query a database if you connect to it directly. This will happen in February 2021. If you think this affects you and you need help you can post on Phabricator or on Wikitech. [11]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:44, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Geisha

I'm sorry, but our page Geisha can not be a very good page. It is far too complex in its language. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I have a question...

So do we just take articles from the English Wikipedia and simplify it?LiteralOrder (talk) 19:17, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

That's one option; the other (usually better option) is to start with a stub in simple language, and extend as needed.--Eptalon (talk) 20:01, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Alright. LiteralOrder (talk) 20:15, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

• I did smile at the "just" in the above! Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:05, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Purple Links

• Is there a script that prevents links from turning purple when you click on it? It drives me nuts when the link turns purple --つがる Let's Talk! :) 🍁 02:15, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
  • @つがる: To change link colors in your account, you can create this page: Special:MyPage/skin.css. You can then change the colors of unclicked links, clicked links (visited), links being clicked (active), links your cursor is over (hover), interwiki, and external links. For example, see this one: en:User:Naddruf/vector.css, which you can copy. In your case, you might only want to adjust the color of visited and active, so you can delete all the other lines. rgb(6,69,173) is the default color for unclicked links on Wikipedia (dark blue). For more info see en:Help:Link color. Naddruf (talk) 02:59, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Request For Redirect Change

Hello. As I am unsure how to change redirects, I want to request changing the redirect of Football League First Division from EFL Championship to Football League First Division (1888-2004). Thanks, and have a great day. ShadowBallX (talk) 03:44, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

 Done Saroj Uprety (talk) 03:56, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

2020 Coolest Tool Award Ceremony on December 11th

Hello all,

The ceremony of the 2020 Wikimedia Coolest Tool Award will take place virtually on Friday, December 11th, at 17:00 GMT. This award is highlighting tools that have been nominated by contributors to the Wikimedia projects, and the ceremony will be a nice moment to show appreciation to the tools developers and maybe discover new tools!

You will find more information here about the livestream and the discussions channels. Thanks for your attention, Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 10:55, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-50

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• You can now put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time. Some wikis already had this function. [12][13]

Changes later this week

• Information from Wikidata that is used on a wiki page can be shown in recent changes and watchlists on a Wikimedia wiki. To see this you need to turn on showing Wikidata edits in your watchlist in the preferences. Changes to the Wikidata description in the language of a Wikimedia wiki will then be shown in recent changes and watchlists. This will not show edits to languages that are not relevant to your wiki. [14][15]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 December. It will be on all wikis from 10 December (calendar).

Future changes

• You can vote on proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey between 8 December and 21 December. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:14, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Atom

Just wondering, when I go on a page, sometimes is shows the word Atom on the side When I clicked it, it seemed to be broken. Just wondering what is this. LiteralOrder - TALK 18:02, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

nostalgia.wikipedia.org

Does this Wikipedia actually work? --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 02:45, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Just logging onto the site, the main page hasn't been edited in over 15 years, with the main page thinking it is still December 2001. ShadowBallX (talk) 21:17, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

It's just a preservation of a very early version of enwiki for nostalgia purposes. You can't edit it to my knowledge. --IWI (talk) 20:37, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey 2021

We invite all registered users to vote on the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey. You can vote from now until 21 December for as many different wishes as you want.

In the Survey, wishes for new and improved tools for experienced editors are collected. After the voting, we will do our best to grant your wishes. We will start with the most popular ones.

We, the Community Tech, are one of the Wikimedia Foundation teams. We create and improve editing and wiki moderation tools. What we work on is decided based on results of the Community Wishlist Survey. Once a year, you can submit wishes. After two weeks, you can vote on the ones that you're most interested in. Next, we choose wishes from the survey to work on. Some of the wishes may be granted by volunteer developers or other teams.

We are waiting for your votes. Thank you!

SGrabarczuk (WMF)

15:03, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Current Muslim calipha

Hey Wiki,

   I and all Muslims Umma are very dipressed about your this article about mirza masroor is the current Calipha of Muslims. This is totally wrong information Mirza Masroor isn't a Muslim, He is a non Muslim (Kaffir) how can be he's the calipha of Muslims. Tottaly wrong article that is.. We Muslims strongly Condemn that. Please delete this article and make a warning to the publisher that don't spread fake and incorrect information.

I'm sharing the link of the article. Please remove it from your page.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadiyya_Caliphate#:~:text=The%205th%20and%20current%20caliph,with%20the%20creation%20of%20Pakistan. Waqas Bin Iqbal (talk) 01:06, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Quick comment: I pointed out that this wasn't our Wiki the article was on, and where to request changes (as the article seems to be protected, on enwp). I did this on the editor's talk page.--Eptalon (talk) 02:07, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Your post looks appropriate to me, Eptalon. Good luck, WBI. Darkfrog24 (talk) 06:07, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Proposed Deletion Policy Changes

Hi everyone. There is a proposal to add new quick deletion criteria at Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy. Any input is appreciated. rollingbarrels (talk) 23:17, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-51

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• There is a Wikipedia app for KaiOS phones. It was released in India in September. It can now be downloaded in other countries too. [16]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 December. It will be on all wikis from 17 December (calendar).

