Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 143

Anish Kapoor expansion

I don't usually write biographies of living people, so could someone double-check my expansion of Anish Kapoor? I added a section on the Vantablack controversy. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:33, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, I know we need to cover the controversy, but it feels very coatracky to me. The fact that 90% of the article is about one event in his life just seems like we're given a lot of weight to this, an undue amount even. I like the writing, I just think maybe it is a little too much. Griff (talk) 07:14, 9 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think I agree with Griff on this. While the controversy is defiantly a notable part of his life, does it define him? As he was knighted, I really dont think one issue is as huge a part of him as this seems to show. As an example of the need for balance: Monica Lewinsky is basically famous for 1 event. She is hugely famous for that event, but generally speaking, that's all she got. In her article, the event would like carry a large part of the article. Prince Andrew has a large controversy in his personal life but the rest of his life hold a lot of notable things. While his article should cover the controversy, it needs to balance it with the rest of what makes him notable. This man seems more like a Prince Andrew level person than a Monica Lewinski level. (ie. not a one trick pony) In the opposite direction of notability. if an item pales to the rest, it usually doesn't need focused on. Hitler being a pretty good artist is barely a footnote in history. Hitler was an Austrian politician, would be world conqueror, genocidal maniac and artist.. ah, no. We could probably leave that last one out without breaking neutrality. --Creol(talk) 17:45, 9 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Do you guys think we should move the controversy section to its own article and put a link to it in Anish Kapoor? The fued with Semple over black paint is only reason I know Kapoor's name. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:58, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Look at how en handled the issue. On a 50K ish page, the vantablack thing takes up 2 paragraphs. It doesn't seem like an step by step description of the event is really needed. Its only a small part of his life. --Creol(talk) 02:41, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think it merits more space because it's interesting. I am not a position to write a 50K ish page about Anish Kapoor because I don't follow the professional art world, so balancing the page by adding more about other parts of Kapoor's life isn't an immediate option. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:11, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think that if we should cut back the controversy section significantly, and either hide the content or put it in talk page till the rest of the article catches up. Griff (talk) 01:25, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed that the moment it's an issue of undue weight...but it is content that should be there. I don't like the idea of temporarily moving content off the page but unless someone does want to expand on it that might be the best option. Vermont 🐿️ (talk) 01:44, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I added a gallery of works. Could use more, but it is a start. Seems an obvious section for a visual artist. Gotanda (talk) 00:59, 12 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Gender-based categories reloaded: LGBT?

