Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 152

{{ping}}

@Eptalon, Rathfelder, and Kojak Savalas: what does the template in question ({{ping}}) do??? 88.110.38.249 (talk) 19:10, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

When you're logged in, you get notifications if someone edits your user or user talk page, reverts an edit of yours, sends you an email or links your userpage. So, instead of {{ping}}, you can just use their username, e.g. User:Ferien2. You can also use {{u}} to make Ferien2 or {{ping}} to make @Ferien2:. {{user}} has the same effect I believe, as does any template that links to a user's page. Basically, it's used to notify an editor of a discussion, without having to use talkback and add to their talk page. --Ferien (talk) 19:17, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Useful! 88.110.38.249 (talk) 19:21, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, just make sure you don't ping editors to random discussions that don't relate to them, as you did here. --Ferien (talk) 19:24, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Ok. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 19:44, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Peer review

Hello, I'd like it if someone besides me could take a look at a few articles on genetics I created, to improve them or give suggestions. If you are not an expert in genetics, your opinion would be very useful still as many of our readers will likewise not be an expert.

Feel free to edit directly, or reply here. Here are some articles that might benefit from multiple set of eyes:

• https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indirect_genetic_effects
• https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Additive_genetics
• https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinitesimal_model
• https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Correlation_between_Relatives_on_the_Supposition_of_Mendelian_Inheritance
• https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_autism

Chamaemelum (talk) 05:49, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the links, I ha a look at the articles, and they look good. I did a few minor edits (like linking some terms). As I am not a genticist, I cannot talk about how accurate they are. Thank you for the good work. Eptalon (talk) 07:09, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! I really appreciate your improvements. Chamaemelum (talk) 16:21, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Archiving "They are a philosopher" (at En-wiki), but I ask is there consensus to say that 'Last name' is a philosopher

Should the discussion in question be closed, everyone has been reverting me.

Why is the bot not archiving the discussion and why are you not allowing me to. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 09:32, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

The botwill archive threads that have been inactive for some time (I think 14 days). There's on need ot manually archive the discussion... Eptalon (talk) 09:41, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

but the bot has not in a month or more! 88.110.38.249 (talk) 10:11, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

The bot is archiving regularly -- just look at the page history. It archives sections that have no timestamps for the last 14 days, leaving at least 5 sections on the page. -- Auntof6 (talk) 10:54, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

So why is the section in question not being archived. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 13:12, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

The latest timestamp is from 19th August. From then, it will stay 14 days... Eptalon (talk) 13:54, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Oh. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 20:41, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Review the Charter for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee

More languages • Please help translate to your language

Hello all,

I am pleased to share the next step in the Universal Code of Conduct work. The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) draft charter is now ready for your review.

The Enforcement Guidelines require a Building Committee form to draft a charter that outlines procedures and details for a global committee to be called the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C). Over the past few months, the U4C Building Committee worked together as a group to discuss and draft the U4C charter. The U4C Building Committee welcomes feedback about the draft charter now through 22 September 2023. After that date, the U4C Building Committee will revise the charter as needed and a community vote will open shortly afterward.

Join the conversation during the conversation hours or on Meta-wiki.

Best,

RamzyM (WMF), on behalf of the U4C Building Committee, 15:35, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

GA questions

1. How many redlinks is too many?
2. Do redlinks in the references section count towards the limit?

QuicoleJR (talk) 16:34, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

I would say 'Most links are blue', a few red links are probably ok (if they are spread over the article). I'd say no redlinked categories. Red links in references don't count (and are easy to remove tweaking the citation template. Eptalon (talk) 21:56, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

note we don't require the journal you take the reference from to have an article here. Therefore you don't need to link the journal. Same with authors .. Eptalon (talk) 22:00, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

If less than 10%-15% are redlinks that would be fine. Just my opinion, in certain circumstances more redlinks would be ok but the rest of the article in that case must be stella. fr33kman 18:19, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Can somebody make this template automatically collapsed on pages?

{{North Carolina}}. I'm not sure how to do it. 172.58.88.163 (talk) 03:20, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

 Done. I inserted | state = {{{state|autocollapse}}} at the top. This will collapse if there is more than one navbox. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:52, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

@Koavf That's good but I think it should also be collapsed if there's only one navbox. Look at Albemarle, North Carolina for example; the navbox covers the vast majority of the screen. 2601:644:907E:A450:8DA7:657B:8E62:8415 (talk) 04:20, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't think that's a problem, but if you want to collapse it there, just insert {{North Carolina|state=collapsed}}. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:53, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

