Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 137

Watchlist

Am I blind, or have things changed? I can't see how to add a site to my watchlist, even though I did it frequently in the past. How do i do it?Kdammers (talk) 13:48, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

You scroll to the top of the page and click on the little white star next to "View history." Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:32, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. now I remember a discussion a few years back, where I unsuccessfully tried to convince people to use English instead of an icon. how in the world people are supposed to know what a white star means is beyond me. I learned English in school; not Iconish. Expect me back here in a couple years asking the same question about how to put things on my watchlist.Kdammers (talk) 07:24, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

@Kdammers: I guess it's made to be similar to the bookmark icon in most of the browsers out there. It's the same in English Wikipedia, so I am surprised you are not used to it yet.-BRP ^ever 07:38, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

@Kdammers: There's another way to do it that's a bit more complicated, but maybe you could remember it better. Edit the page you want to watch, then click the box next to "Watch this page", then save the page without making any changes (unless there are changes you want to make). That will add the page to your watchlist. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:54, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Categories about mass murder

Category:Massacres in the United States is similar to Category:Mass murder in the United States. The only difference I know is that massacres in war are not necessarily called mass murder. For example, maybe Penn's Creek Massacre and Lawrence massacre do not belong in mass murder but that should be discussed.

But other than that, what is the difference? There are a lot of mass shootings by American civilians that are in the massacre category. Even Columbine High School massacre. So please define what the difference is, for else it is hard to find articles by looking in a category. 50.30.176.27 (talk) 17:32, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Some birds don't fly..

...Because they swim, or run fast. Anyway, after a lot of work has been put into the Bird article, I have decided to make it a good article. Congrats to all who contributed, and helped make this happen. --Eptalon (talk) 21:17, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Oh hooray. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:15, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

And then the kiwi and kakapo exist. Why evolution, why. Elytrian - Talk 05:35, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Yellow demoted from VGA

Hello, after long discussions (and the article not really changing much any more in the last two months), I have demoted the article Yellow (song) to good article. The main issue (apart form needing an update/completeness, which I can't judge) is that the linked templates have many red-links, and red-links are a no-go for VGAs. Completeness/redlinks are not that much of an issue with good article, so it's a logical step to demote...--Eptalon (talk) 10:11, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Way to see RfDs voted in?

Does anyone know if there's a way to see RfDs you've voted/made in the past? Fixing26 (talk) 18:06, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Fixing26 You would have to go through your recent changes. I am not sure of any other way to do it as they do not have tags. Perhaps one of the admins might be able to pull a list using AWB. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 20:11, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

@Fixing26: Yeah, if you want, I could run all past RFDs through AWB looking for any where your user name appears. I could do that later on today, or sometime this weekend if that would work and no one gets to it before I do. Would that work? --Auntof6 (talk) 20:48, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the offer, but I just ended up looking through all my changes myself. Thanks nevertheless. Fixing26 (talk) 21:37, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Call for Candidates for the Movement Charter Drafting Committee

Movement Strategy announces the Call for Candidates for the Movement Charter Drafting Committee. The Call opens August 2, 2021 and closes September 1, 2021.

This Committee will have around 15 members. It is expected to represent diversity in the Movement. Diversity includes gender, language, geography, and experience. This comprises participation in projects, affiliates, and the Wikimedia Foundation. You can read the full announcement here.

Will you help move Wikimedia forward in this important role? Submit your candidacy starting from next week here. Please contact strategy2030wikimedia.org with questions. Best, Zuz (WMF) (talk) 13:27, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

What is the movement? Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:17, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

@Darkfrog24: movement is referring to the Wikimedia Movement. And you can read more about the Wikimedia Movement here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zuz (WMF) (talk • contribs) 15:10, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Board Elections Postponed Until August 18th

Hello, all.

As you know, the Board election was due to open on August 4th. Due to some technical issues with SecurePoll, the election must be delayed by two weeks. This means we plan to launch the election on August 18th, which is the day after Wikimania concludes.

For information on the technical issues, you can see the Phabricator ticket here.

You can also read this announcement in other languages here.

We are truly sorry for this delay and hope that we will get back on schedule on August 18th. We are in touch with the Elections Committee and the candidates to coordinate next steps. We will update the Board election Talk page and this channel as we know more. Best, Zuz (WMF) (talk) 15:15, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Who are the candidates in this election? TGSL leave me a message after the tone 15:19, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Neptune promoted...

Hello all, I have taken the liberty, and promoted Neptune to good article, it went a long way since it was proposed for GA. Congratulations to all those who helped. Note: i have removed the template to use the same date format throughout. There are a few different ways to specify dates in English. Requiring that only one is used throughout is a nice to have, but doesn't limit the article in any way....--Eptalon (talk) 10:06, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

So, thank you so much for promotion. I'm going to make the article VGA soon. Are there any rules that says after what time it takes to raise the status of an article? Frontfrog (talk) 18:56, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

No, to my knowledge there isn't, but keep in mind this is a small community. Getting articles to GA or VGA status should be a community effort (of the few editors) that take part. We currrenlty have quite a nuber of articles to review..--Eptalon (talk) 20:52, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

It will be probably next year or at the end of this year. But I will be glad if Macdonald-ross will help me and give me some instructions for improvement. Frontfrog (talk) 21:21, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm not going to work on this one for some while. I would rather see more articles reach GA than any one particular one reach VGA. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:46, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Template Assistance

Hi - I am not sure if @Djsasso is still around or not, but I am having issues with a template Template:Infobox_U.S._state where it is throwing three different errors and I cannot find them. I think the template is pulling from something, but I cannot find it. These are the issues I am getting on Idaho:

1. Category:Pages_with_non-numeric_formatnum_arguments - I have tried formatting the the sections as it says {{formatnum:474546154}} and that is not working.
2. Category:CS1_maint:_extra_text:_authors_list - I cannot find anything that is not right as they are formatted correctly (unless I missed something)
3. Category:Pages_using_infobox_settlement_with_no_coordinates - I tried the coord box and put them in and it did not work and the lat and long are in there as separate entities but it does not pull from that to my knowledge.

If anyone could help me figure this out, I would appreciate it. Thanks! PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 02:33, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

I will take a look. Something to be aware of is that sometimes, articles will just always end up being in error categories because there are errors in the templates themselves and the category is more like a tracking category than a needs to be fixed category if that makes sense. A good way to see if a page can actually be removed from said error category is to look if the page is in the category on en as well. If it is, there is a good chance it just can't be removed from the error category, though not always the case obviously. A good example is the coordinates category, generally large non-specfic locations don't have coordinates put in the infobox, so they will always end up in that category. -Djsasso (talk) 13:27, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

The first one I am still looking into but likely one that can't be fixed. The second one the very first reference in the lead was formatted wrong as it had Editors in the author field so I fixed that one. The last one, because co-ordinates don't go in state infoboxes it will always been in that category as state infoboxes are a wrapper on infobox settlement. (instead states use the longitude and latitude fields because there is no one specific point) -Djsasso (talk) 14:20, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Awesome that makes sense to me. I noticed the first one is in a lot of articles so I am trying to find the commonality between them. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 17:22, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Import

Hi, Could an admin import Template:Esccnty from EN (en:Template:Esccnty) please, Many thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 15:33, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

 Done --Auntof6 (talk) 19:38, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Many thanks Auntof6 much appreciated, –Davey2010^Talk 19:41, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

delete IP user userpage

an IP user (Redacted) has created an own userpage here. i tried to mark it for deletion with the text

{{QD|u2|IP users cannot have a userpage. If you want a userpage, [[Special:CreateAccount|create a user account instead]]}}

but I got this message when saving the page:

i wanted to add this to Administrators' noticeboard but I was unable to change that page because of it was protected due to vandalism and abuse. can someone delete that user's page and give a link to create a user account if you want a user page. please also change the filter to allow users to tag the page for deletion. --90.224.199.219 (talk) 07:00, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Page deleted. I know we have those tagged all the time. Maybe it gave you the message because you were editing without logging in. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:34, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

That is exactly why, we have an abuse filter that prevents non-autoconfirmed editors from editing other users User pages. So the IP would have to log in to tag it or follow the instructions in the message by tagging it on the talk page. -Djsasso (talk) 12:09, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

New Wikipedia Library collections and design update (August 2021)

Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL OWL says log in today!

The Wikipedia Library is pleased to announce the addition of new collections, alongside a new interface design. New collections include:

• Cabells – Scholarly and predatory journal database
• Taaghche - Persian language e-books
• Merkur, Musik & Ästhetik, and Psychologie, Psychotherapie, Psychoanalyse - German language magazines and journals published by Klett-Cotta
• Art Archiv, Capital, Geo, Geo Epoche, and Stern - German language newspapers and magazines published by Gruner + Jahr

Additionally, De Gruyter and Nomos have been centralised from their previous on-wiki signup location on the German Wikipedia. Many other collections are freely available by simply logging in to The Wikipedia Library with your Wikimedia login!

We are also excited to announce that the first version of a new design for My Library was deployed this week. We will be iterating on this design with more features over the coming weeks. Read more on the project page on Meta.