Hello all, We currently have a few categories up for deletion, where we separate the people into male ones (usually without qualifier), and female ones (usually "Women ...", or "Female ..."); there the general consensus seems to be to not to introduce such classifications, except in very few specific cases. I do have another question though: Some people identify as part of the LGBTIQ+ group, and consequently we seem to have a category tree "LGBT people by occupation". If I take the stance that for a layer, sex/gender shoudn't matter, then I likely also need to take the stance that the category "LGBT lawyers" (as in lawyers, who identify as part of the LGBTIQ+ crowd), similarly makes no sense. IMO, this argument applies to most of the category LGBT people by occupation. I do see some exceptions: Artists, entertainers, fashion designers, models, and possibly writers. Note: I am not homophonbic, I do think that LGBTIQ people have their place, also as contributors to wikipedia. I am putting this up at Simple talk, because I think it isn't a simple deletion discussion. So what do other people think?--Eptalon (talk) 11:29, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really see what you mean that most LGBT are lawyers and you don't really provide any evidence as to why this may be true, especially since Category:LGBT lawyers is the third smallest category in Category:LGBT people by occupation out of 16 total occupations on categories. Meanwhile there are 95 politician LGBT articles while there are 8 lawyer politician LGBT articles. MrMeAndMrMeLet's talk 13:04, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I gave lawyers as an example, because I recently nominated the respective category "Women lawyers" for deletion (note: Women diplomats, Women politicians, Dutch women politicians is also up for deletion). It really shouldn't make a difference, if biologically you are male or female, or by feeling you identify as any of the LGBTIQ+ genders. In all those cases, your gender, or sexual orientation shouldn't affect your job. Being gay doesn't make a person a better lawyer, just as being a woman doesn't affect it. Eptalon (talk) 13:11, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Unless the sexuality defines them, I do not see categorizing them as such beyond the basic cat such as gay man, lesbians, etc. There is little difference between a gay lawyer, lesbian lawyer, bi lawyer and straight lawyer. Their sexuality doesnt impact them as a lawyer. Now porn? there sexuality could be a divider as it can define genres. Gay nurses, no really different than male nurses or female nurses. As with the male/ female, only if their sexuality is a defining characteristic. --Creol(talk) 17:06, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not specific to LGBT categories, but overall we need a new discussion on gender categories on a wider basis. It was a very large mistake to remove them from our category system. In pretty much every case gender is defining of someone, remember categories are about finding groups of articles, it is very likely that someone might be looking for just female lawyers for example. Our removing these categories has done a disservice to this wiki and frankly I think is one of the biggest mistakes this wiki has made. -Djsasso (talk) 19:23, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe someone can start a new thread, with the topic mentioned by user:Djsasso. (In that thread I expect to say, that I have not noticed that En-wiki are doing things better than us, in regard to putting "women articles" in categories.--Differently, yes. Better? Haven't noticed.) 89.8.131.109 (talk) 20:04, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
We don't need a new thread, we can discuss it here. Eptalon (talk) 20:25, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So you are in support of grouping people by gender and sexuality. I would also guess this would incluse ethnicity, for example African American (tho probably not African-American). So I would expect you fully support both sides equally, such as Cat: straight white male lawyers. No females, gay men or African Americans allowed. If having a gender or sexuality is notable, all sexualities and genders need to be treated equally. You can't support only select biases without being biased yourself. If there is a difference between the groups that is one thing (many, not all, sports areas for example) but to call someone different from the norm because of there gender, orientation or race.. pretty certain there are words for that. --Creol(talk) 20:34, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure if you were replying to me but no I specifically said I wasn't referring to LGBTQ etc or sexualities. But yes, we should have categories for each gender. I also didn't say ethnicity. You are trying to create a strawman argument. Saying someone is a female or male is not labeling them as different than the norm. It is labelling them as a subset. We should have both a male lawyer and a female lawyer category. Not doing so is far more biased. Lumping everyone into one big pot makes things significantly more difficult for the reader and introduces a large amount of bias and sexism into our content. Why we think we are special and should do different than English Wikipedia is beyond me. -Djsasso (talk) 20:57, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What does any of this have to do with En.wiki? Personally I realy dont care what they do most of the time. If we chose to do something one wat or another is not based on how anyone else chose to do something. As to this topic. When people get to pick and chose what category they are in, we need a lot more info and a host more people to track and document everyone choices which have no bearing on the actual facts. To me. who a person has sex with rarely has any impact on what they are. Maybe im just too naïve and believe that a person is a person. --Creol(talk) 21:08, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Because they have discussed this issue to death with many many more people than we have, many of which have much more knowledge on the subject. Our current "precedence" comes from an Afd with less than 10 people in it. Hardly an informed discussion. Who a person has sex with doesn't necessarily impact what they do. A person is a person, but there are definitely characteristics that are considered defining ones, and like it or not gender in our society is one of them. Wikipedia doesn't try to right great wrongs, we are a reflection of society. -Djsasso (talk) 21:15, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure how I feel about this topic in general, but maybe it's worth considering this: a person's sexual orientation might not impact who they are with respect to their occupation, but the prejudice, harassment, etc. that they face because of it could be. If there's a profession or other aspect of a person where people face more difficulties for being LGBTIQ+, it might be worth categorizing them under the combination of LGBTIQ+ and the profession. An example of that is religious workers, especially those in religions who see LGBT people as sinful.
I do have an issue with the way that "LGBTIQ+" includes several different things that aren't the same. For example, it indicates sexual orientation (who a person is attracted to) but also gender identity (what gender a person identifies as). I hope that eventually there will be either a better way to characterize people than by saying "everyone who's not cisgender and straight".
None of this means that I think sexual orientation, gender identity, racial origin, religion, etc. aren't defining of a person. I just don't think the combination of that and an occupation or other aspect is necessarily meaningful here. Plus, we would face the issue we've often seen with separating genders: if you move all of one type of people into a separate category, we can tend to see them as apart from the main group. (I think this happens with some other categories we have, such as for African-American people and Jews.) If we do that, we should either sort all such people into parallel categories (which would mean having categories for cis-straight people - and remember that we aren't to categorize people by sexual orientation or gender identity without sources for it) or make the separate categories non-diffusing subcategories.
Eventually Wikidata is supposed allow people to search for intersections in things like this. I'm sure that will happen Any Day Now.
OK, so maybe I do know how I feel about this. -- Auntof6 (talk) 22:54, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am fine with issues mentioned in this thread, going to deletion discussion (and I will likely vote to keep most (if not everything) that English-wiki has kept about "LGBT categories").--Gay nurses no different? Maybe something about the "sum of their stories", is notable in a way that makes keeping LGBT-categories desirable.--Here is one example of a person (or story) that might be okay to have in "LGBT categories"; and yes, there will always be arguments for keeping categories, and arguments for changing categories. Is it not so that there were c. zero known notable lesbian nurse-officers in the U.S. military before "Cammermeyer"; En-wiki sort of says that she was not known as lesbian until 1989 or later.--I am fine with keeping most LGBT categories that she might belong to (even though we don't have an article about her). (If the question "why", pops up - an okay answer might be "why not".) 89.8.131.109 (talk) 20:07, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Going with sum of stories. I spent much of the past decade surrounded by nursing staff. Male, female, straight, bi, gay, lesbian and a host of different nationalities and ethnicities. While each one was different, it was very rare for any to be different based on one of there characteristic. With many of them, any such classification would be an affront. Black/white/brown(Moroco or the Philippines), male/female/other, straight/gay/bi/etc. At the end of the day. they were all nurses with a job to do and patients to deal with. The separation that matters is how they do their job, no who they had sex with the night before. --Creol(talk) 20:50, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    And I fully agree with that in the real world where performance is all that matters, but on an encyclopedia there are data points that are useful and important in a categorization standpoint. The fact that a person is female or male is defining of them as a person and on wikipedia that is what is considered important. How they do their job doesn't actually enter into it. It comes down to how people are likely to interact with the data on the wiki. And characterizations based on gender are one of the most common. -Djsasso (talk) 21:02, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Just because its common doesn't make it right. Racism. sexism and a host of other -isms have been common for most of human existance. That doesnt make any of them right or even remotely acceptable. People find it way to easy to accept certain isms while condemning others... --Creol(talk) 21:15, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Except this is the definition of sexism. Ignoring a genders differences... -Djsasso (talk) 21:16, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The definition of sexism is thinking that 1) one gender is better than the other or 2) people should act in ways that are expected of their gender. -- Auntof6 (talk) 22:57, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, obviously those things as well, but not recognizing someone's differences also falls into it because it diminishes them which is essentially the first point you list. By essentially saying their differences don't matter it indicates a lesser than situation. All genders have different experiences, and different points of view and they all bring something different to the table, most if not all things a person does are coloured by their gender. That isn't to say the quality of what they do differs. To continue with the lawyers example from above, a female lawyer for example might handle defending/prosecuting a sexual assault differently than a male would just due to the life experiences their different genders provided. Or doctor's, it is well established that medical care for females differs greatly when provided by a male doctor. Ignoring differences in genders is in general a bad thing. One of the many reasons its a very good thing to get all genders into more roles in various industries is because they bring a diversity of thought and experiences to the table leading to better outcomes. But ignoring those differences just serves to hold down those who have differences from the status quo norm of white male (which infers an inferiority of those who aren't that). -Djsasso (talk) 23:21, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm a little mixed on the edge here, but here are my two cents.
    Having more than one category means that there are two unique differences between the two categories that are a consistent difference. This means that even if the two categories are different qualifiers, it they result in basically the same thing, they are useless.
    For example, being put in the "Botanists" category means that you are a botanist. You are not an astrologist, you are not a cartographer, you are not a pianist. You are a botanist and everyone else under that category is also a botanist, conducting similar research. Let's say the parent cat is called "branches of sciences" for shits and giggles. Space exploration is also under this category because space exploration is an actively different subject than botany, so that makes plenty of sense.
    Lets now say that you are put under the female botanist category. What difference does this make from being a male botanist, other than having different parts? The only difference between the two categories are the parts. This is not unique between the two actors, and doesn't consistently change the fact that they are botanists.
    So, in my opinion, we should keep gender-related categories when, and only when, they create an active difference between the two categories. For example, actors and actresses will consistently have different gender roles. Under my proposal, we would keep actors and actresses as different categories.
    Male and female lawyers, however, have no consistent difference in their roles as male, female or otherwise, so things like that should be deleted, including LGBT+ lawyers.
    Tldr; the community should decide if there is a consistent difference between the two jobs in the categories. If there is, then it should be kept. If there isn't, then it should be deleted.
    What are your thoughts? MrMeAndMrMeLet's talk 03:42, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Actors and actresses do not consistently have different gender roles. Part of being an actor (many "actresses" today prefer to be called "actors", by the way) is the ability to portray a variety of parts, and that includes portraying characters not of one's own gender. English Wikipedia has a whole article about it. (That article leaves out Meryl Streep, widely considered one of the best actresses female actors working today, who played a rabbi in Angels in America.)
    Another aspect of this is that, more and more these days, people are identifying as neither male nor female: sometimes agendered, sometimes gender fluid, maybe others I'm not familiar with. What do we do with those people if we divide everyone into male and female? -- Auntof6 (talk) 06:19, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    That's fair, so I'm mostly thinking that for the most part, these shouldn't exist. MrMeAndMrMeLet's talk 06:24, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Kings and queens would be an exception to this. Historically they generally hold different roles. MrMeAndMrMeLet's talk 14:15, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, they would only serve different roles if there were both at the same time and that was more of a power sharing thing and a sign of the way of thinking at the time. And King/queen consorts wouldnt count (the mate of the monarch is not often a ruler - ie. Prince Phillip of Britain was the husband of the Queen but not a king ). With single monarch rule, there is no difference other than name between King and Queen. --Creol(talk) 16:59, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    We should probably separate kings/queens regnant/consort more than we do now. (Also other types of monarchs that have regnant and consort distinctions.) I keep meaning to look at that, but haven't gotten around to it yet. -- Auntof6 (talk) 22:43, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Note also, that in some monarchies (e.g. England) women can become queens; the current monarch is Queen Elizabeth, while in others they can't. Can you imagine one of the daughters of King Saud becoming queen (and being influential enough to actually hold power); esp. since the Arab World is very parernalistic; yes, women are allowed to drive cars, but should they really? . So yes, for monarchs it might make sense to differentiate between male and female ones...? - Another example is Spain, where it is the first-born child (so no difference between men and women). Eptalon (talk) 22:57, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    So...can we not have an extensive category system that includes gender/ethnicity/etc. without inherently taking some stance on it? I don't think having those categories constitutes some sort of stance on whether someone's characteristics affect their work. We can have a detailed category network without needing to have these types of discussions; categories exist to link pages and help people find other pages, and especially for stuff like finding metrics on gender or ethnicity require those categories. Vermont 🐿️ (talk) 12:50, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • If anyone creates List of women lawyers List of women American scientists, then it arguably can be taken as a "sort of argument", that the category is needed). If anyone creates List of LGBT lawyers, then it arguably does not make it harder, to have that category deleted. 89.8.163.49 (talk) 02:41, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
List of American women scientists would be the standard word sequence in English. Interestingly, it would be List of female American scientists. Every case has to be thought through carefully. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:57, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am fine with the current categories on Simple-wiki. (Some do a lot of work on categories, and can not be thanked enough.) 89.8.65.192 (talk) 17:04, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • enWP policy is found in CATGENDER and CATLGBT, which does not support categories similar to women lawyers, but does support categories such as women politicians. I feel that we should default to that unless there is clear consensus to do otherwise (and an RFD discussion 10 years ago doesn't count). The issue I have is with categorising people by gender/sexual orientation is what do we do with those with the "default" orientation. Should males be categorised as such? What about cisgender or "straight" people? Do they get a category? Do we presume everyone is cisgender and straight unless cited otherwise? If we don't, then do we stick them in the parent cat? I just feel this creates a lot of issues. That being said, I see merit in Vermont's argument, and ideally, we would be able to tag biographies with all unique traits about someone, but we're an encyclopedia, not Wikidata. My thought is: "Gender and sexual orientation specific categories should be used only when the distinction has a specific relation to the role described in the category. Examples may included women or LGBT activists, or individuals for whom their gender or sexual orientation is the subject of significant coverage in reliable sources." - I believe that categories that we should include are those related to actors/actresses and sports people (except sports where mixed-gender competition is common). Griff (talk) 06:47, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Griffinofwales: Why do you think actors and actresses should have separate categories? -- Auntof6 (talk) 08:55, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    They are traditionally distinguished in separate categories in awards and their specific gender is frequently a requirement for the role they play. In this case, we are not the ones making the separation, rather their field of work is doing so. Griff (talk) 09:05, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The field of work isn't doing it. Only the awards are. There are plenty of example of people with XX chromosomes playing XY parts. It is very common in voice acting. For example, Goku (and most of his family), Bart Simpson, Dexter (of the laboratory), Timmy Pickles, Astroboy, Casper and Ash Ketcham. For live action, Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One is the first to come to mind. There are many traditional male parts redone for female characters (The Doctor, Missy, Joan Watson, much of Battlestar Galectica, Kono on Hawaii 5-0, Oceans 8, Ghostbusters (with Melissa McCartney). Female action characters are more and more common with more roles in that area (Wonder Woman, Black Widow, Lara Croft) The same is true with LGBT playing straight (Neil Patrick Harris, Jane Lynch, Jim Parsons) and straight playing LGBT (Williams, Hanks. Penn, Stonestreet, Ricci, Theron) While tradition gender and orientation roles are the norm, there are a large number of exception and it is getting more and more common each day. The condition of their chromosomes does not prohibit them from certain roles unlike many sports which are predominately separated by sex. Basketball, football (association) and most Olympic events are, but auto racing, chess and poker not. Pro wrestling does have inter-gender matches, but they are not the norm so its in the first group. Even in sports, if the sex of a competitor is seen to give a person an advantage, that sport gets separated. If it doesn't, there is no reason to separate them. --Creol(talk) 19:53, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Our current category system with male/female foos is an absolute mess and is very confusing to the reader, as some categories for female foos and there and others are not. The arguments in the original RfD for getting rid of male/female categories are very poor (main ones were it will be a lot of work - Wikipedia is a work in progress - and it's not simple which is just wrong) and after that, we have just blindly said that this is how our category system should work, when it's not simple, it's not in policies or guidelines, it's confusing to the reader as some categories exist for these and some don't and worst of all, it's not even consistent. Whether you love or hate these categories, the way categories are for male and female foos is awful. We shouldn't base our whole category system off one RfD. --Ferien (talk) 11:00, 2 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The only viable simple answer is no. A simple answer is easy. yes or no. All or nothing. No gray areas or special cases. As all means every category is separated into male and female, how to prove sex needs to be determined, decide how to handle transgender and other non=binary people, etc separating by sex isn't even remotely simple and as such should be avoided entirely. when living in a society where people constantly debate what "sex" even means (chromosomes, gender, personal choice, etc), the requirements to have a DNA test and a statement of self-identification (and months of debate on what this information defines and how it is used) just to say if someone is male, female or whatever other "sex/gender" based group they prefer to use makes any use of this type of categorization far from simple and as such should never be used here.
    • Category: Female scientists
    • Category: Male scientists
    • Category: LGBTQ+ scientists
    And then you have nationality. race, religion and ethnicity to include as well as what ever other sub groups. No suncat setup could be simple.
    This is just a start for every occupation and that before defining what each occupation includes --Creol(talk) 18:14, 2 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    What is the issue with simply following CATGENDER and CATLGBT (the relevant enWP categorisation guidelines) on this issue? They've already had the debate, and the arguments we are using here are much of the same. Griff (talk) 19:03, 2 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The only issue I have with CatGender is its inherent bias. ie. All <foos> go in Cat:foo but those we say are special also get to go on Cat:<special> foos. I just don't feel any one group should get be categorized differently just because they are <special>. Either everyone is or no on is. Are they different? Certainly. But both sides of the coin are different. Neither side should get special treatment. Popular thought tends to say if someone is a wooman, of color or non-binary, we should treat them differently. I think everyone should be treated the same. Of course I'm the oppressive racist patriarchy (ie. old white male) so what do I know. I'm really not allowed to have an opinion in this culture. --Creol(talk) 19:41, 2 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Well I agree, in principle, everyone should be the same, but we reflect current reality, and currently, men and women (and non-binary) are classified differently. In the future, gender-specific roles will be less and less common, but until then, I think we should reflect the reality that is given in the sources that make up our encyclopedia. Griff (talk) 22:42, 2 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    It has nothing to do with gender roles. After my second round of strokes, I lived in a nursing homw for a bit over 6 uears. Male, female. staight. Gay/lesbian, bi, white, black (African, African American and Caribbean), Arab, Latino, Asian, young, old; All in gender-leaning roles for both sides. Nurse, Doctor, Aid, management, house keeping, dietary.. all the same. And yet, in modern society, men are second class citizens at best (usually rapists and/or racists and a few other choice terms just to emphasize how little the contribute to society as a whole), women are put on a pedestal and LGBT+ are treaded as deities. Wikipedia is just mirroring the social bias of the times and ignoring the fact that it is completely biased. As such, I never have nor ever will categorize any one specially based on the color of their skin or if they have a vagina. Someone needs to follow behind me and stroke the egos as I will not be doing it. As I will not be doing the job in the way others expect it to be done, someone also needs to take my patroller rights away as I can't be expected to use them properly if I refuse to categories by ego. --Creol(talk) 01:54, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I still disagree. Saying that race or association or whatever is a significant factor in the person implies that there is a significant difference between the two roles that affects their line of work. While cats for people who lived in older times may fit, but there is no distinct difference between the two genders reugularly. MrMeAndMrMeLet's talk 13:13, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not too complicated to categorise gender neutral people or transgender people. We use people's gender (not sex) in articles, so there's no need to assume we wouldn't do it in categories. Gender neutral people could go in a subcat called gender neutral foos or even just foos. I also want to point out that if any of this was complicated for the reader then we could make the gender categories non-diffusing, so you can find Jane Doe in foos and female foos and the whole problem of "simplicity" would be solved within an instant. --Ferien (talk) 20:18, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Short article" flags