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

21:34, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Language links

It used to be perspicuous on how to add links to equivalent articles in other Wikipedias, but a few years ago things got changed. I have no idea how to do it now. If it can't be changed back to something simple, could someone at least explain to me how to do it. Kdammers (talk) 04:05, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

@Kdammers: Those links are now kept in Wikidata. Maybe this write-up I did a while back will help: User:Auntof6/How to#Interwiki language links for new pages. It explains how to connect a page here with an existing entry in Wikidata. Let me know if the instructions aren't clear, so I can improve them. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:54, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Hyperlink

How do you put hyperlinks to a specific heading like if you put a hyperlink about bulls, it will put as bulls. But I can't seem to put it to a specific point on the page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Beat Saber (talk • contribs)

@Beat Saber,You'd put a # after the page you want to go to,followed by the section, such as Bulls#Habitat. rollingbarrels (talk) 18:32, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Why are there so many Wiktionary links?

I noticed that in Simple English pages, especially project pages, there are a very large amount of links to Wiktionary, and I would like to ask why there are so many of them. JJP...MASTER! _{[talk to]JJP... master?} 02:19, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

@JJPMaster: Sometimes I think it's because that's easier than trying to figure out how to say the word/term in simple language. I don't like them, and I try to replace them when I see them. --Auntof6 (talk) 12:51, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

We use them for words that are complex that can't necessarily be said in a more simple way. There are times they are probably over used but in general they are encouraged to be used here. -Djsasso (talk) 12:02, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

If we stuck to simple vocabulary there would be no need for Wiktionary links. Bobo. 12:25, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

In most articles that is true but in some scientific or technical articles for example there are no simple terms for the concepts the article is trying to get across and as such a more complex word is required, it is in those situations we encourage linking to wiktionary. -Djsasso (talk) 12:47, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

As I've said below, this shouldn't be necessary if we were using simple vocabulary. Bobo. 13:01, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Most of the Wiktionary links I've ever seen haven't been to scientific terms - even on en.wiki. Bobo. 12:49, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't necessarily mean scientific terms as much as scientific topics. Science is very precise and sometimes switching to a simple word/phrase even though one for one the simple word might mean the same as the complex word it can change the meaning of a sentence to not be as precise as it needs to be and thus making what is being said wrong. That can be the case in other non-science topics as well. It is just easier to describe it when speaking about scientific topics because most people understand how specific science is. By all means they should be avoided where possible, but sometimes it is simply not possible is all I was really trying to get across. -Djsasso (talk) 13:05, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Scientific terms are a strange animal, because of course there will be no way, in some cases, that we can define complex terms in a non-complex way. Thankfully, with most other terms, this will be easier. Bobo. 13:13, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-52

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News

• Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 11 January 2021.

Recent changes

• The {{citation needed}} template shows when a statement in a Wikipedia article needs a source. If you click on it when you edit with the visual editor there is a popup that explains this. Now it can also show the reason and when it was added. [17]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week or next week.

Future changes

• You can propose and discuss what technical improvements should be done for geographic information. This could be coordinates, maps or other related things.
• Some wikis use LanguageConverter to switch between writing systems or variants of a language. This can only be done for the entire page. There will be a <langconvert> tag that can convert a piece of text on a page. [18]
• Oversighters and stewards can hide entries in Special:AbuseLog. They can soon hide multiple entries at once using checkboxes. This works like hiding normal edits. It will happen in early January. [19]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

20:53, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

What region do we use for titles (for example, of video games)?

I've been looking at video game pages recently and I've noticed some of them are rather inconsistent with which title they use. Mario Smash Football (Super Mario Strikers in NTSC regions) uses the PAL name of the game, but Mario Strikers Charged uses the NTSC name. Which name should we be using for article titles (where applicable), NTSC or PAL? Tymewalk (talk) 01:57, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Generally the name a game is most known by per WP:COMMONNAME. Otherwise a good rule of thumb is to use what English Wikipedia uses. More often than not what you will likely find is they are named the way they are named where the original author was from. -Djsasso (talk) 04:02, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Looking for input

Hi folks,

I'm just looking for some input over at Talk:Maudud Ahmed regarding the name of the page. If you've got any knowledge of the subject or have any ideas, please share.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 04:10, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Proposal: Shorten the link Give to Wikipedia to Give on the sidebar

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

On the English Wikipedia, the sidebar just says Donate. I think we should shorten the link on the sidebar to match English Wikipedia as well.

Support

Support as proposer. Interstellarity (talk) 13:37, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Oppose

Oppose Then the readers won't know what the 'Give' button is until they click on it --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 22:01, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Oppose I think "Give to Wikipedia" is easier to understand than "Give" by itself. Our target audience might not already know it's a donate button. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:47, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Oppose Give is much easier to understand than Donate. Donate seems very complex concept. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 16:33, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Oppose "Give" doesn't really mean much on its own and has various meanings. The "to Wikipedia" part is needed for context. This is different for the word "donate", which can work on its own, but that word is too complex. --IWI (talk) 23:59, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose Too ambiguous. One of the things about Simple English is that to replace a complex word we often have to use more words. That is just one of the facts about writing more simply. -Djsasso (talk) 12:55, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - Give is a common English verb, with many meanings; there are many phrasal verbs where give is a part of the construct. Also, I can use it figuratively: If I don't give a damn, I am not actuually giving anything to anyone. In the case above, the benefit of shortening doesn't outweight the drawback (ambiguitty, etc).--Eptalon (talk) 15:08, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Discuss