Lastly, an Echo notification will begin rolling out soon to notify eligible editors about the library (T132084). If you can translate the notification please do so at TranslateWiki!

--The Wikipedia Library Team 13:23, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List.

Proposal to introduce new extension

I propose to launch mw:Extension:SandboxLink on simple English wiki and request the community to give feedback on the same.

There is a link of a sandbox page in toolbox in this wiki. But this is not accessible from minerva skin (mobile devices). Again Wikipedians sometimes need private sandbox to save important links for future use. They also need to create draft articles for gradual improvement in sandbox. This is not possible in Wikipedia:Sandbox. This extension will give quick access to private sandbox even if you are on a mobile device. Regards. -- Yahya (talk) 21:08, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

I regularly prep drafts in my sandbox. When you say it is impossible, what are you talking about? I'm not being sarcastic. Is it, for example, inconvenient in some way? Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:39, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Mourning Dove

Hello - So this article Mourning dove has some errors I am going to fix, however, I noticed it is marked as a VG article. Here is the [diff] for when it was marked as such back in 2012. The person who marked it is not an admin and has not made any edits since 2015. I am wondering if this should be a VG article still or should that be removed as there has been an abundant amount of changes to it since 2012. Thanks. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 11:14, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Just an observation, the person who marked it was admin at the time.

Anyways, from quickly looking over the article it seems to be in fine shape in my opinion. Fixing26 (talk) 12:13, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

@Fixing26 Thanks. It’s up to an admin to determine if it should remain that way though because a VG article should not have gone through that many changes especially after it was there and I can’t find where it was discussed. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 12:30, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

You can formally propose this at WP:DEMOTE if you want. The page is active and in use. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:13, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Just for your info: Articles stand on their own, there is no "ownership", Osiris left this wiki a long time ago. The article is there as it is; if you like you can propose for deletion. If its just a few easy fixes, simply doing them is likely easier. --Eptalon (talk) 14:37, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Just because an article is a VGA doesn't mean it can't continue to go through changes. It just has to remain a quality article. -Djsasso (talk) 14:56, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Long Proposal Discussion

Before I kick off my thoughts and start in on the discussion, do we (or can we) set up an area or module for these discussions, since they will be providing input and hopefully voting on some format stuff that was creating, but got blasted by an admin before I could finish. Items for discussion would basically be layout, sections, etc. I think it will help the community out a lot and maybe something like en-wiki has as I do not want to make a huge long topic on here. Maybe something similar to their village pump. If I can get approval on this beginning part, then the rest will follow. Thanks! PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 11:45, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Hello PotsdamLamb, we have had longer discussions in the past. A bot is archiving this board; it will take items that haven't seen any comments, for some time (I think currently two weeks). This is a small community, that works well with the different discussion boards as they are. As is, I do not see a need to intorduce another board, or change our setup of discussion boards as they are. --Eptalon (talk) 14:33, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

This page is our Village Pump just with a different name (look at the interwikis), we do all those kinds of discussions here. Also to save you a lot of time you may not be aware of WP:FOLLOW. Most of the time we don't need to make new guidelines here because it is already a guideline at en.wiki. Any guidelines we make here have to be in Simple English and often take a very long time to create here which is why we created WP:FOLLOW. Often we only create them here when we want to do something different than what en.wiki does. -Djsasso (talk) 15:03, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

ok thanks PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 19:10, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Unblock me in the English Wikipedia

In fact, in the English Wikipedia, and other languages Wikipedia, I may include references by copying the name of the web and put the name inside the Wikipedia. I indeed include the references as you say to me. Can you please unblock me in the English-language Wikipedia? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adamdaniel864 (talk • contribs) 08:57, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@Adamdaniel864: This is Simple English Wikipedia, which is managed separately from English Wikipedia. To get unblocked there, you have to make the request there. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:16, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Is it suitable to connect all informations of my recently created pages in Wikipedia with the Chinese webs

Hello. In webs that I recently created that is derived from Chinese such as Luo Xiaochuan, is it suitable to connect the Wikipedia page with the Chinese webs that mentions the same thing? In Chinese, the name of months is based on numbers, not names, such as if Chinese is 6月, in English means June. 年 means year in Chinese.

@Adamdaniel864: - This is the simple English wikipedia so all articles have to be written in plain simple english. You can create a heading following WP:MOS#Other page sections and create the link to the Chinese article. Also please remember to sign all of your posts by inserting ~~~~ at the end of your post. This allows it to be replied to much easier. Also, since you are bringing these over from the Chinese articles, if you can re-create the entire article into simple english, we can assist you in correcting the english, punctuation, etc. Just post on my talk page, use your signature and link the page for me by entering Some page name (capital letter matter). Thanks! PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 18:59, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@Adamdaniel864 and PotsdamLamb: I don't think that answers the question. Also, I have struck out part of the response that is not correct. We should not be linking directly in articles to articles in other Wikipedias. The correct way to link articles between Wikipedias is to enter the links in Wikidata. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:21, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@Auntof6 I have always been under the impression that is the article is on wikipedia and goes more in detail but in a different language, it can be linked under other websites, due to the fact it is in another language and is not being used as a reference. I am looking for where I read that and I will post it here for you. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 20:29, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@PotsdamLamb: There is no need to do that because they can be linked in Wikidata. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:33, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@Auntof6 This is where I found it and it can be linked as a sister project en:Wikipedia:Wikimedia_sister_projects#Where_to_place_links PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 20:37, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

That is talking about the sister links template. Not links themselves. And that would apply to things like wiktionary, not other languages. You are also looking at the en.wiki policy. Ours is at Wikipedia:Sister_projects. -Djsasso (talk) 20:40, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@Djsasso I understand that but the editor is asking about connecting the chinese dates/months to the chinese version, so would that not be a sister project link for the chinese characters, as they show in the article I linked? PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 20:42, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

You might have missed that I added to my comment, but that guideline you are reading is en.wiki's. Ours doesn't have that. Also the sister projects are things like wiktionary and wikisource in the same language, not in another language. -Djsasso (talk) 20:43, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@Djsasso Yeah looks like we posted at almost the same time, so it didn't come up. Thank you. That clears it up and I have bookmarked it. Now I can help and give the correct information. @Auntof6 It now makes sense as DjSasso posted the link to what you are talking about. If you could do that for me, I would find it a great help, please. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 20:53, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@PotsdamLamb: Do what for you? --Auntof6 (talk) 20:58, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@Auntof6 Instead of just telling something, link to the guideline you are speaking of. I only knew we can't link to same language articles, I did not know it applied to all wikis. DJ linked me to our version as our links link to a lot of EN policies, and not ours. So that is confusing sometimes to me. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 21:08, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@PotsdamLamb: No, it wouldn't. You don't link to other Wikipedias in the other websites section. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:50, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Universal Code of Conduct - Enforcement draft guidelines review

The Universal Code of Conduct Phase 2 drafting committee would like comments about the enforcement draft guidelines for the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC). This review period is planned for 17 August 2021 through 17 October 2021.

These guidelines are not final but you can help move the progress forward. The committee will revise the guidelines based upon community input.

Comments can be shared in any language on the draft review talk page and multiple other venues. Community members are encouraged to organize conversations in their communities.

There are planned live discussions about the UCoC enforcement draft guidelines:

Wikimania 2021 session - 16 August @ 11:00 UTC - 11:45 UTC

Conversation hours - 24 August, 31 August, 7 September @ 03:00 UTC & 14:00 UTC

Roundtable calls - 18 September @ 03:00 UTC & 15:00 UTC Summaries of discussions will be posted every two weeks here.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Best, Zuz (WMF) (talk) 09:19, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Layout Proposal, Discussion

Hello - So I am looking at the layout guideline on ENWIKI and I cannot find it on simple. I did find the redlink. I would like to import it over and simplify it, as I see a couple of issues:

• Admins constantly change their mind on where things should be, a great example is commons categories. Typically it is placed in one of three places based on the admin
• Stub placement per EN Wiki should be the very last line, below everything (including categories), however, they are all over the place on articles and under various headings.

I feel having a specific layout makes the articles look a lot better and more in unison. So I would like to open the discussion, without any votes at this time to get thoughts from the community (preferably named users so they can be pinged).

Thanks for any input. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 19:45, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

You can find the current proposed list at User:PotsdamLamb/List_of_Article_Layout

Discussion has ended on August 18, 2021 at 19:30 UTC.