We originally decided that short article flags were appropriate for pages with 1,500 bytes or less. There's nothing magic about this number, but there are very many pages which have far more content, yet are flagged as short articles. Bear in mind that pages which cover all the important issues in simple English are doing their job.

I'm going to start deflagging pages which are over that guideline, and which seem to have the main issues on the title topic reasonably well covered. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:37, 17 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think it means word count in byte, does it not? --Tsugaru let's talk! :) 20:26, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Let's talk about the Desktop Improvements

 

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@SGrabarczuk (WMF): If I don't like the new vector skin, is there an option to keep the old one? --Tsugaru let's talk! :) 00:40, 26 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes @つがる, we are keeping the old one. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 00:44, 26 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Nice! Tsugaru let's talk! :) 00:45, 26 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I can't attend, but I want to know if I can change something nonfunctional about the desktop, like the color of the editing screen, so I don't lose track of which Wiki I'm on. I accidentally simplified an en.wiki article yesterday! Good thing it was easy to put back. Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:11, 26 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Zuz (WMF) (talk) 12:54, 26 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

New Wikipedia Library Collections Available Now - April 2022

Hello Wikimedians!

 
The TWL owl says sign up today!

The Wikipedia Library has free access to new paywalled reliable sources. You can these and dozens more collections at https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/:

  • Wiley – journals, books, and research resources, covering life, health, social, and physical sciences
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Many other sources are freely available for experienced editors, including collections which recently became accessible to all eligible editors: Cambridge University Press, BMJ, AAAS, Érudit and more.

Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: log in today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team 13:17, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List.
@Samwalton9: "You can these and dozens more collections" If you are going to use mass message, you might want to consider double checking what you wrote. --Creol(talk) 18:32, 26 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Occupation question

Just need some neutral insights.

If a person trains for a profession but never works in that field, are the still considered as such? For example, someone goes to school for chemistry, studies for years and even gets their PhD in chemistry. Leaves school, returns home and becomes a writer (about some non-chemistry subject, say historical aspects of coinage). They never worked in the field of chemistry and died 40 years later after a long writing career with many books about coins. Are they a chemist? My reasoning is no as if s person studied serial killers to the point of being an expert on the subject, they are still not a serial killer (or a profiler). A chemist is a person who works in the field of chemistry in some way, not just trained to do so - actually did so. It could be argued that if his books were about chemistry than he was still working in that field, but in this case, his books were on a completely different topic. This applies here for determining how a person may be listed and or categorized.

Opinions? --Creol(talk) 03:56, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I would not consider so. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and his godfather Georg Philipp Telemann both studied law in Leipzig (so did many German composers of that era). Neither ever practiced law. Both are better known as composers, not lawyers. — *Fehufangą✉ Talk page 04:01, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Concurring with yourself and Fehufanga. I'd describe them for what they are notable for, not what they trained as. Griff (talk) 04:30, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Someone might want to dig up relevant discussions from En-wiki. (Those things probably have hundreds of posts.)--This thread has seemingly not (yet) showed cases of persons who should not be describes as "chemist", in the lede of an article.--I don't quite see the need for the lede to break down what kind of activity (if any) s/he had as a chemist, after receiving the credentials as a chemist (or an acedemic degree). 89.8.87.64 (talk) 04:47, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is related activism going on in List of scientists from Argentina? It looks like one wikipedia-user is removing at least one name of a scientist, without giving justification [1] in edit remarks. 89.8.87.64 (talk) 06:10, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Looks like user:Creol does not find Ernesto Sabato worthy of being on "List of scientists from Argentina". On the other hand, the most famous Norwegian encyclopedia says that Sabota was a physicist (and I have added that source [2]).--I am suggesting that administrators speedily close this discussion - or move this discussion from Simple Talk. 89.8.87.64 (talk) 06:35, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Would you add Pope Francis to a list of Argentinian Scientists? - He holds a degree in chemical engineering, afer all. - Same thing for Fidel Castro, who had a Phd in Law, List of Cuban Scientists? - Rudolf Carnap studied mathematics, yet today he's mostly seen as a philiosopher, German Scientists? - This just shows that "Scientist" even if it sounds good, is probably not suitable to classify people enough--Eptalon (talk) 23:22, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    In answer to your question, no and probably not (would need to look at him more to decide if he actually worked as a lawyer but I don't think he did). My personal opinion would be if they did not do a reasonably significant amount of work in the occupation than they would not be considered as a part of it. IF that work id notable of not is not really an issue as much as if they did so. A non notable nuclear physicist is still a scientist if he worked as a nuclear physicist. Notability in the field doesn't change that. He may be notable enough for inclusion somewhere else but not as a scientist. This does not change the fact that his is or isn't a scientist. That is only if he did or did not function in the occupation. This does not seem to be the universal answer though hence why I ack for other opinions. So what is your opinion on the matter? --Creol(talk) 20:29, 30 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all.