@つがる, Darkfrog24, and Camouflaged Mirage: Do you think the Donate link on the English Wikipedia is OK instead of Donate to Wikipedia? The sidebar formerly said that, but was changed by community consensus to just Donate. How is this different in the Simple English Wikipedia? Interstellarity (talk) 19:40, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

@Interstellarity: The difference as stated above is the word "give" has many meanings but "donate" has a clear meaning on its own. The context is needed to explain what is meant by "give". We can't use donate as that word is complex. --IWI (talk) 00:01, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I think "Give to Wikipedia" is the Simple English translation of "Donate." Regular English is a more concise language than Simple English. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:12, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Donate is a very complex term, hence, it can compass the entire meaning. Give itself is simple, so we need to either change our give to donate if we want 1 term but then give is simple, and donate is complex. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 11:10, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

@ImprovedWikiImprovment, Darkfrog24, and Camouflaged Mirage: I understand your points. If I made a proposal to change the link to just Donate, would you support it or do you think the current link in Simple English terms is OK? Interstellarity (talk) 13:32, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I think it is more important for us to write for our own audience than it is to match the Regular English Wikipedia. "Give to Wikipedia" is better than "Donate" for that audience. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:59, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

As stated, "donate" is a complex word that we should not use. --IWI (talk) 19:29, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree with the last two comments. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:24, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

I say this in a gentle way and not meant to be an attack in any way, but you have come here making a number of suggestions that are in the form of this is how English Wikipedia does it so you should to, but you fail to understand we are a completely different wiki with a completely different audience. I think you really need to start editing here and get to know the wiki before you make any more suggestions on how we change our interface to be more like English Wikipedia. What works for English Wikipedia doesn't necessarily work here. -Djsasso (talk) 12:53, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

I withdraw the nom. There is clearly a consensus against this move. Interstellarity (talk) 15:46, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not change it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No more changes should be made to this discussion.

Do you know: 1-2 releases this year?

Hello, One queue for the Do you know nominations is almost full, and we probably have enough hooks to fill another one. So, what do you think to have one "release" shortly before Christmas (read: December 22, or 23), and another, a week later, around new year?

As always, feel free ot nominate interesting hooks if you find them...--Eptalon (talk) 01:51, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

I am still of the opinion we need to build up a back log of a number of queues like we used to have so that when we are in the slow times we have enough to tide us over so we don't wait a very long time between changing. We should probably have 3 in the backlog ready to go before we think about changing the ones we have. That way if we go to the once a month or once every other month change that was suggested in a recent discussion on this then we always have one ready. And in the month or two between changes we can build up enough hopefully to replace the one we used. And if we don't we already have one in the queue to use. This changing as soon as we have one full one is the reason we end up having to go 6 months sometimes between changing. If we could be disciplined enough not to change more often than once a month (or ideally every other month) for now we could get in a groove of creating hooks where we then could eventually speed it up. But if we constantly keep changing them the minute we have a full queue then we are always going to hit slow periods where they can't be changed. -Djsasso (talk) 12:07, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm looking for a more specific way to contribute. I'd be interested in working this, but heads up: total neophyte. Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:11, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

To all Wikipedians, I wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year. I hope you had lots of presents and are having a massively great time with the people in your bubbles. It’s been a hard and arduous year for all of us, and finally we can enjoy Christmas, the most special time of year. I wish you a hopeful Christmas, I wish you a brave new year. All anguish, pain and sadness leave your heart and let your road be clear. They said there’ll be snow at Christmas, they said there’ll be peace on Earth. The Christmas we get we deserve. Merry Christmas, everybody. 80.225.166.139 (talk) 09:07, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, anonymous editor; the same to you. If you think you can add to this wikipedia about a subject that interests you, please do. --Eptalon (talk) 12:23, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn’t do that because all I want to do is wish you a merry Christmas. Good day. 80.225.166.139 (talk) 12:57, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Same to you. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:19, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Merry christmas, all. --IWI (talk) 02:19, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

A present for the Wikipedians

Congratulations: You have been given a Veteran Editor Barnstar! For helping protect Wikipedia and being good this year.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year. 80.225.166.139 (talk) 16:38, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Merry Christmas to you too. :) Belwine • 💬 • 📜 17:11, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Looking for input on name of Uranos

Hi all. (Posting in simple talk seemed to work for Gordon so I'm going to post here for this too.) If you know anything about the God Uranos/Uranus/Ouranos and, mainly, his name, please post at this talk page. The naming on this page is very strange. Many thanks. Belwine • 💬 • 📜 21:11, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Ramen

On mobile view, short description below the tile says "CHINESE noodle soup" this seems to be incorrect. How can I fix this? --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 01:43, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi,  Done! :) This was due to vandalism on Wikidata. --Saroj Uprety (talk) 02:06, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! Can you point me to that page, so in the future, I know how to change the titles, if something similar occurs, thanks!! --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 02:28, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Here it is! d:Q234646 --Saroj Uprety (talk) 05:44, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Should we make new articles for lists of appearances of video game characters?