Discussion Area

• Not to be pendantic, but you are sort of doing it backwards. This is why I originally moved it to your user space originally. You will have to move it over, and completely do it in Simple English, and then propose it be made a guideline and then the community will pick at it and fix things and say what they think should and shouldn't be there. I doubt anyone has issue with having a style guideline on layout (although we already do since en.wiki does per my comment in the other section). The issue is more going to be about what you put in it when you try to make it Simple English. Simple English for policies and guidelines can be very difficult. Think of it like trying to write normal english instead of what lawyers use in a contract. -Djsasso (talk) 19:49, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

  @Djsasso I am thinking the simplest way to do it is just create an ordered list. A lot of it we do not use here, but to have a list of the order of things would be as simple as possible. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 19:52, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

  Just remember though, if you create it here and you don't put everything they have then that means they are no longer guidelines here, whereas they are currently. -Djsasso (talk) 19:55, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

  On a side note, I don't think the issues you mention are from lack of a guideline since we already have one, they are just from people not following them which wouldn't change just because we wrote it here. -Djsasso (talk) 19:55, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

  So used to looking at the en.wiki one that I forgot we actually have a written out guide (not guideline) though not as detailed at Wikipedia:Guide to layout. -Djsasso (talk) 20:11, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

  @Djsasso The guideline is not linked to the MOS it is all in red; I am putting the list together now and will post it after I post this. It is not always the blame of the editors, as admins are at fault too as I have seen admins telling other admins where something should be placed, but there is no guideline on it. My goal on this is to get the guideline solidified from everyone in the community and we can even add the layout and such to the main page, simple start, etc. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 20:15, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

  It's no longer a redlink, soft redirected like most of the others. But of course can be changed if this goes forward. But I never said it was just the non-admins. Admins are just as bad for not folowing/knowing all the style guidelines. -Djsasso (talk) 20:24, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

  @Djsasso I posted the list up top in italics. Again, this is just a general list. The last time the article you listed was updated was in 2018 with only a few words. :) PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 20:40, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

  Ok but what about all the other sections from the layout page, as mentioned if you don't include those, that effectively makes them not guidelines here. Per WP:FOLLOW en.wiki guidelines only apply here when we don't already have the policy here. So if you create a guideline with just that list then you erase the fact that everything else is already a guidelines, because this list would be the only thing in our guideline. -Djsasso (talk) 20:45, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

  @Djsasso Hence this discussion. It’s to work out the details from the community on what we as a collective would like to see. Once the list is gone through and finalized, then we can focus on the finer parts. This is only the beginning. As you so kindly mentioned this takes a long time and we would need to make sure it’s simplified. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 06:29, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

  And also on WP:Follow it basically says if it isn’t here then use EN as a guideline but in the next paragraph it basically strikes that out by saying “ However, Simple English Wikipedia is different from English Wikipedia, so you should be careful in applying those rules. Local rules (that is, those that are already on Simple English Wikipedia) take priority over the ones from other wikis. Because of this, no English Wikipedia policy is a policy on Simple English Wikipedia—they are never more than guidelines.” So when I read that, it comes down to a do it but don’t do it type of scenario when we may or may not have something. This was a perfect example. The old layout guideline was not linked to the pages so how do we (as a community or someone new to Wikipedia) supposed to know to search for something? A lot of stuff is only partially imported and on those a lot are missing dependent templates. When I see that I do a copy/paste (typically on Infoboxes) so it completes everything and we can capture everything. Just like when I did the Idaho article. I simply copied the template over and filled it in with the information that was already there and whatever else I could find to fill in gaps and you went and wiped it out because you couldn’t line them up for comparison. You are the one who says my additions get deleted or reverted but that is because you are the one doing them so it meets your needs and your preferences which is not how WP works. This is why I’m looking at solid guidelines or policies for the SEWP. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 06:38, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

  Like I said, no issue with you getting it over here. But you have to put the work in and make the guideline first and then have people discuss if it meets our needs. Trying to develop a guideline just by discussion doesn't work because inevitably it stalls due to too much discussion. It is much much easier to have the whole thing done and then only make tweeks where necessary. But like Gordon mentions the one you have targeted is probably the one guideline that is extremely static and that every knows, even the most new editor can figure it out in minutes without looking at a guideline. The issue you are having is that there are sometimes pages that don't match that layout. But that is always going to be the case. Especially when you bring in WP:IAR which allows for exceptions when they work better for a given page. As for how to know you are supposed to search for something you don't know, that is pretty self evident, if you don't know something do a search in todays day and age I am pretty sure everyone knows that. The phase "I will google it" comes to mind when someone doesn't knows something, in this case obviously its search it as opposed to google it but the idea is the same. As for the quote you are quoting, it is just pointing out the difference between policies and guidelines. A policy on en.wiki is only a guideline here. -Djsasso (talk) 11:29, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

  @Djsasso So far there have been some valid points brought up:

  1. Not everyone is on EN wiki, so if there are any changes there, we do not know about them here. If an admin here makes a change, we do not know about it. Because it just gets imported here.
  2. It has never been linked and even you said yourself above "So used to looking at the en.wiki one that I forgot we actually have a written out guide (not guideline) though not as detailed at Wikipedia:Guide to layout. -Djsasso (talk) 1:11 pm, Yesterday (UTC−7)" - But again, the EN version is only a guideline, not anything on us. The fact even a long time admin forgot about it, pretty much proves my point on this. You also got rid of the redlink which points to simple. People from other wikis that come on here for simple english (to learn it or otherwise) will not necessarily understand the EN wiki version or even bother to look at another wiki for what we should already have as simple. No need for them to "just google it". It should already be on here and linked to the help pages and such or the nav box (which is what I think you did, but I am not sure).
  3. As Darkfrog24 said below, in short "we need to publicize the ones we have". There are a lot of redlinks to policies and such that need to be simplified and when asked it is referred to "look at the EN version and follow that." Again, that comes back to some people may not necessarily understand the more detailed and picking the longest words in the world to say "or" that they put in their policies.

  I am all for making these things simple and getting them over here, but of course, that would need the back of the community and the admins willing to provide input and not shoot everything down and tell people to go look at another wiki when this is supposed to be a separate one, just much more simplified in language so more of the world can understand it. I hope that helps you out and makes sense. I cannot create a whole policy by myself, I need the input of the community because that is what wikipedia is about. Community and coming together. I can do a rough draft, which I did with the list and if there is stuff on it not needed or needs to be moved, that can easily be done. From that point we can add in the wording, as this is just a layout of how pages should be (normally without IAR which is pretty rare) there is not much text to be added to it. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 02:06, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

  I think this is part of the problem you are having, a guideline isn't "not anything on us". It is a guideline, just the same as any guideline here. As for the never been linked, I was pointing to a guide not a guideline there is difference. One is a help page and a guideline is more like a regulation for lack of a better word. I think the biggest problem is you don't actually understand the things you are talking about and you very often misinterpret the things you try to quote from policies and guidelines and even people. I think you underestimate how impossible it is to have people work on this as a group. If you are really motivated to have it here, create it in your userspace and simplify one section at a time slowly. It will likely take you awhile. No one is asking you to have it done tomorrow. Creating a guideline is likely a multi month goal. The last one I can recall us doing that wasn't a short couple sentence one took many months of back and forth and that was after someone had already written the whole thing. And people being on en.wiki or not doesn't really factor into it because we link to it and we have policy saying go there and see. Going to read it there is no harder than reading it here, so it doesn't make it any harder other than the language used. -Djsasso (talk) 12:37, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

• In general I am in favor of having our own policies and guidelines. I'm not a frequent en editor, so changes to policy there that we don't have here end up in our policy changing without me really noticing. Having our own policy makes that easy. However, I'm not sure this is one we really need to spend the time on. Page layout has, as far as I'm aware, been fairly static. It may just be the case that we need to remind each other more often to do things the proper way. That said, I'll spend some more time thinking about and re reading the proposal and come back with more ideas if they come to me. Thanks for the idea. --Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 21:32, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

  @Gordonrox24 Thanks for the response. Again the goal is to have a standard across all the articles for all to follow, especially for us regular to know where things go and to have a standard for the layout. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 21:37, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion, a Wiki only needs a specific rule if that Wiki has a problem that said rule would solve. So, PDL, what is the problem and would creating, importing or establishing a rule solve it? If it's "people don't follow the existing guideline," then making more rules won't help; we need to publicize the ones we have. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:38, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

@Darkfrog24 These are not rules. These are guidelines being brought over from EN wiki and being simplified. Rules is a ballgame I do not want to be involved in. If you read the reasoning above, you might see what I’m looking to do. I’d be happy to answer any questions. Please ping me so I see you posted your ideas and such. Thanks!@Darkfrog24 PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 05:13, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

In my experience, no matter how many times we say "guideline," it will at least sometimes be enforced as an absolute rule. In my experience, no matter how many times we say "policy," it will sometimes be treated as an elastic optional guideline and exceptions made. If we're not okay with both those things happening, we have to just leave it out. Darkfrog24 (talk) 11:52, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

In wiki terms guidelines are rules, its why the navbox you are upset about having a redlink in is labeled rules. But yes as Darkfrog alludes to, we have WP:IAR which isn't as rarely used as you think it is. -Djsasso (talk) 12:41, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

I am just gonna kill this now as it obviously is of no use. And for the record Djsasso, I never said I was "upset" about anything so do not put words into my mouth or posts. Thanks! PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 19:31, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

I never said you said you were upset so I didn't put words in your mouth. What your actions indicated by typing on multiple occasions about the redlinks was concern aka upset. Upset isn't necessarily negative. -Djsasso (talk) 19:37, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