If you grew up in Canada you would likely remember Zellers! Anyways my point of this message was I am looking to expand this article, and I was looking to see if anyone else is interested in helping me? We can make a list of what we want to add, etc in a userspace. Thoughts? Tsugaru let's talk! :) 19:52, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't that fit the talk page of the article, well? Eptalon (talk) 23:24, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it does. I didn't think of that --Tsugaru let's talk! :) 00:01, 28 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Next steps: Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) and UCoC Enforcement Guidelines

The Community Affairs Committee of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees would like to thank everyone who participated in the recently concluded community vote on the Enforcement Guidelines for the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC).

While the Enforcement Guidelines did reach a threshold of support necessary for the Board to review, we encouraged voters, regardless of which way they were voting, to provide feedback on the elements of the enforcement guidelines that they felt needed to be changed or fixed, as well as why, in case it seemed advisable to launch a further round of edits that would address community concerns.

Foundation staff who have been reviewing comments have advised us of some of the emerging themes, and as a result we have decided as Community Affairs Committee to ask the Foundation to reconvene the drafting committee and to undertake another community engagement to refine the enforcement guidelines based on the community feedback received from the recently concluded vote.

Further, we are aware of the concerns with the note 3.1 in the Universal Code of Conduct Policy. We are directing the Foundation to facilitate a review of this language to ensure that the Policy meets its intended purposes of supporting a safe and inclusive community, without waiting for the planned review of the entire Policy at the end of year.

Please visit here to read the full announcement.

Best, Zuz (WMF) (talk) 11:53, 28 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Lists

There has been a lot of discussion revolving around lists lately. Much of it is on one RfD or another and there is no central point for peoples opinions. A discussion for the topic has been created at Wikipedia talk:Lists so that people can share their opinions on the subject and we can hopeful come to some sort of a consensus on how to handle lists here. --Creol(talk) 21:37, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Lists. See below. --Ferien (talk) 11:40, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Split off

Before this gets to be the next Redirects-ish situation. I suggest moving the discussion to a separate page (sub-page here or better yet Wikipedia talk:Lists and just leaving an intro blub with a link to it so those not interested in the topic can avoid the traffic and those with interest can just toss it on their watch list. Similar to Wikipedia:Stubs, the main page could present any consensus (if any) the group has developed while the talk page deals with all list based subject all in one place instead of all spread out as it is now. --Creol(talk) 20:42, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the point of this. This is a good place to discuss this as not many people may necessarily see that talk page and this is a pretty big issue. MrMeAndMrMeLet's talk 16:35, 30 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Given the state of the last "discussion" and how it made Simple talk unusable for people who had no interest in the topic, I would prefer to not force that mess on others. I had to unwatch the page for a time so I would not have my watch list flooded by edits that I couldn't care less about. I accept that many will not be interested in this topic and feel that they should not be forced to be a part of it if they want to deal with other aspects of using this page. --Creol(talk) 20:04, 30 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think the best way to start big discussions like these is to have it on a different page and then say on Simple talk "Hey! This is going on. If you want to have a look, come to this page" It gets enough people to the discussion but doesn't flood people's watchlists. I've moved it --Ferien (talk) 11:40, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps we can pin it to the top (no archive flags?) or put it as an alert on user watchlists similar to what enWP does? Griff (talk) 19:04, 2 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
An alert on watchlists or even a pin to the top is unnecessary, it's not extremely important to how we will be running things here. I know I'm not planning to get any more involved than I already have! --Ferien (talk) 20:10, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Coming soon: Improvements for templates

-- Johanna Strodt (WMDE) 11:14, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Editing news 2022 #1

Read this in another languageSubscription list for this multilingual newsletter

 
New editors were more successful with this new tool.

The New topic tool helps editors create new ==Sections== on discussion pages. New editors are more successful with this new tool. You can read the report. Soon, the Editing team will offer this to all editors at the 20 Wikipedias that participated in the test. You will be able to turn it off at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion.

Whatamidoing (WMF) 18:55, 2 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Funland (Rehoboth Beach, Delaware)

Hello, I would like the community's input about the contents of Funland (Rehoboth Beach, Delaware). Please head to talk page for the discussion. Thank you — *Fehufangą✉ Talk page 00:32, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject

After making a WikiProject what am I supposed to do? 💗Yahoot7/💗🚢ツ (Joined Simple:15:02, 23 February 2022) (talk) 17:06, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Yahoot7: You can announce it here on Simple talk, and give a link to the user page for the project so that interested people can find it. Add the category Category:WikiProjects to the project page. If there is a userbox template, add Category:WikiProject user templates to it. When you add those categories, make sure to use a sort key that matches the name of the project. Good luck with your project! -- Auntof6 (talk) 20:10, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Do we have a bot for that?

Thanks to one of our colleagues on en.wiki, I now know why the IUCN reference doesn't show up in species articles if it's defined in the infobox. They have a typo: "status-ref" with a hypen is supposed to be "status_ref" with an underscore.

I just spent about an hour checking every species article in Litoria. Since this is the same change every time, and very simple, is there a way to get a bot to scan zoology articles and make the change automatically? Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:54, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Darkfrog24: If nobody has an automated bot, it could be done with AWB. I can do it that way if there's not a better option. -- Auntof6 (talk) 23:05, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I would be interested in either learning to make such a bot or in finding out what AWB is. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:08, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Darkfrog24: I don't know how to make an automated bot. To learn about AWB, see en:Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser. You have to be authorized to use it, and permission is not given often. -- Auntof6 (talk) 23:26, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps we could have like an other tab for this on requests for permissions Derpdart56 (talk) 14:14, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Easy way to fix it is change status_ref = {{{status ref|{{{status_ref|}}} }}} to status_ref = {{{status ref|{{{status_ref|{{{status-ref|}}}}}} }}} and then throw an #if statement in to track usage of the typo. Nunabas (talk) 15:44, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Nunabas: Excellent. Now how do I put that into action and tell the agent which articles need it? Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:03, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
According to CirrusSearch, currently there are 569 articles with status-ref, while that of the templates that need to be "fixed" is 4: {{Taxobox}}, {{Speciesbox}}, {{Subspeciesbox}} and {{Infraspeciesbox}}. I can go ahead and "fix" them, but for the sake of standardizing parameter names, editing 500+ articles seem to be the better way. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 15:33, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If you edit the templates, you can add a tracking category, so that we can identify the articles that need fixed, then either use AWB or poke me and I can clear up the identified articles. Nunabas (talk) 00:51, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"Add a tracking category" and "use AWB" both require explanation, I am afraid.
Another question: Are either of these methods better or worse than my doing this manually? The thing is that I don't want to click in to 569 (more) froggie articles and fix them only to hear "Ha ha ha, why didn't you just have a bot do it?" Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:59, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Depends on how widespread the issue is. Creating and adding tracking to a template is fairly simple. All you need to do is add something like {{#if:{{{<PARAMETER NAME YOU WANT TO TRACK>|}}}||{{main other|[[Category:Pages with <TRACKING CATEGORY NAME>]]}}}} to the bottom of the template, and it starts populating Category:Pages with <TRACKING CATEGORY NAME>, that allows you to easily find out what pages are using the invalid parameter, and then you can either manually, or via AWB, run thru members of that category and fix the error. Hope that clears it up. Nunabas (talk) 02:35, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Nunabas:   Done I don't have the authority to edit semiautomatically so please go ahead; here's the category: Pages using status-ref parameters. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 08:34, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it worked... I just fixed a few in Papurana manually. Does it take a few days? Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:51, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Darkfrog24: I'm pretty sure that the reference(s) in all articles I saw were no longer "hidden". Try clearing your cache? NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 15:51, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oh no, I can see all the articles in the category. They just still have a - in the code instead of a _. I'll gladly take the next step if someone will tell me what needs doing. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:10, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Darkfrog24: Well, as I have just said right above, all references are now visible, which means the problem is partially solved. The rest is to edit those 500 one by one; Nunabas said they will do this, so all we need to do is waiting. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 03:28, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, so no we can't set a bot to make this change; it does have to be done manually and no I'm not wasting my time if I do so. Thanks. That's what I needed to know. Darkfrog24 (talk) 09:34, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I am making other updates to frog species articles, going one genus at a time. If anyone else wants to make this fix, I'm of course glad, but I am going in there anyway. Darkfrog24 (talk) 09:56, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There's definitely some misunderstanding here. I thought Nunabas had AWB access, but since it doesn't seem to be so, I'm running JWB. All pages will hopefully be fixed in about 20 minutes (3 to 4 seconds each; I don't want to get blocked). NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 11:52, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  All done. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 12:15, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
WOWIE! Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:16, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

New WikiProject

Hello I made a new WikiProject called WikiProject Cats the link is here happy editing! 💗Yahoot7/💗🚢ツ (Joined Simple:15:02, 23 February 2022) (talk) 12:49, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

revising UTC clock to local time on the SEWP site

How can anyone revise the UTC clocks on their page to the local times (examples of this are New York or St Louis)? I’m wanting to set mine on Cedar Rapids and Iowa City time. Angela Kate Maureen Pears 17:46, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think you can do so in Preferences. I use the British English language pack, so I have no idea what's it called in the language pack you use, Unfortunately. --Tsugaru let's talk! :) 20:02, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Special:Preferences then "Appearance" then find "Time offset" Vermont 🐿️ (talk) 20:06, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Call for Election Volunteers

The Movement Strategy and Governance team is looking for community members to serve as election volunteers in the upcoming Board of Trustees election.