On articles like Mario, Wario, and Waluigi, there are big lists of games (and sometimes other media) these characters have appeared in. Should we split these off completely into their own articles (i.e List of video games featuring Mario, List of video games featuring Wario, etc.)? I don't want to just remove them, but they can get pretty unwieldy and outdated fast. (Donkey Kong, for example, is missing most of the Donkey Kong series and only goes up to 2009.) Tymewalk (talk) 06:52, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Instances of Template:Pie chart are broken

See Soil#What soil is made of, Template:Pie_chart#How it works, and Template:Pie_chart#Example. All of them are broken. Instead of displaying the proper amount of area for each label, it shows up as 1/4 sections of the pie chart. This doesn't seem to be a browser-specific or operating system-specific issue, as other users have confirmed it to me. Fehufanga (talk) 06:56, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

• Can confirm. Broken on Firefox 84 and Chrome 87 on Windows 10. Tymewalk (talk) 07:02, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Fixed, the {{Pie chart/slice}} template was relying on the "transborder" CSS class, but that class isn't anywhere in MediaWiki:Common.css (only seems to remain on meta, now). Added explicit style directives instead. Chenzw  Talk  12:34, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. Looks like this template could be used a bit more in articles, especially pages about demographics. Fehufanga (talk) 13:27, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Unexplained abbreviation

Simple English Wikipedia is supposed to be simple and use, to the extent feasible, simple vocabulary. But when unexplained abbreviations are used, this makes understanding difficult -- even for people fluent in English. One example that needs correcting is "IP." This unexplained abbreviation is used on the statistics page of the page histories. I suppose it means "initial poster," that is, the person who created the article under discussion. If that is right, then it should be so indicated at first use. Kdammers (talk) 11:55, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm not at all sure that "IP" refers to "Initial Poster" (for which the familiar term in internet settings is "OP" (original poster). In Wikipedia there's a concept of "page creator" - and IP would be the IP address. So I too want a clarification. -- Deborahjay (talk) 13:59, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm almost certain that it is IP address. Also it's worth noting that this site, xtools, is for all wikis, not just the Simple English one. See here for a page I edited earlier, no IP address edits have been made on this page, and it says 0 IP edits. Belwine • 💬 • 📜 14:11, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

IP refers to the IP address that is displayed when users edit anonymously, not initial poster. --IWI (talk) 21:14, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Partials blocks

Just to check is this enabled here? If not for such situations having this tool will be useful to prevent abuse while not being overtly protective of a page. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 13:08, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

I know there are some sort of discussion (but not on this topic but rather, tangentially) at Wikipedia:Simple_talk/Archive_126#Partial_Blocks_are_now_available_on_five_different_language_wikipedias which I also opposed the usage then. But given more and more RFDs suffer from such issues, and at times it's just 1-2 IPs, I am seeing a use case now that can avoid us from protecting every single RFD page and if we fully block them, they can't participate in RFD. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 13:13, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

I assume they're enabled because I see the option when I block someone. It has options to block specific pages and/or namespaces. I haven't tried to do a partial block, though. --Auntof6 (talk) 13:53, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I have used them a few times in the past as a targeted alternative to page protection: [20][21]. Chenzw  Talk  14:00, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks @Chenzw for the confirmation. I think let's try to use partial blocks for people removing RFD templates from an page undergoing RFD for now on, as semi-protect might not be the best as there might be some IP users who want to rewrite the content to make it suitable to keep / to remove spam etc. Just my 2 cents as we have such tools and no reason not to use them, but it's still personal preference at time I know. Just to say that at times semi / full protection might not be the best IMHO. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 14:13, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Use of QD A4

This has been happening every now and then, so I think this is a good time to reiterate what QD A4 is about:

• Is about people, groups, companies, products, services or websites that do not claim to be notable. This includes any article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, product, service or web content that does not say why the subject is important. If the article says why the subject is important, the article is not eligible for A4 deletion. If not everyone agrees that the subject is not notable or there has been a previous RfD, the article may not be quickly deleted, and should be discussed at RfD instead.

Please note what the deletion criterion says (emphasis mine): "If the article says why the subject is important, the article is not eligible for A4 deletion". QD A4 is not a mechanism for the nominating editor to say "the subject of this article is not notable". Determination of whether something is notable or not lies exclusively at RfD. I have also previously written a mini-essay about A4 here. --Chenzw  Talk  13:11, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

• This is quick deletion, so we need a pragmatic solution: If there is an article, and I suspect the person (..) is not notable/shouldn't be in this Wikipedia, I should be able to determine this within a few minutes; Things that indsicate this may not be the case: The references linked/other websites of the article mostly point to social media sites; When searching for the title on google, there are no relevant hits in about the first two pages of search results; there is a Wikipedia article in the searchresults, before there are real content (not social media) hits (always within the first two pages or so). So we do need a QD criterion to cover such cases (currently, mostly handled by A4). Note also for an article with sources, it should be possible to determine eligibility, without looking at the sources in detail: So: I have some person, there are two links to what look like newspaper articles, therefore, the person is likely notable. --Eptalon (talk) 14:41, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
  • The bottom-line is that we cannot use A4 to justify such cases where we suspect the person is not notable. If the article claims that the subject is notable, and that claim is credible (per EN definition), then our current policy only permits discussion on RfD, not a summary deletion via QD. If there were sufficient editor resources I would have suggested a PROD-like system, but that's not exactly possible over here. Chenzw  Talk  15:38, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
    • I agree that A4 should not be used for such cases in its current form. It is clear however that some users circumvent this fact in order to get a free one week advertisement that will show up in google while we discuss it. A solution in my view should be made to prevent this, although I am not sure what that should be. --IWI (talk) 15:44, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
      • Something I had in my mind for very long, but often I forgotten when I was onwiki (I think about wiki sometimes in real life), why not to address the concern IWI have, we __NOINDEX__ all RFD articles. This will ensure we keep these spammy but with some claims of notablity articles at RFD with 1 week to discuss, while at the same time we deny them free promotion. An alternative is to do what en does, those non partrolled articles will not be indexed, where here it still could. QD/RFD articles should never be marked as patrolled in anyway.Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 16:08, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
        • I agree, QD A4 is often misused, but often for the right reasons as pointed out by Eptalon and IWI. I also think we need a practical solution. Using NOINDEX as suggested above, could be a start, but it still leaves us with more work (going through numerous RfDs) than is desirable, especially within a small community. This may mean rewording the QD A4 criterion, for example. I think we are unlikely to lose many articles of quality based on the fact the system already allows for two users to check the article for notability before deletion (as long as it is tagged as QD A4 by a non-admin user, and not just deleted). Maybe we should reinforce this by amending the guidelines to say the articles does not appear to be notable enough for inclusion on Wikipedia (and maybe if you disagree, please take it to Deletion Review, etc, etc.). I also suggest adding that Administrators must also tag articles for A4 for another sysop to check, to make sure two editors always get to check whether it qualifies. Any doubts or disagreements would see it sent straight to RfD. --Yottie ^=talk= 17:42, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