You cannot say you did not say it, when it is right there above this short statement and I partially quote ...its why the navbox you are upset about having a redlink in is labeled rules... (emphasis added on the word Upset). I am nowhere near upset, I am trying to help clean things up, so yes, you are assuming I am upset. There is a difference between "concern" and "upset" and upset has nothing positive, it is always negative. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 19:47, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Stop and read what I said slowly. This is half your problem, you seem to have a real problem with understanding what you read. You said that I put words in your mouth, that would require me to have said that you said you were upset. I did not do that. Read above again really slowly. Your actions indicated you were upset, commenting on that fact does not mean I am putting words in your mouth. You don't get to decide how others perceive your actions. -Djsasso (talk) 19:51, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

@Djsasso You can not perceive what I mean when I type it out. It is there in plain black and white writing. At this point, just please leave me alone. As I stated before, you have had a huge problem with me since day 1. So unless you are taking an administrative action against me, please do not message me or direct any further messages at me on any forums. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 20:01, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

If you honestly think people can't have opinions on your actions you are crazy, especially when your then go and state one about me in the next couple sentences. -Djsasso (talk) 20:06, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Just a comment: guidelines should not be treated as absolute rules, because that’s not what they are. Wikipedia has no absolute rules. There are often a lot of cases where exceptions to guidelines apply, especially the manual of style. Policies are different, and ignoring them is basically limited to IAR. Still, they are not absolute rules, either. --IWI (talk) 13:19, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Yep that is very true, that is what I was trying to get at earlier in the conversation when I was saying that what they wanted to do wouldn't necessarily change things in case I wasn't clear. Everything here in the end is flexible, and you add into that that a lot of people will interpret things differently. I know one of the mantra's that a lot of people use on en.wiki is that trying to enforce conformity for the sake of conformity usually causes more problems than it helps. Very little is absolute here beyond the obvious things like vandalism. -Djsasso (talk) 14:13, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Question on inactive accounts with no edits

I had a question about accounts created and left alone. I'm asking this because I was thinking about renaming myself and was checking out a user. It is 6 years old, and hasn't made any edits. I don't think renaming can delete 0 edit accounts, right? Ely - Talk 10:10, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

@Elytrian: Are you looking just here on Simple, or across all Wikimedia sites? It's probably common for registered users who work on other sites to come here just to take a look without making any edits here. There is such a thing as usurping an existing account name, so that might be possible, depending on the circumstances. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:35, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

As Auntof6 mentions, they would have to have no edits (including deleted edits) on any WMF wiki. It is very common to have edits on say English wikipedia and none here. But that link she provides can help if that is the case. -Djsasso (talk) 11:05, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm looking at a account with 0 edits globally. Ely - Talk 12:38, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Proof: https://xtools.wmflabs.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org/Ely (that's what I want to rename to) Ely - Talk 13:04, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Elytrian, Ely seems to have 397 edits on dewiki so you probably won't be able to usurp their username. --Ferien (talk) 13:43, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Yeah as Ferien mentions that account does have 397 edits and some are within the last few months, so you would definitely not be able to usurp that account. -Djsasso (talk) 14:05, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Interesting. I would like to know what happens if i try to get a usurp for my alt account. Darubrub (Let me know) 13:49, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

You might be able to usurp it, you would have to go make a request and see what they said. That being said if you control both accounts all you would have to do is get the other renamed something else and then have this one renamed to that one. So either way you could likely have it if that is what you wanted. -Djsasso (talk) 14:08, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

what is "paid editing"

The term paid editing came up almost a week ago Friday afternoon August 13 while I was going through Wikipedia looking for an article to modify. Can some user on the site make clarification about what paid editing means? Are there any consequences for that? Angela Kate Maureen (talk) 16:09, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

English Wikipedia has a more in depth description on this page, but to simplify it, it means you are receiving money or something else if you edit/create pages for someone. From my understanding, it's allowed as long as you say that you are doing such - as it'd mean you have a conflict of interest. Fixing26 (talk) 16:14, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

I think it mainly refers to the fact that so many people and companies use PR agents to try and shoehorn their way onto WP. The basic problem with this is that it generates pages for people and companies which are not notable (otherwise they wouldn't need a PR agency!). This damages WP, which claims to be a neutral encyclopedia which publishes notable topics. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:12, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

I think I can put it even more simply: If someone tells you to write about a certain subject; and you get something (other than recognition) for writing or improving the article. The problem is, since you get "payment" (money, or other things), the people who asked you then expect that you write the article in a certain way (which means you are no longer free to write the article as you like; which is then called "conflict of interest"). When the people asking are a non-profit organisation (or a church, or other congregation), or the things that you receive are not in the form of money, but benefits, it may be difficult to see indeed. --Eptalon (talk) 21:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Welcome to the Simple English Wikipedia! Paid editing without telling the Wikimedia Foundation is NOT allowed. If you're paid to edit, please make sure to disclose this information to the WMF. Again, welcome to the Simple English Wikipedia. SoyokoAnis - talk 23:56, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

article ownership on Wikipedia content sites

Is there something wrong with article ownership on Wikipedia content sites? What are signs of article ownership? Does no one have any right acting as though they own the articles they create on Wikipedia content sites? Angela Kate Maureen (talk) 03:35, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

@Tropical Storm Angela: No one owns any article on Wikipedia, or anything else published there. Everything published to Wikimedia sites is covered by licenses that allow it to be used freely by others. That includes all the Wikipedias, Wikimedia Commons, and others. When you edit a page, there is text below the edit box that explains this. The page you linked in the heading of this section has more information. So when you ask if there's something wrong with article ownership here, the answer is that there is no article ownership here. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:05, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Read terms of use: Relevant part:

Click on "Expand" to see text

6. Trademarks

Although you have considerable freedoms for re-use of the content on the Project websites, it is important that, at the Wikimedia Foundation, we protect our trademark rights so that we can protect our users from fraudulent impersonators. Because of this, we ask that you please respect our trademarks. All Wikimedia Foundation trademarks belong to the Wikimedia Foundation, and any use of our trade names, trademarks, service marks, logos, or domain names must be in compliance with these Terms of Use and in compliance with our Trademark Policy.

7. Licensing of Content

To grow the commons of free knowledge and free culture, all users contributing to the Projects are required to grant broad permissions to the general public to re-distribute and re-use their contributions freely, so long as that use is properly attributed and the same freedom to re-use and re-distribute is granted to any derivative works. In keeping with our goal of providing free information to the widest possible audience, we require that when necessary all submitted content be licensed so that it is freely reusable by anyone who cares to access it.

You agree to the following licensing requirements:

1. Text to which you hold the copyright: When you submit text to which you hold the copyright, you agree to license it under:
   • Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (“CC BY-SA”), and
   • GNU Free Documentation License (“GFDL”) (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts). (Re-users may comply with either license or both.) The only exception is if the Project edition or feature requires a different license. In that case, you agree to license any text you contribute under that particular license. For example, at the publication of this version of the Terms of Use, English Wikinews mandates that all text content is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic License (CC BY 2.5) and does not require a dual license with GFDL. Please note that these licenses do allow commercial uses of your contributions, as long as such uses are compliant with the terms.
2. Attribution: Attribution is an important part of these licenses. We consider it giving credit where credit is due – to authors like yourself. When you contribute text, you agree to be attributed in any of the following fashions:
   1. Through hyperlink (where possible) or URL to the article to which you contributed (since each article has a history page that lists all authors and editors);
   2. Through hyperlink (where possible) or URL to an alternative, stable online copy that is freely accessible, which conforms with the license, and which provides credit to the authors in a manner equivalent to the credit given on the Project website; or
   3. Through a list of all authors (but please note that any list of authors may be filtered to exclude very small or irrelevant contributions).
3. Importing text: You may import text that you have found elsewhere or that you have co-authored with others, but in such case you warrant that the text is available under terms that are compatible with the CC BY-SA 3.0 license (or, as explained above, another license when exceptionally required by the Project edition or feature)("CC BY-SA"). Content available only under GFDL is not permissible. You agree that, if you import text under a CC BY-SA license that requires attribution, you must credit the author(s) in a reasonable fashion. Where such credit is commonly given through page histories (such as Wikimedia-internal copying), it is sufficient to give attribution in the edit summary, which is recorded in the page history, when importing the text. The attribution requirements are sometimes too intrusive for particular circumstances (regardless of the license), and there may be instances where the Wikimedia community decides that imported text cannot be used for that reason.
4. Non-text media: Non-text media on the Projects are available under a variety of different licenses that support the general goal of allowing unrestricted re-use and re-distribution. When you contribute non-text media, you agree to comply with the requirements for such licenses as described in our Licensing Policy, and also comply with the requirements of the specific Project edition or feature to which you are contributing. Also see the Wikimedia Commons Licensing Policy for more information on contributing non-text media to that Project.
5. No revocation of license: Except as consistent with your license, you agree that you will not unilaterally revoke or seek invalidation of any license that you have granted under these Terms of Use for text content or non-text media contributed to the Wikimedia Projects or features, even if you terminate use of our services.
6. Public domain content: Content that is in the public domain is welcome! It is important however that you confirm the public domain status of the content under the law of the United States of America as well as the laws of any other countries as required by the specific Project edition. When you contribute content that is in the public domain, you warrant that the material is actually in the public domain, and you agree to label it appropriately.
7. Re-use: Re-use of content that we host is welcome, though exceptions exist for content contributed under "fair use" or similar exemptions under copyright law. Any re-use must comply with the underlying license(s). When you re-use or re-distribute a text page developed by the Wikimedia community, you agree to attribute the authors in any of the following fashions:
   1. Through hyperlink (where possible) or URL to the page or pages that you are re-using (since each page has a history page that lists all authors and editors);
   2. Through hyperlink (where possible) or URL to an alternative, stable online copy that is freely accessible, which conforms with the license, and which provides credit to the authors in a manner equivalent to the credit given on the Project website; or
   3. Through a list of all authors (but please note that any list of authors may be filtered to exclude very small or irrelevant contributions). If the text content was imported from another source, it is possible that the content is licensed under a compatible CC BY-SA license but not GFDL (as described in “Importing text,” above). In that case, you agree to comply with the compatible CC BY-SA license and do not have the option to re-license it under GFDL. To determine the license that applies to the content that you seek to re-use or re-distribute, you should review the page footer, page history, and discussion page. In addition, please be aware that text that originated from external sources and was imported into a Project may be under a license that attaches additional attribution requirements. Users agree to indicate these additional attribution requirements clearly. Depending on the Project, such requirements may appear for example in a banner or other notations pointing out that some or all of the content was originally published elsewhere. Where there are such visible notations, re-users should preserve them. For any non-text media, you agree to comply with whatever license under which the work has been made available (which can be discovered by clicking on the work and looking at the licensing section on its description page or reviewing an applicable source page for that work). When re-using any content that we host, you agree to comply with the relevant attribution requirements as they pertain to the underlying license or licenses.
8. Modifications or additions to material that you re-use: When modifying or making additions to text that you have obtained from a Project website, you agree to license the modified or added content under CC BY-SA 3.0 or later (or, as explained above, another license when exceptionally required by the specific Project edition or feature). When modifying or making additions to any non-text media that you have obtained from a Project website, you agree to license the modified or added content in accordance with whatever license under which the work has been made available. With both text content and non-text media, you agree to clearly indicate that the original work has been modified. If you are re-using text content in a wiki, it is sufficient to indicate in the page history that you made a change to the imported text. For each copy or modified version that you distribute, you agree to include a licensing notice stating which license the work is released under, along with either a hyperlink or URL to the text of the license or a copy of the license itself.

8. DMCA Compliance

The Wikimedia Foundation wants to ensure that the content that we host can be re-used by other users without fear of liability and that it is not infringing the proprietary rights of others. In fairness to our users, as well as to other creators and copyright holders, our policy is to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the formalities of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Pursuant to the DMCA, we will terminate, in appropriate circumstances, users and account holders of our system and network who are repeat infringers.

However, we also recognize that not every takedown notice is valid or in good faith. In such cases, we strongly encourage users to file counter-notifications when they appropriately believe a DMCA takedown demand is invalid or improper. For more information on what to do if you think a DMCA notice has been improperly filed, you may wish to consult the Chilling Effects website.

If you are the owner of content that is being improperly used on one of the Projects without your permission, you may request that the content be removed under the DMCA. To make such a request, please email us at legalwikimedia.org or snail mail our designated agent at this address.

Alternatively, you may make a request to our community, which often handles copyright issues faster and more effectively than prescribed under the DMCA. In that case, you can post a notice explaining your copyright concerns. For a non-exhaustive and non-authoritative list of the relevant processes for the different Project editions, look here. Before filing a DMCA claim, you also have the option of sending an email to the community at infowikimedia.org.

you can also see on the bottom of the page there is a disclaimer Elytrian - Talk 04:29, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Unless of course @Tropical Storm Angela: is talking about the problem described in WP:OWN, in which people feel emotionally that they are the owners of the article because they did the hard work of drafting it. On a Wikipedia, this is usually bad because they can act territorial and discourage other people from making good edits. ...but AKM's comment talks about all Wikimedia content sites. So it's necessary to say that this type of emotional-not-legal ownership is not a a problem on Wikinews. Because the articles only stay editable for a short window, after which no one gets to change it, it does not matter if people feel like they are the owner of that article. On the English Wikinews, I saw reviewers say they preferred it when only one drafter worked on an article (because it made it easier for them to act like teachers toward that person, but that's another issue).

AKM, if you brought this up because you want that kind of relationship with an article, where you accept that you're not the legal owner of the text but you do get to control how it will look going forward, then give a Wikinews a go. I personally think it does Wikieditors good to bring an article through the review process at least once. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:18, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Under no circumstances would I ever claim an ownership related to articles here, other Wikipedia sites or Wikimedia Foundation sites whatsoever. Ownership of articles interferes with everybody else's rights to edit those articles, and that causes serious problems with all Wikimedia Foundation websites. Angela Kate Maureen (talk) 23:57, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Lack of VGAs

Am I supposed to be worried it has been a whole year since we got a VGA? This is kind of disappointing to say the least. Elytrian - Talk 04:06, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@Elytrian: I don't think you need to worry about it. If it bothers you, then work on an article to get it into VGA status. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:11, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

As you probably know, there are pages where proposals are collected. Editors will then review the proposals, and promote the articles, if necessary. Note that GAs and VGAs are a lot of work. Over the last two months I have promoted a few articles to GA status. If you want to see more promotions, go and work on the articles proposed, or propose some yourself. --Eptalon (talk) 04:31, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Proposed very good articles, there are currently 5 nominations. Alternative: Wikipedia:Proposed good articles, with currenlty 4 proposals. --Eptalon (talk) 06:12, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

• I deprecate the idea of working more on VGAs. The problem about GA and VGA is that they divert editing effort away from our main objective. Our main objective is to write simple versions of En wiki pages. This is almost beyond the capability of most editors as it is. If we divert expertise to "button-polishing", editing new pages will suffer. This situation is not going to change. We have to face it. I think:

1. Writing new pages is definitely a much higher priority than polishing buttons getting pages promoted.
2. Writing new pages based on En wiki is within the range of capability of most regular editors.

Bearing this in mind, I would suggest merging GA and VGA, and just calling them GAs. What experience has taught is is that these pages are hard to edit, and they need our most expert people to take part, else the standard deteriorates. My proposal recognises that we can't entirely follow En wiki here because a) we have few really expert editors, and b) we are such a long way from providing pages for even the most important topics. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:34, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Helping me to ask the Ukrainian-language Wikipedia for some errors I did in it

Hello. Could you please help me to deal and talk with the Ukrainian Wikipedia, in the case of the page that I recently created, named Фанг Цзин, it is actually should be connected to the China Central Television news reporter Fang Jing, but I accidentally connected the page to Guo Lanying. Could you please help me? Thank you. It was an accident. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adamdaniel864 (talk • contribs) 04:22, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Archiving

Is there any way to view the archives without having to search specific things in Simple Talk? Thnx - Ely - Talk 07:38, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

@Elytrian: Do you mean the archives of this page? Yes: in the box at the top of this page, click the "Expand" link to the right of "Archives", then you'll see links to the individual archive files. Just click on any of those to see the contents. Is that what you're looking for? --Auntof6 (talk) 08:42, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Yup, thanks! Ely - Talk 09:45, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

2021 Voting Opens

Voting for the 2021 Board of Trustees election is now open. Candidates from the community were asked to submit their candidacy. After a three week long Call for Candidates, there are 19 candidates for the 2021 election.

The Wikimedia movement has the opportunity to vote for the selection of community-and-affiliate trustees. By voting, you will help to identify those people who have the qualities to best serve the needs of the movement for the next several years. The Board is expected to select the four most voted candidates to serve as trustees. Voting closes 31 August 2021.

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees oversees the Wikimedia Foundation's operations. The Board wants to improve their competences and diversity as a team. They have shared the areas of expertise that they are currently missing and hope to cover with new trustees.

Learn more about candidates. Learn about the Board of Trustees. Vote.

Read the full announcement.

Best, Zuz (WMF) (talk) 12:47, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Avoiding me being blocked in the Ukrainian-language Wikipedia, as I indeed bring sources and put it inside the Ukrainian-language Wikipedia

Hello. Can you please help me? Discuss together with the Ukrainian-language Wikipedia to avoid blocking me in it, as I truly enter reliable sources in the web in each new page that I create. I truly follow all of its instructions.

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adamdaniel864 (talk • contribs)

We are completely separate from them. As such we won't be able to help you with any issues you have there. -Djsasso (talk) 15:51, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Hello. Could you please discuss with the Ukrainian-language Wikipedia to not prohibit me from editing new pages there and to permit me editing new pages? Believe me, I truly bring reliable sources in it. Can you please do this thing? Help me so that it would be more easy for my Wikipedia work. And could you please also discuss with the Ukrainian-language Wikipedia not to delete all my recently-created pages, as I truly bring reliable sources about the person.