The idea of the Election Volunteer Program came up during the 2021 Wikimedia Board of Trustees Election. This program turned out to be successful. With the help of Election Volunteers we were able to increase outreach and participation in the election by 1,753 voters over 2017. Overall turnout was 10.13%, 1.1 percentage points more, and 214 wikis were represented in the election. A total of 74 wikis that did not participate in 2017 produced voters in the 2021 election. Can you help change the participation for this year's?

Election volunteers will help in the following areas:

  • Translate short messages and announce the ongoing election process in community channels
  • Optional: Monitor community channels for community comments and questions

Volunteers should:

  • Maintain the friendly space policy during conversations and events
  • Present the guidelines and voting information to the community in a neutral manner

Do you want to be an election volunteer and ensure your community is represented in the vote? Sign up here to receive updates. You can use the talk page for questions about translation.

Zuz (WMF) (talk) 15:17, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Bot for moving references into the reference section

Is there a bot / tool for moving references with refnames into the references section for them to be referred to in the rest of the article, or does it have to be done manually? Lallint (talk) 16:21, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to get a list of articles together I can do it fairly quickly/easily. Nunabas (talk) 18:32, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I am blocked on the English Wikipedia so I am working on a page in a userspace article that isn't simple. Could you do that? It's quite a big article. Lallint (talk) 19:11, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not a big deal, converted to List Defined References, and given a quick once over. Nunabas (talk) 19:27, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, just wow. How? Is there a tool for it? Lallint (talk) 19:39, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Lallint: You know, named references don't have to be in the reference section to be used elsewhere. They should probably be placed in the same way as non-named references. In other words, either put all references in the body of the article, or all in the references section.
Having all references coded in the reference section and referred to where needed has advantages. If you're planning to change many existing articles, though, maybe a discussion would be in order first. -- Auntof6 (talk) 20:03, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I created the page Little Trees and also moved the references to the references section, and it makes it a lot easier to edit in source editing. Lallint (talk) 20:05, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Auntof6: when I convert an article to the List Defined References (LDR) I try to make sure all references get names, and they are all defined in the reference section. One of the biggest impacts that has is in readability of the source text in articles with a lot of references. LDR dont change how the page is rendered, but do make it a lot easier when trying to edit/read them. I dont have any plans to mass convert to LDR's but if anyone needs help on a couple of pages, I can do it fairly easily. Nunabas (talk) 21:28, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
To highlight my point look at the differences in source text with a before and after LDR conversion. Nunabas (talk) 21:38, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Nunabas: I understand the point. :) -- Auntof6 (talk) 21:41, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Nunabas: I agree that it makes it easier to work with references. I just think that if we're going to much of this, it would be good to make sure people know. I suspect a lot of people don't know about named references to begin with, much less list defined references, and they aren't used to having references anywhere but inline in the text. -- Auntof6 (talk) 21:41, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keeping all the references in the ref section plays havok with editting in visual mode. It make is more difficult to deal with reference problems as the references are not tied directly to the tags in visual. This issue exists with any reference that is a part of a template. Infoboxes are a huge issue in this reguards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Creol (talkcontribs) 22:30, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Spam on user pages

Hello everyone, I've proposed a change to the deletion policy at Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy, re: spam on user pages. Comments would be appreciated, thanks in advance! --Ferien (talk) 16:08, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Short descriptions

Hi, are short descriptions used on this wiki? Rubbish computer Ping me or leave a message on my User talk 18:27, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Rubbish computer, no, and I don't think we'll ever introduce them. --Ferien (talk) 18:28, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ok thanks for letting me know and for the quick response, cheers Ferien. Rubbish computer Ping me or leave a message on my User talk 18:29, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

userpage

Does my userpage look Ok? I made some changes to it, and because I have a big laptop screen the way I see it might be different from what others see, if there are any problems do let me know thanks Tsugaru let's talk! :) 02:54, 12 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@つがる: It looks OK, until I see this. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 16:52, 12 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh Thank you for pointing that out. Any ideas on how to fix it? --Tsugaru let's talk! :) 19:44, 12 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I fixed all errors I could. The rest seems to be lying around some of the templates. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 20:39, 12 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you again --Tsugaru let's talk! :) 21:25, 12 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Let's talk about the Desktop Improvements

 

Hello!

Have you noticed that some wikis have a different desktop interface? Are you curious about the next steps? Maybe you have questions or ideas regarding the design or technical matters?

Join an online meeting with the team working on the Desktop Improvements! It will take place on 17 May 2022 at 12:00 UTC and 19:00 UTC on Zoom. Click here to join. Meeting ID: 86217494304. Dial by your location.

Agenda

  • Update on the recent developments
  • Questions and answers, discussion

Format

The meeting will not be recorded or streamed. Notes will be taken in a Google Docs file. Olga Vasileva (the Product Manager) will be hosting this meeting. The presentation part will be given in English.

We can answer questions asked in English, Italian, Polish; also, only at the first meeting: Farsi, Vietnamese; only at the second meeting: Portuguese, Spanish, Russian. If you would like to ask questions in advance, add them on the talk page or send them to sgrabarczuk@wikimedia.org.

At this meeting, both Friendly space policy and the Code of Conduct for Wikimedia technical spaces apply. Zoom is not subject to the WMF Privacy Policy.

We hope to see you! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 05:02, 14 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Orientalism

Please read my comments on the talk page of Orientalism. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:46, 24 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

talk:Orientalism <= to make it easier for people to get there --Creol(talk) 19:08, 24 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely needs work. What we currently have is a scholarly essay...--Eptalon (talk) 20:11, 24 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Had a look and tried to simplify it a bit. One editor who has massively expanded it reverted my simplification to more complex language. At this point, the article on EnWP is simpler than the article here. Besides simplicity of language, it is more coherent. I would suggest we revert to a short, simple version such as this and let the elabborating editors work it out in userspace until it is shorter, stays on topic, and is simpler. --Gotanda (talk) 03:57, 20 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

saying will be blocked vs may

The wording, for some unknown reason, was redesigned from saying will be blocked into may be blocked. I'm referring to the following:

 Your recent changes are vandalism and are not acceptable on any Wikipedia. Please stop. If you continue vandalizing, you will be blocked from changing pages on Wikipedia.

and

  Your recent changes are vandalism, and this shows that you want to harm Wikipedia. This is your last warning. If you vandalize Wikipedia again, you will be blocked from changing Wikipedia.

being changed to:

 Your recent changes are vandalism and are not acceptable on any Wikipedia. Please stop. If you continue to vandalize, you may be blocked from changing pages on Wikipedia.

and

  Your recent changes are vandalism, and this shows that you want to harm Wikipedia. This is your last warning. If you vandalize Wikipedia again, you may be blocked from changing Wikipedia.

Were there some reasons behind these wording changes? The reason I ask is 'cause vandalistic performers, project disruptors or personal attackers are usually blocked, 86 percent of the time. I'm wanting to become an administrator somewhere between August 2024 and December 2031. I no longer use particular words while editing Wikipedia, and next time I'm up for administrator nominations, I'm nominating myself, not anybody else. But even while I'm an administrator sooner or later, I'll continue creating content the old-fashioned way by writing my own words, trying my best to simplify and/or copy edit if needed. Posted by Angela Kate Maureen Pears

The discussion that resulted in this change can be found here. Griff (talk) 17:17, 19 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Tropical Storm Angela: In your second pair of examples, you used the level 3 warning for both. Maybe you meant to have one level 3 and one level 4 like the first pair? --Auntof6 (talk) 19:32, 19 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ongoing discussion

Hello, again. I just would like to let you all know that there is an ongoing discussion here about service awards that y'all should respond to. I didn't really know how things were back then, so I never notified anybody about it so here is just a link. Thanks, MrMeAndMrMeLet's talk 16:57, 19 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for deletion e.g., Christine Weston Chandler

This discussion was slated for closure no later than yester-day; nevertheless, there is no outcome given. Who decides on outcomes of such discussions, and when are they made? Currently, Christine Weston Chandler is red-linked though the discussion was mixed and might be called inconclusive. Kdammers (talk) 15:56, 20 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Kdammers, any uninvolved admin can close a deletion discussion. As you can see on the RfD page, I gave a statement on closing the discussion as a delete. If I look at what the editors who edit here regularly wrote, the outcome was a clear delete; that's how I closed it. Eptalon (talk) 17:07, 20 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Kdammers: The dates on RFDs are not "no later than" dates. They are the earliest dates that a discussion would normally be closed, although they "may be closed earlier at the discretion of an administrator", as it says at the bottom of each discussion page. -- Auntof6 (talk) 17:10, 20 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