  Going through RfD, and tagging all rfd's with noidex is only part of the solution. As poited out above, we need a QD criterion, where we can flag/delete articles that fail a basic 5-min notability check. And no, I don't want to go through RfD for each of those.--Eptalon (talk) 10:05, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

  What does this 5-min check entail, and under what circumstances do articles get their notability discussed at RfD instead? Chenzw  Talk  10:29, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

  As pointed out above, any one of: 1) First two pages of google hits are essentially social media sites 2) The first Wikipedia page google lists is before the first page of non-social media content. 3) If there are references to other websites in the article, most of them are to social media sites (or portals where people present themselves as looking for work, such as linkedin). Google search is done using the article title. --Eptalon (talk) 12:09, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

  Such a test will unfairly penalize subjects which do not have reliable sources readily available on the Internet. I am opposed to granting administrators expanded powers in summary deletion, especially in light of how frequently A4 is abused, as well as your history in prior RfDs (such as Wikipedia:Requests for deletion/Requests/2020/Alan Walker and Wikipedia:Requests for deletion/Requests/2020/Brandon Rogers (YouTuber)) where a BEFORE test and cross-referencing against the EN notability guidelines should have at least avoided a hasty claim of "questionable/no notability". Chenzw  Talk  12:24, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

  Thanks a lot for your opinion; can you propose a better test, that is doable in 5 minutes, and that has little to no false positives? - Note that we do not require English-language references. --Eptalon (talk) 12:36, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

  I do not think this is a matter for QD at all. It should go to RFD, or a PROD-like system. Chenzw  Talk  13:35, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

  Let's do PROD then. Just have the Proposed deletion page work in the same way as RfD with a shorter discussion time. --IWI (talk) 14:20, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

  Issue is what is the difference between PROD (and how exactly it works) and sending to RFD and no one comments and then an admin deletes? Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 15:55, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

  For this wiki, no difference, really, since it has more or less been tacitly accepted that those kinds of RFDs can be handled in a PROD-like manner. However, if we anticipate more PRODs in future, it would be worth moving them out of the main RFD page, to avoid clutter, and let the PROD template(s) do their magic with automatically categorizing the articles. Chenzw  Talk  17:43, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

  Our Rfd system is our prod system. It does double duty. When something is nominated and it gets no votes it gets deleted like prod on en.wiki does. Lately I have seen a couple get extended for some reason but its always been that case that we treat Rfd's that don't get any votes as Prods that can be soft-deleted. -Djsasso (talk) 13:11, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

":┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Stupid question: Suppose there's an RfD, and after the week there are no votes, then it gets deleted, by default. We don't need prod, or another ruleset. We sipmly need to adapt the RfD/Qd templates to include a noindex tag...--Eptalon (talk) 02:53, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

A4 should definitely not be extended in scope. It is already overused as it is. Far too often I have to reject A4s or undelete articles deleted under A4 that don't qualify for it. The entire reason it can't be used in the way suggested above is to protect articles on subjects where sources in English are not easily found. An article existing for a week of an Afd is not going to dramatically (or even slightly) help someone who is just trying to get a publicity jump. No one is looking at Simple Wiki articles and going wow X person is famous. They just aren't. NOINDEX isn't really necessary at all because in the length of time an Rfd is up it generally isn't going to matter, our traffic is such that being indexed for a week is very unlikely to help someone at all on the off chance that google even manages to index it in that week. -Djsasso (talk) 13:03, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

I often see simplewiki among the only google results in some spam articles. It is simply the case that they can easily end up high in google. NOINDEX is a good idea. --IWI (talk) 13:35, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong I have no problem adding NOINDEX. I just don't see that it really makes a difference because being in google results for a couple days isn't really going to help anyone because someone would almost definitely have to already be looking for that person on google to find it. -Djsasso (talk) 13:45, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps it would remove the motive and reduce spam? --IWI (talk) 19:28, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Shall we implement the _NOINDEX_ now as this discussion is very stale and this seems to be the only solution with consensus. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 18:33, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