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adamdaniel864 (talk • contribs)

This is not the place to complain. Ask the Ukranian Wikipedia admin on their talk page. SHB2000 (talk) 03:59, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't understand clearly all Ukrainian words, in fact. Can you bring it to me?

Hello. I couldn't stand that I am prohibited from editing new pages in the Ukrainian-language Wikipedia. It's my greatest work. So, could you please discuss with the Ukrainian-language Wikipedia to permit me editing new pages and not to prohibit me from editing new pages with I bring reliable sources about the subject?

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adamdaniel864 (talk • contribs)

We have nothing to do with ukwiki and we can't do anything. Sorry :\ SHB2000 (talk) 04:00, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

@SHB2000: Yes but considering the spamming... do we have a reliable editor here who knows Ukrainian? Maybe they could help him out on uwuki (see what I did there?) and stop the spamming here. Ely - Talk 04:06, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Large number of bytes kills limits, wiki text and much more

After using the sandbox it completely broke down. I entered 9.04 million bytes though the limit seems to be 2.03 million bytes. When I went through it after that, the sandbox header was broken. It seems that copy pasting breaks the limit. It also broke the xtools statistics, possibly forever. I would like somebody to hide my recent edit history lest they copy paste it for vandalism. Also, the page will burn your computer if you scroll down, but I luckily was able to undo it before (insert EXPLOSION here)

Cheers - Ely - Talk 08:03, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Don't try to break things. It is undone now and it is fine. Not really a valid hide reason. -Djsasso (talk) 11:06, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

I'd suppose so, but to Elytrian, to whether it crashes your computer depends on which model you're using. SHB2000 (talk) 11:09, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm using a 12 year old Mac, but I asked my friend who has an Alienware to try it and it crashed his. Ely - Talk 12:38, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Serial disruptions by IP account

See User talk:58.182.147.22 for a pattern of disruptive editing over several months. I just posted a warning message (generic, what's the specific one for removing the QD template on a page the user created?) on that talk page. Is a notice here also helpful? Seeking advice. -- Deborahjay (talk) 11:34, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

No need to notify here, you could report to WP:VIP if you wanted to like you would any other vandalism. Because IPs can theoretically end up being different people over time it is harder for us to consider past behaviour in their cases. Generally the blocks we give just get longer to a point. -Djsasso (talk) 11:37, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Women South Asia 2021

Wiki Loves Women South Asia is back with the 2021 edition. Join us to minify gender gaps and enrich Wikipedia with more diversity. Happening from 1 September - 30 September, Wiki Loves Women South Asia welcomes the articles created on gender gap theme. This year we will focus on women's empowerment and gender discrimination related topics.

We warmly invite you to help organize or participate in the competition in your community. You can learn more about the scope and the prizes at the project page.

Best wishes,
Wiki Loves Women Team
10:42, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps we could write or expand articles about erased and underexposed female scientists, like Emily Noether, Cecilia Payne, Rosalind Franklin, Anna Selving, Grace Hopper, Matilda Gage, the Matilda Effect and so on. The Smithsonian could be a good source. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:13, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

@Darkfrog24: Guess so. I had a different idea, but this is probably better. I was thinking revolutionaries but... ehhh. Also, is there another website that has information like the Smithsonian? Articles need more than one source. -- Elytrian (contact) 08:07, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Ha ha. I'm sure we can find one or two. Generally, I find the best articles have books in them.

Your mention of revolutionaries springs another idea. Jason Porath (who is not a historian) wrote a book called Rejected Princesses about women who wouldn't make good Disney movies. There were lots of scientists and revolutionaries of all sorts in there, from all over the world. I don't think RP itself would be a reliable source, but Porath cites his own sources very well if I remember. We could easily mine that for scientists, revolutionaries and focus on Asian women all we want. In fact, that's how I learned about Anna Selving Mary Anning: [1] He has more badass drawings too. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:39, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

@Darkfrog24: Now I see why WLWSA exists. Look at the red link ratio of women to men in the Matilda effect page, even though its for women! Also, could you help me simplify it? Not very good at that... ~~ Elytrian (contact) 08:14, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

I'll see if I can find time later. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:39, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

I have started a Wikiproject page so we can prepare for this event. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:55, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

@Anthere and MdsShakil: I clicked the link and read the project page. First off, nice page. Second off, it looks like this event is about writing articles on Wikipedias in South Asian languages, not writing articles here on Simple about South Asian topics. Is that correct? If so, is there a way for those of us who do not speak South Asian languages to support this event, even if we can't participate as contestants? Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:27, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Like... maybe if someone writes an article about Mehrunisa on an Indonesian Wikipedia, we could morally support its drafters by writing a companion article on Simple at the same time, even if we don't have anyone who could do a translation. Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:34, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

@Darkfrog24 Hello all, We do not mean South Asian languages that originated in South Asia, we mean the languages that are used in this region. English is one of the most important languages in South Asia, Simple English is no exception!

We warmly welcome you to join this contest. --MdsShakil (talk) 05:55, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I am interested in organizing this event for the Simple English Wikipedia. Tell me, what is this "jury" section I see on the page? Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:31, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

@Darkfrog24 I responded you via email --MdsShakil (talk) 12:50, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Hello all; the Taliban have taken power in Afghanistan. As a result, the access of women to education, paid, independent work, or to other freedoms will likely be severely limited, if it hasn't been already. If you look at the population structure of Afghamistan, about half of the 38 million are under 20, roughly the other half is in the 20-60 range, and about 5-10% is over 60. In those 20-odd years where they had access to education, some Afghan women likely learnt English. To give those women some hope, I propose to shift the focus, and write mostly about prominent women, with strong ties to Afghanistan, or with an Afgan background. Obviously, they need to be notable. So what Afghan women that have become scientists or politicians, or that have had a great influence on society can we come up with?--Eptalon (talk) 05:31, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea, Eptalon. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:15, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

The organizers of this project have posted more information about prizes. Simple still needs some jury members (judges) before we can participate. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:24, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Help with top icon

I wanted to use the top icon template but the image name parameter doesn't seem to work. The documentation is useless to me, nothing helped me from there. I uploaded a file and used it for. the image name and it was fine. How do I use an image from Commons? Ely - Talk 15:35, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

You didn't have the filename correct in your template. I fixed it for you so you can see what it should have been. -Djsasso (talk) 15:38, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Red Brigades

How is the page looking? 64.39.87.169 (talk) 21:12, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

I cleaned up Red Brigades a little and added some sources. In the Stanford source, there are links to even more sources! Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:38, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

thnx!!! 64.39.87.169 (talk) 00:32, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Query on RedWarn.

RedWarn allows automatic rollback without the permission, with automatic edit summaries as well. This is probably intended, but then what is the point of the rollback permission? Seems pretty useless to me. (This is probably going to initiate a debate.) Ely - Talk 06:46, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

The rollback permission is required because you are only supposed to rollback edits that are vandalism and the permissions shows that you know the difference. The historical reason for this was that you could not change the edit summary of a rollback but some tools now allow for you to change the edit summary of an action that is the equivalent of a rollback, it was also intended to prevent people from rolling back a lot of edits quickly. In saying that, using rollback in a disruptive manor with tools like Redwarn could lead to blocks etc so people are still expected to use them correctly. Thinking on it some more technically the community has never approved the use of Redwarn here like they have Twinkle so using Redwarn is probably a grey area. -Djsasso (talk) 11:34, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Twinkle bug report

It won't let you do a multiple reasons QD without an "optional" comment. Ely - Talk 15:57, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Noted. Will let you know for future that the vast majority of Twinkle here doesn't work totally correctly. It only got to beta state here and is bootstraped to work here cause we are missing most of the infrastructure the newer versions need. So you are likely to always find issues with it. It is basically a user beware type situation. -Djsasso (talk) 16:21, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Also applies to multiple taggings. Ely - Talk 16:45, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

@Djsasso More bugs! You can't always submit a multiple QD even with it. When is the newer version coming out? Ely - Talk 15:48, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

By "it" I mean a comment, not Twinkle. Ely - Talk 15:48, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Ok I was probably not clear enough above. There are lots of bugs, they aren't likely to be fixed because of complex issues. Using Twinkle here is a case of "as is". As for when we might get a new version, likely many years. We have been in the current state for over a decade at this point. -Djsasso (talk) 15:49, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Oh. Is RedWarn any better? Ely - Talk 15:51, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

As far as I am aware it doesn't work here, its en.wiki only. -Djsasso (talk) 15:52, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

JJPMaster copied the RedWarn script from enwiki with some adjustments, and it does work quite well. See User:JJPMaster/RedWarn.js --Ferien (talk) 16:19, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Yeah the community should discuss if we want it here. It was a pretty controversial app on en.wiki last I looked into it, but I am definitely not up to date. -Djsasso (talk) 16:34, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

@Djsasso: Why is it controversial? It seems very user-friendly and helpful. Ely - Talk 16:45, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

There were a few reasons if I remember correctly, one is the topic you mention in the section below, is that it allows you to do things you aren't supposed to be able to unless you have rollback rights. (ie the use of quick rollback with a summary set for you). I believe it also somehow involved using a role account that was controlled by multiple people and access to it is outside the control of wikipedia. It also promoted people treating wikipedia like a game to get "high scores". I think there were others, but in the past (not sure if it is still the case as it was awhile ago now that I remember looking) it was highly controversial over there. -Djsasso (talk) 17:01, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Why the Ukrainian-language Wikipedia always block me while I never say any bad things and include reliable sources

Hello. I would like to plead you for making me easy.