BioRef changes

I recently started using the BioRef source citation format. I copied it off en.wiki. One complication, though: En.wiki has an article on Darrel Frost (author) and not on Amphibian Species of the World (database), but SEWP has an article on Amphibian Species of the World and not on Darrel Frost. A redirect does a little for now, but how do I update this template so there's a link in ASW and not for Frost, Daniel R.? Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:30, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So you want the template to link directly to ASW instead of Darrel Frost? I think this would have to be fixed in Module:FishRef, but wouldn't it be easier to just create a short stub for Darrel Frost? Griff (talk) 03:24, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's more like it would be better to link straight to ASW instead of Frost because ASW is more relevant. I expect the en.wiki template only links to frost instead of ASW because they didn't have a proper article on it. Darkfrog24 (talk) 11:57, 18 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So.. just to make sure I have it right, you want it to look like: Frost, Darrel R. "ASW Home". Amphibian Species of the World, an Online Reference. Version 6.0. American Museum of Natural History, New York. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
...or do you want to leave both wikilinks in? Griff (talk) 19:39, 18 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ideally both, given Simple's policy of leaving red links as they are to encourage article creation. But if only one, then ASW and not Frost. Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:41, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And it's 6.1 now. Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:43, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the wait. I have updated the module appropriately. Let me know if you have any further issues. Thanks for all your work on amphibians. Griff (talk) 01:11, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Griff with two Fs! Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:58, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

running into fluency problems on French, Spanish then Italian Wikipedias

Over several days (14) I ran in serious problems on the three Wikipedias listed above. The more serious was happening especially on the Italian Wikipedia. When I created articles on the 1988–1990 and 2020–2022 North American droughts, somehow, they didn't think I was that fluent and erased the articles. Are there any Wikipedia embassies with whom I can discuss such problems as these on Wikipedia websites? Angela Kate Maureen Pears 23:08, 22 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Tropical Storm Angela: I don't know of any, but I'd ask this: are you using automated translators, such as Google translate or some other translation software? Those will almost never give a well-written result. They don't work for translation regular English into simple English, and they wouldn't work to translate either form of English into another language. -- Auntof6 (talk) 23:43, 22 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Auntof6 - I'm fluent with 416 Italian words; I did use a translator but it was not Google. Italian and French languages are very hard for Americans like me to really learn. I want to try and be more fluent in French, Italian and Spanish languages over the next two-three years before I edit the Wikipedias again though it's really hard. Angela Kate Maureen Pears 23:51, 22 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Tropical Storm Angela: That number of words is a very small vocabulary. Besides that, it's also important to be fluent in the grammar. Using an automated translator is not enough on its own, no matter what translator it is, unless you are fluent enough in the target language to clean up the translated text. It's especially a problem when translating from English, because English has so many idiosyncrasies, such as words with multiple meanings.
Writing in another language might help you become more fluent, but Wikipedia is not the place to practice. That's because Wikipedia articles need to be well-written to begin with. Other editors are not there to help people learn the language, and shouldn't be expected to copy edit for you. -- Auntof6 (talk) 01:24, 23 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My issue with the translator programs is that it takes so long to hunt and peck and add each accent mark or other special character not used in English in the browser window one at a time that it just makes sense to use the program and take five minutes instead of twenty. The tricks that I've heard about to just type them in don't work. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:24, 31 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Auntof6 is correct. But, there is a way to use those other wikipedias to improve your French, Spanish, and Italian: work the other way around. Look for articles on those wikis that do not have English language articles yet and translate from them into Simple English. You will get some reading input which is very helpful in building your eventual fluency. You will also be building interlanguage links back to those articles which helps them. Just a stub, but here is one. Gotanda (talk) 02:57, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting for confirmed account

I want to enable but due to I am new to Wikipedia I am not finding any option at Special:Preferences not finding Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Confirmed anyone with any help or suggestions? NP83 (talk) 17:49, 23 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Confirmed account status is automatically given to accounts that do not present any issues. It is not something that is requested. To help you get started, check out this handy guide. Welcome to Simple English Wikipedia! Griff (talk) 20:30, 24 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Reset talk page" block of text

This standard block of text is insanely large. It could easily be redesigned. Why don't we do this? Our talk pages are almost never used constructively, and this huge block doesn't help. It does seem to stop users once it's up. You might think "well, that's good", but we might be a better wiki if users made suggestions instead of (or additional to) changing the main page text. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:27, 24 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Are you referring to this header? Griff (talk) 20:33, 24 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes! Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:35, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This template is mostly used as an alternative to deleting because deleted talk pages tend to turn people off of creating it again to ask something. This template isn't really to stop people from doing anything other than just being a notice of the purpose of a talk page. -Djsasso (talk) 21:53, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Report on Voter Feedback from Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) Enforcement Guidelines Ratification

Hello all,

The Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) project team has completed the analysis of the feedback accompanying the ratification vote on the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines.

Following the completion of the UCoC Enforcement Guidelines Draft in 2022, the guidelines were voted on by the Wikimedian community. Voters cast votes from 137 communities, with the top 9 communities being: English, German, French, Russian, Polish, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Italian Wikipedias, and Meta-wiki.

Those voting had the opportunity to provide comments on the contents of the Draft document. 658 participants left comments. 77% of the comments are written in English. Voters wrote comments in 24 languages with the largest numbers in English (508), German (34), Japanese (28), French (25), and Russian (12).

A report will be sent to the Revision Drafting Committee who will refine the enforcement guidelines based on the community feedback received from the recently concluded vote. A public version of the report is published on Meta-wiki here. The report is available in translated versions on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to your language

Again, we thank all who participated in the vote and discussions. We invite everyone to contribute during the next community discussions. More information about the Universal Code of Conduct and Enforcement Guidelines can be found on Meta-wiki.

Best, Zuz (WMF) (talk) 10:32, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Good and very good article categories

It seems like a mistake that Category:Good articles and Category:Very good articles are in Category:Wikipedia article improvement, but Category:Former good articles and Category:Former very good articles are in Category:Articles. This will draw more attention to the former GAs and VGAs than the current ones. Lights and freedom (talk) 18:25, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That does seem weird. Auntof6 and Eptalon did the original categorisation so maybe they know why it is that way? I support flipping them. Griff (talk) 03:33, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I get what you are saying. I would hesitate to advertise demoted articles too strongly, because it might suggest all it needs is a small change. In most cases of demotion, the page would need complete re-writing to be a candidate again, and some that are left would never make it again if we really looked at them. And this is very clear the further one goes back. But, that aside, I suppose they are in Category:Articles because that's all they are now.
Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:51, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Revisions to the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) Enforcement Guidelines

Hello all,

We'd like to provide an update on the work on the Enforcement Guidelines for the Universal Code of Conduct. After the conclusion of the community vote on the guidelines in March, the Community Affairs committee (CAC) of the Board asked that several areas of the guidelines be reviewed for improvements before the Board does its final review. These areas were identified based on community discussions and comments provided during the vote. The CAC also requested review of the controversial Note in 3.1 of the UCoC itself.

Once more, a big thank you to all who voted, especially to all who left constructive feedback and comments! The project team is working with the Board to establish a timeline for this work, and will communicate this next month.

Members of the two prior UCoC Drafting Committees have generously offered their time to help shape improvements to the Guidelines. You can read more about them and their work here, as well as read summaries of their weekly meetings in 2022.

Wikimedians have provided many valuable comments together with the vote and in other conversations. Given the size and diversity of the Wikimedia community, there are even more voices out there who can give ideas on how to improve the enforcement guidelines and add even more valuable ideas to the process. To help the Revisions committee identify improvements, input on several questions for the committee’s review is requested. Visit the Meta-wiki pages (Enforcement Guidelines revision discussions, Policy text revision discussions) to get your ideas to the Committee - it is very important that viewpoints are heard from different communities before the Committee begins drafting revision proposals.

On behalf of the UCoC project team

Zuz (WMF) (talk) 19:12, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Female scientists

It has been decided that Category:Female scientists should be kept (Rfd). As I mentioned, there are less than 200 female scientists with articles here, excluding mathematicians, engineers, and social scientists — I don't know if those are classified as scientists or not. Most of these people are listed here: User:Lights and freedom/femalescientists. There are undoubtedly more female scientists on enwiki.

I think most editors want to keep these categories because the number of female scientists is small compared to the number of total scientists. We're not here to debate the reasons for this, but the point is, most people here believe that being female is a defining factor for a scientist, which deserves a category. The female scientists should absolutely not be removed from the main scientist category while the male scientists stay in the category, because this would be discriminatory. So there are probably two options: make the female scientist category non-diffusing, or make another category for male scientists and make both diffusing, like Auntof6 proposed here.

However, it is not totally clear that there is a consensus for keeping the category. The people who voted here (which resulted in a keep) were all different than the people who voted here (which resulted in a delete). So this is probably the right place to have this discussion.