​​​​@Camouflaged Mirage: I added the NOINDEX to the RfD template, but I believe it is disabled in article space per the doc page of template:NOINDEX. I'm not sure who can enable it, but I will ping the crats to see if they can provide an explanation. --IWI (talk) 19:13, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Actually, this may be a WMF issue. --IWI (talk) 20:30, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
The template documentation at EN states the following: This template should not be used in articles. If an article is bad enough that search engines shouldn't index it, it should be nominated for deletion. Now that I look at it, this pretty much aligns with Djsasso's comment above. I am not opposed to adding NOINDEX to articles undergoing RfD, however since the current WMF-wide configuration disallows that and proposes deletion as a solution (which we are indeed doing), I don't intend to go all out to request for a change in this wiki's configuration. In the long run, having a Simple English Wikipedia article about your non-notable company is not likely to change the company's fortunes much, especially if it's only going to be visible as an article for only a week or so. Chenzw  Talk  08:54, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@ImprovedWikiImprovment It's seems to be a configuration change per @Chenzw suggested. We as a wiki can decide to NOINDEX (activate the tag) on article namespace. It doesn't seem that this is prohibited in Limits to Configuration Changes. However, Chenzw suggestion of 1 week publicity won't hurt too much is also true. One other way I can think of is for spammy articles, we can blank the page like what we do for attack pages, but well that is controversial too as usually we encourage improving the page in RFD not blanking. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 10:54, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@Camouflaged Mirage and Chenzw: I agree that it won't hurt too much, but it seems to be the motive for why spammers circumvent the rules by allowing a 1 week advert. In my view, if you remove this motive then you may be able to reduce spam. Clearly they see some benefit for having it up for a week (and more if they create it again with different content), or they wouldn't bother circumventing the RfD process. We can't blank a page added for deletion; that goes against the whole idea of RfD and suggests that it is considered "deleted" before going through a discussion. I see no harm in adding NOINDEX though, and it is probably a good idea. --IWI (talk) 17:31, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@ImprovedWikiImprovment: I personally don't mind, but that will need a consensus here and a submission to phabricator to enable I guess. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 18:21, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@Camouflaged Mirage: It may be appropriate to start a new section below with a simple poll to see how much support such an implementation actually has. There is certainly some support for it. --IWI (talk) 18:31, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Upon realizing that the WMF has it turned off by default I would change my position and stick with the status quo, I don't think we have any reason to even try to override what they have already decided. That is not saying we can't ask to have it changed but just that we don't really have any reason that apparently hasn't already been considered. Clearly based on the message on the template, it isn't something they failed to consider when they set it that way. I wonder if maybe this is a case of us trying to make a change for a sake of a change? -Djsasso (talk) 21:47, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@Djsasso If I read you correctly, you will oppose a configuration change to NOINDEX the article space if I will to start a new thread based on @ImprovedWikiImprovment suggestion above to do so? If so I think with valid objections, devs at phab are likely to reject. I will only start a thread + send to phab if there isn's significant opposition or else there isn't really much point either if I am not wrong as controversial changes are likely to be summarily rejected. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 11:47, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I would oppose us departing from the norm for something like this. -Djsasso (talk) 16:43, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Osiris' user page

Hi all, Osiris' user page still displays adminship in the top right corner, but Osiris is no longer an admin.
Like Barras' user page was changed when his adminship and other permissions were removed, would Osiris' page be changed to reflect that Osiris is no longer an admin?
This isn't extremely important, just something I noticed whilst browsing, and something that might need changing. Belwine • 💬 • 📜 17:54, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Osiris no longer edits here, his last edit is from two years ago. --Eptalon (talk) 14:19, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but despite his inactivity, the admin icon is still shown on his user page. Belwine • 💬 • 📜 14:31, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Easy enough to fix..,. -Djsasso (talk) 16:49, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

pending change to certain vandalism templates

Certain vandalism templates should be updated; there needs to be better wording in these templates. There needs to be better words than may be blocked in these two templates. May be blocked needs to be changed to will be blocked, because may represents it is possible for certain users who violate these templates to be blocked, whereas will means it is certain the user will be blocked. I wanna be an admin sooner or later, and these templates need to have better wording. Angela Kate Maureen 03:37, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

@Tropical Storm Angela: Can you be specific about which template(s) you're talking about? The basic vandalism ones have the following wording:

• Level 1: no mention of blocking
• Level 2: no mention of blocking
• Level 3: will be blocked
• Level 4: will be blocked
• Level 4im (only warning): will be blocked

In general, I think "may be blocked" is appropriate because there's always the possibility that an admin will decide not to block. This happens sometimes when a user gets too severe, too early with warnings. Being an admin is partly about making judgement calls with things like this; just because a user says a block will happen doesn't mean an admin will actually do it. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:58, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

It's these two examples:

Please stop your disruptive changing. If you continue to vandalize pages by adding wrong information on purpose, you may be blocked from changing pages on Wikipedia.

This is the only warning you will get. Your vandalism will not be allowed on Wikipedia. Although vandalizing articles on occasions that are days or weeks apart from each other sometimes stops editors from being blocked, your continued vandalism shows a long term pattern of abuse. The next time you vandalize a page, you may be blocked from changing Wikipedia without any more warnings.