Although I changed to a new account named Malay833, in the Ukrainian-language Wikipedia, it always blocked me? Why it always block me? I don't understand Ukrainian completely. I never mean to say anything bad and I indeed will bring reliable sources. Why the Ukrainian-language Wikipedia always block me from editing new pages? Discuss with the Ukrainian-language Wikipedia not to block me and to allow me editing new pages.

Thank you.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Malay833 (talk • contribs)

Hello Malay833, Unfortunately we cannot do anything, Sister projects cannot do anything in regards to blocks etc on other projects so you would need to discuss your issues with the Ukrainian Wikipedia. Thanks. –Davey2010^Talk 13:07, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Blocked for socking. Same user that made all these requests above. -Djsasso (talk) 13:17, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Most Wikipedias have a rule against just making another account so you can get around a punishment, like a block. But what these two guys said: If you want to edit here on the Simple English Wikipedia, we can show you how to do that, but if your problems with the Ukrainian Wikipedia community must be solved in the Ukrainian Wikipedia community. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:47, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Women South Asia 2021 begins September 1

Hey all. The Wiki Loves Women South Asia 2021 contest will begin September 1! Contestants are to write any article on the gender gap, women's empowerment or similar topics. They do not have to be about South Asia (but they can be). The idea is to write for South Asian audiences to even out both the Wikipedia gender coverage gap and some of the geographic gap. We're eligible to participate because simple English is a language used in South Asia.

Please see the full project page on Meta for rules and prizes and our own Simple English Wikipedia project page to sign up as a contestant or judge.

I've never run an event using Fountain before, so who knows what hilarity will ensue? Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:52, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

It says "Participants have to submit their contributions through the Fountain tool." Where can we learn how to do that? --Auntof6 (talk) 22:06, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Meta has something possibly useful. Meta:Fountain tool. --Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 22:09, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Gordonrox. Remember, not everyone has to be a contestant to help. If you know of a good book or website on feminism and gender in southern Asia, hop over to the project page to recommend it. If you have always wanted Simple to have an article about your favorite badass South Asian woman or event or movement, now would be a good time to request it! Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:11, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Do you like Italian Football/Soccer?

I came across this article A.S. Livorno Calcio and it does not have much information. The equivalent on EN has a lot more. I do not know about such things, but hopefully a fan of this sport would be willing to help build the article out (maybe even go for a WP:GA)! Have at it! No need to respond on here, but please do not edit war. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 23:08, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Fukui, Fukui - Japanese Translation Needed

Hello all - In this article there is a lot of Japanese mixed into it, including all of the references. Can someone translate those into english please? PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 23:37, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

And this one too please Echizen Ono Castle. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 23:39, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

I can take a look. --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:27, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

PotsdamLamb Is this what you mean? My Japanese Kanji knowledge isn't high, but I am going to do the ones I know. (You need to know at least 2000 Kanji, to be sufficent in everyday Japanese, and I only know like 150-200 ish lol) --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:35, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@つがる: Please go back and use the trans-title parameter, as described below. Also, remember that Google Translate can be your friend (at least for short pieces like this)! --Auntof6 (talk) 01:00, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
First, note that translation is not required for references, although it is nice to have. Second, anyone doing this translation will probably want to use the trans-title parameter rather than replacing the existing title value with English. And while at it, it might be good to add the language parameter. --Auntof6 (talk) 00:58, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Auntof6 Yea, I never really seen references translated before, which was why I only did one to see if that was done correctly, as opposed to doing many at once. Could you point me to the trans-title parameter, I was unaware of it - as I rarely translate references. I can then fix it after you point me to that trans-title parameter. Thanks --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 01:01, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Also Google Translate does not really work for Japanese. It does, but it doesn't, if you get what I am trying to say! lol --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 01:02, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@つがる: For the cite web template, trans-title is described in this section of the template documentation. I haven't checked other templates. If you also add the language parameter (for example language=ja or language=Japanese), the article will be added to the category for articles that have references in the indicated language. And, yeah, I know that Google Translate can be problematic. --Auntof6 (talk) 01:08, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@Auntof6: is this what you mean? Also I know this is unrealted, but for those wondering, techincally in Japanese, yes we could write everything in just Hiragana. However, some words in Japanese, if written in Hiragana, all look the same, but have different meanings, so without the Kanji, we will have no idea what the author is talking about. Also Kanji lets lazy people write less! --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 01:13, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@つがる: Yes, that format looks good. I can't speak to the accuracy of the translation, so I leave that to you. :) --Auntof6 (talk) 01:17, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Auntof6 glad to hear I did it right! But for the translation one part of the original title said it was the city website's homepage, but that seemed incorrect when I went to the link, so I left out the "homepage of the city" part in the translated title. Is this okay? --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 01:19, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@つがる: I think that should be fine. --Auntof6 (talk) 01:20, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

How do I upload images

I don't see any link to the image upload page on my tools list. Can anyone help me? Thank you.--NadirAli (talk) 18:38, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

To upload images, you can use the upload tool on Wikimedia Commons and uploaded images there can be used on any Wikimedia wiki. You can't upload images locally. :D --213.66.95.2 (talk) 18:42, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you IP user, but do you know why I cannot upload here? The image I want to upload is a fair use image and cannot be uploaded to commons which is restricted to public domain images.--NadirAli (talk) 18:53, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@NadirAli You have to use commons as we don’t allow pictures to be uploaded to our Wikipedia. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 18:56, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

PotsdamLamb, thank you sir.--NadirAli (talk) 19:03, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Meitei Language Fonts

So I know they got approval to start their Wiki earlier this year. But when the articles are being put here all I see are empty boxes or boxes with ? in them. Does the font need to be added to this wiki for it be seen? I installed them locally but that does not help. Thanks. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 17:51, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

It needs to be added on your local machine, means your local computer doesn't have it. You likely either installed them incorrectly or they weren't the right ones. Nothing this wiki can do about it. -Djsasso (talk) 15:44, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Women South Asia 2021 has begun

Happy September, Simple English Wikipedia. The Wiki Loves Women South Asia 2021 edit-a-thon is now open! Any article on gender gap or women's empowerment is eligible. Entries do not have to be specific to South Asia. We serve the South Asian audience by providing content in a language they read: Simple English. Feel free to participate any time before October 1, either as a contestant, by providing a source, or by suggesting an article for expansion or creation! Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:40, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Compression of vertical languages

Is there any way to compress Mongolian and similar languages that take up vertical space? Sort of like an expand button? It is unsightly seeing many lines empty with a singular character in them.

Definitely not Ely - Talk 04:22, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Names for tropical storms

• We should align all our terms with En. They do not at present, and there are a whole choice of terms. Storms, cyclones, hurricanes, typhoons, tropical storms... If we can get a consensus to follow En on this, it will make admins jobs easier. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:42, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

That's interesting. How does it affect admin jobs when articles have different names? Darkfrog24 (talk) 11:36, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Or, put another way, how does it affect admins more than it affects anyone else? --Auntof6 (talk) 11:58, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Hurricanes should be named when they originate in the Atlantic and usually hit the U.S. and Mexico or when they hit in the Pacific and hit Japan, China or the Koreas. That's what I heard. Cyclones originate in the Indian Ocean I think. I don't know about the rest. Also, how does it affect admins @Macdonald-ross? I don't seem to understand. At the worst, it might affect editors creating dupe pages and categories failing due to debated naming. Ely - Talk 13:43, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

• Unless we have a reason, we should follow En. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:49, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

  And could you send a link to the EN-wiki consensus @Macdonald-ross? Ely - Talk 15:28, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I already do that, Macdonald-ross. For example, I write lots of frog articles, but the scientists sometimes change the scientific name. I will give the article a different name than the en.wiki article if, for example, the frog has been renamed Boana awesomefrog from Hypsiboas awesomefrog. I'm just curious about the admins and their problems because it's a part of the simple.wiki community. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:12, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

• In common sense, every change in terminology raises a question of verifiability. Admins are not necessarily subject-matter experts, and often cannot judge whether choice of alternative terms are correct. "Follow En" is just a rubric to make decisions easier. It's what we do in doubtful cases because they have many more subject-matter experts than we do.

In the case of Linnaean biological names any changes must align with the International taxonomical commission's decisions. There may be a time-lag before an official decision is ratified. In other words, there's a structure which deals with the problem. Using common names raises other problems because a widespread species can easily have over a dozen local names, and we have a widespread readership.