If there is to be a category for female scientists, it might make sense to divide it somehow. For example, by subject (astronomers, biologists, chemists, etc.). In my opinion, it should not be subcategorized more deeply than this: i.e. no subcategory for "female molecular biologists" or "female nuclear physicists" — I think this makes the system too complex. A female molecular biologist could be categorized in both Category:Molecular biologists and Category:Female biologists. We could also discuss if the category should be divided by country or continent. In my opinion, Category:German female scientists and Category:Female biologists might make sense; Category:German female biologists might be going too far, but I don't care if others decide differently. Lights and freedom (talk) 20:43, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the consensus on the female scientists discussion was to keep. However, that decision could still be overridden by a larger discussion about categories for females. -- Auntof6 (talk) 21:37, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If the topic is important, then anyone - not myself - can start List of female scientists from Oceania, and Lists from the other continents.--Regarding categories: I feel that those editors who do most of the work here - in regard to categories - those editors opinion should be given extra consideration or "weight".--For now I am leaning towards that Wikipedia should be restrictive regarding the mentioned categories. (Arguments which might be adequate for not having most or all of the mentioned categories, can include "Wikipedia is not the Yellow Pages for female scientists".--Clarification: I still think that List of female scientists from South America, is an okay List.) 89.8.134.242 (talk) 23:08, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think the discussion is about categories, not lists. I haven't heard anyone object to lists of females. -- Auntof6 (talk) 23:58, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Lists as well as categories are (or should be) limited to notable people. There's no point in listing people just because they do a job. The exception would be where they are elected to do the job which is itself a notable job. No-one wants to see lists of botanists just because they are botanists. Notability is the key, otherwise lists become meaningless. Some list have been proposed which are in effect "people I happen to know", or "people in my part of the world". Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:35, 4 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The big problem we had (and still have) with such categories is that if I take two people from the category, they should be comparable. They should be similar, because they have done similar things, etc. In the case of "scientists", the meaning is so large, that it is hard to imagine comparing two of them: Take Martin Heidegger (philosopher of religion) and Marie Curie. What do they have in common? Eptalon (talk) 16:40, 4 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Eptalon I don't understand what you're saying here, because Martin Heidegger is not a scientist, so he wouldn't be categorized with Marie Curie. Lights and freedom (talk) 17:33, 4 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Macdonald-ross True, but the issue we're discussing isn't notability, it's whether there should be separate categories for females. -- Auntof6 (talk) 18:35, 4 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Please, anyone, create a List of female scientists from (any, one) continent.--That list only needs at least 4 or 5 scientists - for a mediocre start.--Then, we can say: "Look, we do not need the female scientist category", so now we can merge the category, into the list (or those "continent Lists").--Merge category, before Delete category - that might work for some here, or many.--Detail about a "continent List": If a country has a blue-link scientist, then no red-link scientists from that country should be added.--Any "continent List" should have a link to the relevant English-wiki category (and anyone can enjoy their category-tree that has all the bells and whistles. Thereby those who do the work on Simple-wiki in regard to categories, will have less work ahead).
89.8.167.241 (talk) 05:49, 5 June 2022 (UTC) 89.8.167.241 (talk) 05:53, 5 June 2022 (UTC) 89.8.167.241 (talk) 06:01, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I see it, science is not nationalistic. It is discipline-based. A female astronomers will work with other astronomers, and may not ever meet with women working in most other disciplines. The reason they may be notable as women is that science, especially the "hard sciences" like physics, have always had so few females. At last, this is changing. So it is reasonable to search for "female physicists". On the other hand, no-one has any difficulty working with someone from a different country nowadays. Modern communication makes that almost irrelevant. So country-based categories, at least in science, are less useful. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:21, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    From my own experience: When I did my studies more than half of the students of mathematics were women; in biology/biochemistry/chemistry, I'd say there were about the same number of women and men. Problem though: if you look at prestigious awards (in hard sciences, that is: anything where mathematics has an important role) are there the same number of women and men? - In that respect, "female scientists" is probably not a useful classification, as it is difficult to compare an astronomer to say a chemist - "Female chemists" /"Female astronomers" would be fine though. Classifying by country is probably not useful either: Hard sciences are often resource-intensive (-> "expensive"), so likely you won't find many in developing countries. Look at the prestigious awards, how often were they awarded to people who are not from the 38 OECD countries?--Eptalon (talk) 07:36, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Even today, a smaller proportion of science awards are given to women than men. I agree with @Eptalon that we should separate female scientists by subject: probably astronomers, biologists, chemists, earth scientists, ecologists (if this is separate from biology), and physicists. I don't know if physicians, mathematicians, computer scientists, data scientists, engineers, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, economists, archaeologists, linguists, or political scientists are considered "Scientists". Opinions? Lights and freedom (talk) 18:21, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hardly any scientists have "any difficulty working with someone from a different" gender "nowadays. Modern communication makes that almost irrelevant. So" gender-based "categories, at least in science, are less useful." (Attribution: the quotes are from June 5, in this thread.) 89.8.178.110 (talk) 22:22, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, I think there is a value to categories for both nationality and gender. Lights and freedom (talk) 02:13, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Issue with Awards Templates

I am requesting help in using the Template:{{awards-nom}} or any of them. I am working on putting the nominations and wins on the page for Joel H. Cohen but no matter what I use, it comes up either short a box for the citation number, and if I put the citation in any other field, it breaks the template. I tried Template:{{awards table}} but that also does not work. I am looking to put in the year, institution, title of the award, nom or won, and the citation. Any help would be appreciated. I can do it with a wiki table, but I can not guarantee it would be uniform as the template says it is its purpose. Thanks! PotsdamLamb (talk) 01:28, 12 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@PotsdamLamb: Can you put it on the page so we can see what you've tried? Even if you then take it back off, it would be in the history so we can see it. Or is it already somewhere in the history? -- Auntof6 (talk) 03:13, 12 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Auntof6: It’s done. You should see it in the history. I just applied the template then removed it. I did not put any info in. When using a template though, should it not auto close instead of using everything below it? If you add just the template and preview you will see everything below that entry in the table. Thanks for checking it out! PotsdamLamb (talk) 04:23, 12 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@PotsdamLamb: I can't be sure without any entries in the table, but it looks like maybe you just need to close the table. The {{end}} template is good for that: just put it right after the awards table template. Maybe the awards table is just headers, in which case it would not and should not auto-close. If there's anything else needed, I can't tell with no entries in the table. -- Auntof6 (talk) 05:04, 12 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Auntof6: You should be able to see test data in the history now. I tried it two different ways with the data. I also found the template and added the Ref block to it. Thanks again! PotsdamLamb (talk) 06:17, 12 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@PotsdamLamb: Look at an example in another article. A good one is the Grammy Awards section in Celia Cruz. The detail lines have to be formatted in table format, and the {{end}} template goes after all of that. -- Auntof6 (talk) 07:23, 12 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Auntof6: Perfect! That’s what I was looking for. Can we put that portion into the doc and show an example code on the template? Thanks for your help! PotsdamLamb (talk) 07:28, 12 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@PotsdamLamb: We can probably copy some of enwiki's doc page, although when I tried just now the formatting wasn't right. There must be some difference in the templates. I can look at it tomorrow if it's not taken care of by then. -- Auntof6 (talk) 08:47, 12 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@PotsdamLamb: Also, remember to include the name of the award, for example Writers Guild Award, Emmy Award, etc. -- Auntof6 (talk) 08:53, 12 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Auntof6 The template was missing items like most of the doc and all of the styles. When I copied them over, it seems to have fixed it. If you look at Joel H. Cohen it is now correctly displayed. I will work on adding the rest of the won and nom today. Thanks again for your assistance! PotsdamLamb (talk) 17:38, 12 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

School class at work

A class has started this morning without notifying us (normal). Rather than chase every hare, I suggest Euro-based editors go through the new pages later today and wipe out (propose for deletion) any which are not coherent contributions. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:33, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Cross-wiki vandal NEEDS to be reverted

Here. – Ilovemydoodle (talk) 13:04, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well it seems like they've been global-banned, we should be good(?) neptunepie | chat? 15:13, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
They still have a lot of global vandalism that hasn’t been reverted. – Ilovemydoodle (talk) 13:37, 14 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hotwife

Should be reverted or severely pruned. This is the sort of thing which gives us a bad name, and deservedly so. In addition to its being objectionable content for young people, it is technically promotional and one-eyed. Exactly what we ought not to want. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:08, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm personally leaning on deleting Hotwife and Femdom, both created by the same user, who is CU-blocked on Commons. With the context that this is a long-term problematic contributor, I think it can fall under G3. Vermont 🐿️ (talk) 18:04, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ran a check, LTA with some spam history. I've deleted both as G3, they're clearly bad-faith articles that harm the project. Vermont 🐿️ (talk) 18:08, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Possible Merge

I wanted to get thoughts on possibly merging Emmy Award into Primetime Emmy Awards. they are essentially the same, except that the latter is much longer because it contains more information. The first was already incorporated into the 2nd already as basically the opening statement. The two most advertised ones are the Primetime Emmy Awards and the Daytime Emmy Awards.

I look forward to everyone's input on this. PotsdamLamb (talk) 20:19, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's worth keeping both. They have separate Wikidata items. We might also one day have an article on the daytime Emmy Awards; that data is extensive and worth separating from the general topic. -- Auntof6 (talk) 21:36, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I see your point. Thanks! PotsdamLamb (talk) 22:03, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Twinkle Category

Hello all. I just noticed that twinkle does not have an option for warning editors about removing RfDs from pages. One example is Pradeep Rajput and here is the Diff. I had to use the non-remove of QD templates. Can we get that added to the appropriate areas on Twinkles menu please? I can assist if needed. Thanks! PotsdamLamb (talk) 17:33, 15 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@PotsdamLamb, a few months ago I had asked for a similar fix: Wikipedia:Simple_talk/Archive_142#uw-rfd_and_other_warning_templates, however this wasn't done because of the brittleness of the twinkle code we use here. — *Fehufangą✉ Talk page 21:59, 15 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion of Articles

What are the reasons why an article can be deleted? How do I request deletion of an article?


Can I request that an article be deleted if it was created by a globally locked user?


Is there a notability policy in the Simple English Wikipedia?