I listed these two examples because some of the wording isn't strong enough and should be changed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tropical Storm Angela (talk • contribs) 08:06, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

For the convenience of others, I will link to the templates so we can look at them: {{uw-error3}} and {{Uw-longterm}}. Some thoughts:

• The uw-error3 template has the same wording on enwiki. Even enwiki's uw-error4 (which we don't have) says "may be blocked". (Even enwiki's level-3 and level-4 templates for general vandalism only say "may be blocked".) I see no reason to change it, both in order to keep it in sync and because, as I said above, just because a user says a vandal will be blocked doesn't mean an admin will actually do it. When "will be blocked" messages are left but no blocks are done, it gives the impression that blocks may never be done.
• The uw-longterm template doesn't exist on enwiki. They deleted it in favor of using the regular vandalism templates.
• The doc pages for these templates have the statement "This template has been carefully designed based on guidelines by the user warnings project." That project decided exactly how strong wording should be, and I think we can leave it as it is.

--Auntof6 (talk) 08:42, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Per AGF, I think the template should include a link to some kind of explanation. "If you do not understand why your actions are vandalism ask here." Ideally, it would be something like en.wiki's help forum. (No I do not think the person who posts the template necessarily has the obligation of explaining it.) Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:12, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

They say may because a block is never for certain. -Djsasso (talk) 16:52, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Nobel prize top icon

The icons on the top right generally are about the article, not the subject (either featured/very good article, good article, or a protected article). But the template {{nobelprize}} also appears there, and signifies that the person has won a Nobel Prize. For example, on the page Woodrow Wilson, you can see the yellow icon. Does this belong there? I couldn't find other Wikipedias that had a similar icon. Naddruf (talk) 18:42, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, it's what we do, and I think it's good! Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:40, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree it's good to have such things, we are unique but this uniqueness is good... Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 13:05, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Yep, that is how we do it here. Have to remember that all wikis have their own unique ways of doing things. -Djsasso (talk) 16:56, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

This has been the way we do it ever since I've been editing here at least. I like it. --IWI (talk) 21:41, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Overuse of flagging

I notice that from time to time we get editors cruising our pages adding flags, sometimes to every paragraph. This works on English wiki because they have dedicated groups of editors (in "WikiProjects") ready to swoop down and refit pages to meet requirements. We do not. Flags put on our pages may stay for years making the pages look like rubbish, when they may be OK-ish but not perfect. I mean, omission of sources is not good, but it should not become a shibboleth.

I think editors need to have a careful think about how best to use their time. Time spent improving one or two important pages may be more useful than flagging ten or 20 pages which were basically OK, but lacked enough sources. This is one example of something which all editors needs to do. It is to think about this: given the limited time I have, what is the best contribution I could make? Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:16, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Instead of tagging, I will rather editors focus on enhancing content that makes the need to tag removed. No one will have the time to handle all the tags, and yes, I agree with Mac that some will end up permanently unfixed, and the tags are utterly ugly. If it's complex etc, why not simplify them? I am fine with taggings sparingly and telling the creators what to do, but not en masse taggings which have no purpose whatsoever, here isn't a large wikis with dedicated clean up squads, we have only so few active editors... Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 13:20, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Yep, this is something that the community has pretty generally has said shouldn't be done time and again. There are obvious cases where you might want to tag something, but in general you often have to ask yourself will a tag actually make the situation better or worse. A good example is a very short stub that is marked as a stub. Most flags on a stub (except important ones like maybe a blp issue) are redundant to the fact the article is already tagged as a stub and the tagging just takes what might be a mostly ok article and makes it look like rubbish. Like Camouflaged Mirage I always suggest just fixing the issue if you can as being the better thing. Mass tagging I find is often a way for people just to make work for themselves or to boost edit counts, neither of which are particularly productive. -Djsasso (talk) 16:59, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree. Tags have their uses, but on this wiki nobody should be tagging every issue they see on hundreds of articles. They should be used sparingly, and time would be better spent actually improving the wiki. --IWI (talk) 21:40, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Could the problem not be solved by changing the appearance of the tags? That way, an article in need of more sources would still show up on a list of articles needing sources (I am remembering Big Weekend some months ago, when we used such lists to good effect) but it wouldn't look like rubbish in the meantime.

Make them smaller. Make them elegant. Instead of "BIG FAT WARNING SIGN! FIX NOW!" it'd be more like "Hey, anyone doing translation cleanup? Over here, man." Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:39, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

One of the purposes is to warn the reader the content may be unreliable, so no, I don’t think that is a good idea. --IWI (talk) 16:42, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree with that for flags like "inuse" and warnings about reliability, and current events, but flags like "needs cleanup" or "needs simplification" could be made smaller.

Flags that talk to the reader should remain large. Flags meant to alert Wikieditors that work needs doing can be small or even invisible. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:51, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

One of the perennial suggestions on en.wiki that I have always liked is that the tags should be put on the talk pages rather than the article itself. But the main reason the suggestion often fails is the one IWI mentions that sometimes they need to warn the reader rather than the editor so to speak. And on our wiki I don't necessarily think it would work as the tags would likely go unseen and forgotten on talk pages due to our low editor numbers. -Djsasso (talk) 02:13, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

I always add the talkpage templates, to the talkpages of articles, so new users/users using the talkpage can know the rules and what it is for. Is this fine? --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 02:17, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