Any changes from a standard system of names is going to raise questions as to whether the changes are justified and whether they collectively make sense. Inside the projects on En wiki are many discussions about the naming and classification of their topics. We benefit by following them. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:03, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't see any EN consensus @Macdonald-ross. See this page. Ely - Talk 08:17, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

I think you are diverting the topic. All I said was "We should align all our terms with En. They do not at present, and there are a whole choice of terms. Storms, cyclones, hurricanes, typhoons, tropical storms... If we can get a consensus to follow En on this, it will make admins jobs easier. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:23, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but there is no consensus on en. I checked the category as well. While I am fine with "We should align all our terms with En. They do not at present, and there are a whole choice of terms." I cannot agree with the tropical storm stuff as there is no en consensus. And you still haven't told how it will benefit admins specifically. Ely - Talk 13:35, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

• Well, so long as we make full use of their weather portal, and their WikiProjects, it would be unreasonable to ask for more. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:53, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Any takers?

This article is a Asian History article titled State of Sindh. I did what I could to fix all of the article, however, I have to go to work for a 14 hour shift. I had to remove the gallery and some other image links as they were broken. If anything can find them and put them back in, I think this article can be done. Thanks. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 03:45, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do. Ely - Talk 04:04, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

few questions

i got few questions over here https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:GovGuide#open

pls reply there so i can see it

anytime thx

answers should be under each question so i know which is being answerd, thx — Preceding unsigned comment added by GovGuide (talk • contribs) 05:24, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Complexity tools

Someone in the WLW contest brought this up while translating an otherwise eligible page from a more complex wiki: Is there a tool that filters out the BE 1500 words in a text and highlights the others?

Wikinews has something similar for links. It turns funky ones green. If there is I'd use the heck out of that thing. Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:23, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

The English on the typical WP page is usually quite poor as prose. Basic English was played with when this wiki was young. It was formulated 100 years ago, and rarely has words necessary in modern science & technology, nor modern idiomatic use of language. Simple sentence structure works wonders for the readers. Of course it makes sense to use common words, and avoid complex constructions where one can. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:45, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

The BE 500 words are not sufficient. It is often good to use direct language instead of passive language. Look at the verbs: better to say "You need a telescope or binoculars", rather than "It cannot be seen with the naked eye". (same point made in respect of Neptune discussion). Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:58, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Even better would be something like "People need a telescope or binoculars to see it", because using second person is not the right tone for an encyclopedia (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Avoid second-person pronouns). --Auntof6 (talk) 16:24, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Apart from the fact that most of the word-lists cited (BE850,BE1500) are no good once it comes to more advanced scientific topics, there's a different question: Are we counting "words", or "word forms": example: "be" 1 word, but "be,am,are,is,being,been,was,were,aren't, possibly ain't" (10 word forms). Dividing the "1500 words" by possibly 8-10 forms per word doesn't leave use with many words to use. So the point shouldn't be to rely on a word list, but to use common sense, and explain well. --Eptalon (talk) 16:32, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Another issue with the list has to do with the fact that many English words have more than one meaning, and sometimes a word is simple when used in one way but not when used in another. That's especially true with idioms. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:04, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Which if not used with the correct before or after it can be very confusing as well and even more so for someone who is not a native speaker of English. Just like the different forms of English alone all have different meanings. Australian, American, British, Indian, etc., may use the same word but will have a different meaning based on the country it’s being used in. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 18:44, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

The 2022 Community Wishlist Survey will happen in January

Hello everyone,

We hope all of you are as well and safe as possible during these trying times! We wanted to share some news about a change to the Community Wishlist Survey 2022. We would like to hear your opinions as well.

Summary:

We will be running the Community Wishlist Survey 2022 in January 2022. We need more time to work on the 2021 wishes. We also need time to prepare some changes to the Wishlist 2022. In the meantime, you can use a dedicated sandbox to leave early ideas for the 2022 wishes.

Proposing and wish-fulfillment will happen during the same year

In the past, the Community Tech team has run the Community Wishlist Survey for the following year in November of the prior year. For example, we ran the Wishlist for 2021 in November 2020. That worked well a few years ago. At that time, we used to start working on the Wishlist soon after the results of the voting were published.

However, in 2021, there was a delay between the voting and the time when we could start working on the new wishes. Until July 2021, we were working on wishes from the Wishlist for 2020.

We hope having the Wishlist 2022 in January 2022 will be more intuitive. This will also give us time to fulfill more wishes from the 2021 Wishlist.

Encouraging wider participation from historically excluded communities

We are thinking how to make the Wishlist easier to participate in. We want to support more translations, and encourage under-resourced communities to be more active. We would like to have some time to make these changes.

A new space to talk to us about priorities and wishes not granted yet

We will have gone 365 days without a Wishlist. We encourage you to approach us. We hope to hear from you in the talk page, but we also hope to see you at our bi-monthly Talk to Us meetings! These will be hosted at two different times friendly to time zones around the globe.

We will begin our first meeting September 15th at 23:00 UTC. More details about the agenda and format coming soon!

Brainstorm and draft proposals before the proposal phase

If you have early ideas for wishes, you can use the new Community Wishlist Survey sandbox. This way, you will not forget about these before January 2022. You will be able to come back and refine your ideas. Remember, edits in the sandbox don't count as wishes!

Feedback

• What should we do to improve the Wishlist pages?
• How would you like to use our new sandbox?
• What, if any, risks do you foresee in our decision to change the date of the Wishlist 2022?
• What will help more people participate in the Wishlist 2022?

Answer on the talk page (in any language you prefer) or at our Talk to Us meetings.

SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 00:23, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

New Stub - Africa

Greetings all - I wanted to see if anyone had an issue with a new stub called Africa-stub? We have stubs for a lot of major countries and with everything going and also a lot of Nigerian articles, I feel this would be a good stub to have so it can be sorted to Africa and those from that area or have expertise in that geographic area can have a list of articles to work on. Thoughts? PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 03:11, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

I'd support, but are there over a thousand articles in need of it? Apart from that, see the Simple Stub Project. Ely - Talk 03:14, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@Elytrian I am very familiar with the project. I tag a lot of articles. There does not need to be over a thousand articles to have a stub. I can tell you off the top of my head, there are at least 200 pages so far. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 03:16, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@PotsdamLamb you might want to see this. Ely - Talk 03:29, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

And? I know all of that. It’s 2 years old and we have expanded so I have a right to get others input on it. So if you support it why are you trying to derail the discussion? PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 03:35, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Yeesh. Calm down. I'm just telling you to take a look at what happened last time. It was going to be added, but never made it. Ely - Talk 03:38, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

The reason I said that is because both links you have shown me are things I’m already aware of. Don’t take offense please. I’ve been doing this for a long time :). This is a new time and a lot of stuff can use that. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 03:52, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@PotsdamLamb: Please bring this up in the place designated for these requests. Also please note:

• The correct question is not "does anyone have an issue if I create this?": that implies that you are going to create it if no one objects, and that is not how it works The correct question would be something like "is the community willing to approve this?"
• Yes, you pretty much do need at least a thousand articles. We keep the number of stub types to a minimum, and it is not necessary to have a stub type just because something is a major topic.
• Are you personally going to work on Africa stubs, or is there another user planning to? If not, the stub will likely not be created.

Finally, keep in mind that you don't need a dedicated stub type to work in a subject area. But go ahead and make the request in the correct place and see what happens. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:15, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@Auntof6 I don’t see anywhere where I said anything you mentioned in #1 above. Absolutely no where did I say I would create it regardless. Nor did I even come close to stating that so please re-read my proposal and correct your statement. As far as the last one yes I plan on working on them but we should have a stub for each continent minimum (IMO). According to the count from 2+ years ago there are over 3k articles that can go into once numerous search terms are completed. These can be actors animals cities towns etc. I will repost it at the forum where no one really goes to or reads. Thanks. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 08:23, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

JUST FORGET THIS as it seems the category (Redacted) never wants to expand anything according to every time something was asked on the talk page. So this is withdrawn. PDL^{Talk to me!}_{OMG, What have I done?} (Pronouns: He, him, his) 08:53, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Outdated article

I was wondering if anyone wanted to update the Scratch (programming language) page. It is very outdated. SoyokoAnis - talk 17:28, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

I'll check it out, I've used it quite a bit. Ely - Talk 12:49, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

thread subscribe

How do I view the threads on talkpages I have subscribed to? Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 20:38, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

If you mean pages on your watchlist, you would go to the talk page to see them. The watchlist will show you individual changes that have been made since the last time you looked at the page, so you can sometimes see the thread names. Does that answer your question? --Auntof6 (talk) 23:49, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Results for the 2021 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election

Read in other languages

---

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2021 Board election. The Elections Committee has reviewed the votes of the 2021 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election, organized to select four new trustees. A record 6,873 people from across 214 projects cast their valid votes. The following four candidates received the most support:

1. Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight
2. Victoria Doronina
3. Dariusz Jemielniak
4. Lorenzo Losa

While these candidates have been ranked through the community vote, they are not yet appointed to the Board of Trustees. They still need to pass a successful background check and meet the qualifications outlined in the Bylaws. The Board has set a tentative date to appoint new trustees at the end of this month.

Read the full announcement here. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 02:08, 9 September 2021 (UTC)