Robert McClenon (talk) 21:14, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Robert McClenon: Here are some pages that may help you:
  • WP:Requests for deletion: describes the two types of deletion request we have: discussed deletion, aka RFD, and quick deletion requests, aka QD. The page on quick deletions describes the specific reasons a page can be quickly deleted. For discussed deletion, you can nominate a page for deletion giving a reason not covered by the QD options.
  • WP:Notability: describes how to establish notability, and has links to pages that describe this for specific subject areas. If we don't have a page for a specific subject area, we use English Wikipedia's rules as guidelines.
You can request that an article be deleted if it was created by a globally locked user, but the request may fail if the article has merit on its own.
Thanks for your questions. Hope that helps, and let us know if you still have questions. -- Auntof6 (talk) 21:27, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, and welcome to our project: With deletion, we tend to judge the article on the base of what it is/says. Who created it, is generally not as important. So, no, simply being created by a user who is blocked at another project won't be enough to get the article deleted. Same thing with globally locked users: If their contribution to the article is acceptable, there's no reason to delete the article. Eptalon (talk) 15:11, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Linking to English Wikipedia

I hope that this isn't a stupid question. How do I enter a link to a page in the English Wikipedia? Also, how do I create a red link for a page that isn't in the English Wikipedia? I tried something of the form for en:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Garashov Farhad, and when I put in the closing brackets, it becomes a blank entry. What am I doing wrong? Robert McClenon (talk) 22:07, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Robert McClenon, you need to add another colon before the en, like so: :en:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Garashov Farhad, which gives en:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Garashov Farhad. Hope that helps. — *Fehufangą✉ Talk page 22:10, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
User:Fehufanga - Thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:19, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Robert McClenon: However, please do not include links to other Wikipedias in articles here. If there is no article here, just leave the link red (unless, of course, you want to create the article). Thanks. -- Auntof6 (talk) 23:13, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Reporting Sockpuppet Account

How do I report a sockpuppet account on Simple English Wikipedia? Robert McClenon (talk) 22:19, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Robert McClenon we have no dedicated SPI page but sockpuppets can be reported at WP:AN (if there's CU results already), and a CU can be requested at WP:RFCU.— *Fehufangą✉ Talk page 22:21, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Merge discussion at Talk:China

There is a discussion about merging articles at Talk:China. Please provide your opinion if interested. Lights and freedom (talk) 19:36, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

RedWarn

How do I get RedWarn here on Simple English? I have it on the English Wikipedia. Nythar (talk) 19:06, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Nythar Redwarn is only for enWP. It does not work here on simple due to the way it was programmed. PDLTalk to me!OMG, What have I done? 19:10, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@PotsdamLamb: Then how come User talk:Ashley Furniture HomeStore's revision history has warnings which are tagged with RW (which is RedWarn)? Nythar (talk) 19:17, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Can you provide an example please? PDLTalk to me!OMG, What have I done? 19:37, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Click User talk:Ashley Furniture HomeStore and then go to "View history". You'll see edits with "RW 16.1" in their edit summaries. Nythar (talk) 19:50, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If it does work, I believe you need rollback permissions, of which you do not have here on simple. It can be requested at Wikipedia:Requests_for_permissions/Rollback. However, since you just started editing here, I do not think it will be granted to you. That, however, is up to an administrator. I hope that helps you. PDLTalk to me!OMG, What have I done? 20:01, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for explaining. Nythar (talk) 20:18, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No worries and thank you for helping out here. PDLTalk to me!OMG, What have I done? 20:20, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
When wondering how someone is doing something like this, it is usually best to look at their commons.js page for a hint. In this case, User:Neptunepie/common.js has the call:
mw.loader.load('//simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Neptunepie/RedWarn.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');
That is the likely source of them doing it. Try adding it to your commmon.js page and see if it works. Pure Evil (talk) 20:27, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Pure Evil: It worked! Thanks! Nythar (talk) 23:00, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Pure Evil Thanks! It worked for me too! PDLTalk to me!OMG, What have I done? 00:50, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Note: Line 1430 of the script shows that it will load Neptunepie's config page instead of the actual user. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 23:50, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh That is why I copied it from the redwarn page and not a user page. :) I just cannot figure out how to load the template packages. PDLTalk to me!OMG, What have I done? 00:15, 23 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Empty Authority Controls

Is it ok if an AC is empty so when Wikidata does get populated, then the article gets populated? It looks like it just goes into the cat of AC with 0 elements? I am working on pulling in WD to some articles with the statements so that way its one place to update it which should alleviate some of the work we need to do. PDLTalk to me!OMG, What have I done? 02:14, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Belgium overlap

We have a serious overlap between Flemish Region and Flanders. They both refer to the same thing, and have been written independently of each other. One should be chosen as the heading, and the content of the other examined to see if it adds anything useful. A redirect can be put in place of one of the articles. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:38, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If they are being merged, then Flanders should be the title, because it has a much longer history than just as the region of Belgium. Lights and freedom (talk) 07:45, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Now done. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:22, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Macdonald-ross: I noticed that earlier as well. Are any affected Wikidata items taken care of? -- Auntof6 (talk) 10:31, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Just noticed your query. I don't know. I just rewrote as a single page, Flanders, with a redirect from Flemish Region. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:56, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

2200 article bot job

{{infobox Switzerland municipality}} access the data on Wikidata for many of its functions. An important use is the population of the municipality. Rather than have to constantly update the articles as new data becomes available, the template will call for the data from Wikidata if the template does not have that data manually entered. This means the data would always be relatively up to date. It would at least be as up to data as what wikidata is and that is likely to be a lot more recent than the limited manpower here can keep it.

For this to work, the template on each page would need the population and accompanying reference removed from the template. It already tracks each use where the population is manually entered in Category:Pages using infobox Switzerland municipality with manual population. At this time, there are just over 2200 pages in that category so doing this manually would not be productive. This would need a bot or at least AWB and the flood flag. The template also tracks a variety of other details but while it can handle several other things, only the population is something that is going to be ever changing. The other options, such as name changes, can be handled manually with little effort due to their infrequency. Pure Evil (talk) 05:00, 15 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Pure Evil: What is it you are asking? Are you looking for someone to run AWB to update these? I know @Djsasso: usually has these in his toolbox and runs them occasionally. I’m not sure if this is one of them? What happens if the wikidata property is overwritten manually? I know I’ve done some work on wd and things usually stick unless there is a process (such as a constant running bot to overwrite the numbers from the intended sources). Thanks I’m advance for providing clarification. PotsdamLamb (talk) 06:16, 15 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not asking so much as pointing out. Actually, looking at the history of random entries, the page seems to ignore any population information provided locally and solely use the wikidata. This 2007 version of a location sets the population to 926 as of 2005 but if the page is previewed, it shows 999 as of 2018. As its a 2007 page, that is predicting the future. That edit also sets the coordinates in an outdates manner and defines the name. The one could change while the other could not, but that is minor and not likely to be much of an issue. All this change would do is remove information that is both incorrect and being ignored by the template. There does not seem to be any noticeable change to the finished project as this only streamlines the page by removing unused and outdated information. Pure Evil (talk) 06:59, 15 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Pure Evil: Please keep me in the loop for whatever is decided here. I've been doing a lot of work with articles that use that template, mostly fixing or removing unrecognized parameters. I wouldn't want us to be working at cross purposes.
Also, why are you talking about this template specifically? This template is a wrapper for {{Infobox settlement}}, as are all the others in Category:Templates calling Infobox settlement. Do the others not do the same thing? -- Auntof6 (talk) 06:45, 15 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I came across this issue when I noticed the category while randomly checking articles. The template in question, while a wrapper for Infobox settlement, has been modified to default to wikidata rather than just pass the information it is given. This is not an issue with the base infobox. The wrapper has to have been modified as this one was. Spot checking the others, these changes do not seem to be wide spread although it would not be a bad thing if they were. The changes are useful and improve the pages for the users while minimizing the effort that is needed for maintaining them by using wikidata as is seems it was intended: a source of data shared by all projects.
Note that this is in no way an urgent job. The situation has existed for a year already and if it were ignored for another year, no one is likely to even notice. I happened upon it by chance and decided to inform the group. What is done with this information is for other to decide now. Pure Evil (talk) 07:14, 15 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Pure Evil: I agree: I would like to see us taking more advantage of Wikidata. -- Auntof6 (talk) 07:23, 15 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Auntof6@Pure Evil I have been going though and updating the wikidata. There are a few issues with using data in the templates:
  1. Almost all the parameters in data are lowercase which include names that should be capitalized.
  2. Not all templates (with the underlying LUA allow the data to be brought it.
  3. You can bring in items like census, however, on the data you to see them all to normal and the most current needs to be set to priority to get it work correctly.
  • Downfall: A lot of editors do not know what they are doing in data which can cause other issues as well. We can set up some test sandbox templates, docs and LUA and try them out. Data is a huge set that can technically be used to fill out an entire Infobox where it pulls in the information, if the Infobox is set up that way. PDLTalk to me!OMG, What have I done? 08:07, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Mobile phone use in schools

We should definitely have a version of this. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:16, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Macdonald-ross What do you mean? I know it is accessable via mobile. Are you talking about more functions for the web based (.m.) or the app (which in my opinion needs a lot of work)? PotsdamLamb (talk) 18:32, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think he means mobile phone use in schools, the article. --Ferien (talk) 18:34, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Macdonald-ross: If you can't or don't want to create the article yourself, you could add it to WP:Requested pages. -- Auntof6 (talk) 20:59, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not that anyone takes any notice of that page. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:09, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]