There is no reason you can't do that. The talkpage templates here mostly started getting used as a way to avoid deleting talk pages for vandalism and it was thought putting the header on was more productive than deleting. I personally would never create a talk page with the header just because I wanted to, but it is certainly acceptable to do so if that is something you wanted to do. -Djsasso (talk) 02:20, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
I usually never create a talkpage with just the template, because it will waste server space, and is unproductive etc. I only add the template to talkpages that don't have it. --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 02:23, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah doing it to pages that exist as you run into them is perfectly fine. However, I wouldn't go out of your way to find pages without the template though and then mass adding it to 100s in a row if that makes sense as people would likely have issue with that. -Djsasso (talk) 02:26, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Yep, I only do it on pages I happen to be on. --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 02:34, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Undue material in bio/how to nominate for delete

In this page which was created after being deleted a user keeps adding irrelevant material about the deceased man’s family including his wife and kids. That has nothing to do with the article. Also its a BLP1E so needs to be deleted. Someone please help with this because I am wrongly being called a sock. Demzelq (talk) 06:33, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Car vs automobile

Hello everyone. After this discussion, I have decided to ask the community on their thoughts on this matter. The issue is whether the word "car" or "automobile" is more simple. The WP:BE1500 lists "automobile" but not "car", but I believe this is outdated. It lists "automobile" because some European langauges use a similar word, but in reality, car is a word that is more likely to be taught to students of English; and is much more commonly used in daily conversation, at least in British English. This also is a problem for students who speak non-european langauge where their word for car may look nothing like automobile. Of course, we usually follow the BE1500, but I believe in this case it can probably be ignored. Thoughts? --IWI (talk) 17:20, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

As I mention on my talk page. We need to be very careful about where we use IAR. The number one complaint against our wiki is that we randomly decide what is simple and what is not. What has routinely saved us is our the fact that we can point to adhering to the Basic English word lists as an authoritative source as to what is simple. The minute we start ignoring what is a key factor that allows us to have a wiki is the minute all those detractors can point and say "they aren't following the lists anymore so they are no more different than en.wiki, its time to shut them down." -Djsasso (talk) 17:25, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

• Generally agree with Djsasso. Context is also very important here, and using an officially listed word like automobile provides that context and removes the disambiguation. For example, our article train begins with the opening line "A train is a set of cars on a railway." If I'm to understand that a car is an automobile, that becomes a very confusing first sentence. However on the other hand if we're talking about my favourite subject auto racing, it may be wise to use the word car to bridge the gap to the word racecar. So in general, we just need to be smart about it, and use the term that has been decided on as the simple English term in most cases.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 00:30, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

In that particular case, "car" is being used as a short form of "carriage". In my view, this is confusing and should not be done. --IWI (talk) 00:32, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• Suggest we stick with automobile not car for the reasons above, but a bit more explanation. This is similar to the film/movie style guideline. Film and car have multiple uses, but movie and automobile just one. Car is definitely correctly used for subways and trains and came before automobiles. Automobile may be a similar to the word in some European languages, but is also similar in some Asian languages. --Gotanda (talk) 00:53, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

A drawn car, design is from 4.000 yers ago

• Car probably has the same roots as German-language Karren, goin back to Latin carrus. Originally this was a drawn vehicle with one axis. Automobile refers to the fact that the thing is 'self-moving'. When I learnt English, I learnt 'car' in this respect, but aurtomobile is omnipresent. But as pointed out: A railroad vehicle (usually a passenger carriage) is also a car. Likely, this is the resons, why automobile is on the list, but car isn't. --Eptalon (talk) 04:52, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
• Tending to agree with the clearly developed consensus here. --IWI (talk) 05:15, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• (A bit off-topic). Djasso, what is IAR? Please, people, abbreviations like this, so popular on Wikipedia pages, are definitely not on the BE (Basic English) list. Please explain them when you first use them. Kdammers (talk) 05:35, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• IAR was linked to in the comment prior to mine which is why I used it. -Djsasso (talk) 12:17, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I see the problem. IWI did indeed link to IAR before Djsasso replied, but they linked it to the word "ignore," so it wasn't obvious what it was. Kdammers, "IAR" Is usually "ignore all rules." It's a Wikipedia principle that means more or less "Break the rules if there is a good reason to break them."

I found myself thinking what Gordon thought: "Car" can also mean train car. Automobile doesn't. It's tempting to think the shorter word is simpler, but what we really want to do is write for our audience: Kids and ESL readers. I would agree with switching to "car" if there were some reliable proof that it is more readily understood than "automobile" by our audience, but I don't see why any would exist. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:47, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• Per the above, I have moved car to automobile and changed "car" to "automobile" where appropriate. I suggest instances of "car" should be changed to "automobile" on sight where it makes sense to do so. --IWI (talk) 02:48, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• Absolutely no-one uses the word 'automobile' in Britain. Whatever its origin, 'car' is the word we all use, and that includes notable sources like The Times and the BBC. Basic English list was done a century ago, and there are many examples of its being out of date. Do you really think kids use words like "automobile"?! You have all made a very bad decision. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:23, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

  I agree that nobody uses the word automobile here, like at all. Nevertheless, the word "car" has several meanings whereas the word automobile has one. I very much share your view, but I understand why the BE lists automobile. --IWI (talk) 10:29, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

In British English, a train does not consist of cars, it consists of carriages. So our use is consistent. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:19, 9 January 2021 (UTC) And what's more, it is allowed to write in British English, and deprecated to change pages from one spelling system to another. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:22, 9 January 2021 (UTC)