This may lead to other issues as that template already had a parameter that it would pass to set the collapse state. the template it is passing the info to will accept either state or collapse_state and now this template can pass both of those parameters. As such, it could pass two different values and force the template to prioritise which is will use. The template should just consistently use one parameter to prevent this from becoming an issue. The page itself lists collapse_state in its description and I have seen that on a similar templates which was not as forgiving on what you use. Actually, if I remember correctly, it was passing the name of the related US state in the state parameter for some reason.. I just said "screw it" and set the template itself for default collapsed and moved on to the next page. It was big enough that thought closed by default was not a bad idea. Pure Evil (talk) 09:38, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

question for collective mind

Should there be an article for the topic of Respective exhibition? There is currently a problematic article on English Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrospective. I think could be an article that explains what a retrospective exhibition is that is similar to the definition here. But would that just be providing a definition of a term? I have been wanting to use the term in articles I am writing and it seems like a term that might be blue linked. From what I am learning, Simple English Wiki should NOT have articles that are mere definitions. Any thoughts appreciated. Thanks. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 17:06, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

It it is possible to explain the term, for example that there are different types of exhibitions, one of them the retrospective, another one probably grouping authors with a similar style and a third one organized around a theme? If in the end you write an article that turns out to be more than a mere dicdef, go ahead. You could also give examples. For example showing an image Vermeer painted when he was young, compared to one wherr he was older (Vermeer is just an example, obviously any painter will do) Eptalon (talk) 18:16, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

I created Retrospective (art). Perhaps this is a starting-point? Eptalon (talk) 19:54, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Eptalon!  Done I will link some things up and also expand the article as I can. --WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 22:51, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Paint It Black is now a good article...

Hello all, Paint It Black is now a good article. Thank you to all who contributed. Eptalon (talk) 20:29, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Quick keep template

There should be a quick keep template, it is more convenient for those who use {{vk}}, {{vd}}, and {{vqd}}. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 19:57, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

I think it's because there is no such option as quick keep. Delete, keep, quick delete are all official options. fr33kman 23:57, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

What if users suggest to keep a page in without need for discussion in an RfD discussion? 88.110.38.249 (talk) 20:12, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Active hours

Does anybody know where the page were we can list our hours of operation is keep? I can't find it, maybe cause I'm old, lol fr33kman 00:22, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Has your cat gotten a hold of your password? WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 19:40, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

No, it's stuck on my mouse :) fr33kman 19:41, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

I thought humour was not allowed here. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 20:05, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

I know, long back there was such a listing; I do however not know where it is, and if it is up to date (likely not). Eptalon (talk) 20:12, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

What listing? 88.110.38.249 (talk) 20:19, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

I've done some looking around and I think Wikipedia:Active users is the page you were looking for, although it is marked as historical. --Ferien (talk) 20:34, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Too complex and not our remit

We should throw out all content which violates our remit by being too complex. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:59, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I think your suggestion would be throwing out the baby with the bathwater, or cutting off your nose to spite your face, or something like that. The level of complexity really needs to depend on the topic. The medical articles on the main English Wikipedia are usually written for a medical doctor who is a specialist, if not a researcher, in the specific field. They are not particularly helpful to a layperson. That's the target we should be aiming for here on medical/technical articles. For general topics, such as biographical articles about musical groups or athletes, our articles here should be at the very simplest level possible. The level of complexity really needs to be proportional to the complexity of the topic. BTW, "remit" has no currency on this (the American) side of the Atlantic. I had to look it up, lol. Tetsuo (talk) 18:16, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

I spoke to Jimbo once about complexity creep on enwiki and his suggestion was that it would make sense to require that the introduction of the article (which should hit all the highlights of the whole article) should be required to be readable by a lay person. Whilst that is never going to happen on enwiki it's what I've always tried to do here. As for deleting complex material, I'm all for that and have done it on a number of occasion here at simeplewiki:. Also, read http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2240303,00.html fr33kman 18:32, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

That was a good response by Jimmy. Certainly the intro is easy-to-read in newspapers. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:55, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, he said that it was too late for enwiki (and this was in like 2010 or so) and he said he thought they should have made it policy in the beginning but hindsight is 20:20 :| fr33kman 18:58, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

If content is too complex, it serves no purpose here. This is not to say "KILL ON SIGHT!!!". A reasonable grace period should be involved before taking this action. Yes, the action should be taken, but after giving time for the issue to be fixed. We all know that it is not likely to be fixed, look at the dates in cat:complex pages to see this. A reasonable time frame, say 1 - 2 month (last month and this month) from tagging before deleting complex content. This may be just a section removed that is complex. or the entire article if the whole thing is beyond use. The function of doing this would need to be developed and the call on what denotes an article being completely complex would need to be worked out, but I see the general idea as sound. Cat:complex pages has entries dating back to 2011. Eventually, we have to say enough is enough. that baby drowned in the bath water, its time to bury it.. If your nose rotted off a decade ago, amputate it and clean out the dead rot. Pure Evil (talk) 21:53, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Maybe add a category to RfD 'Too complex'?? Gets others to look at it first before nuking. fr33kman 00:38, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

If I were to suggest such a structure, it would be in two stages. This would releive the backlok hitting us all at once. Stage one would cover the back log in 6 month blocks from oldest to almost current. For one month, an announcement is made defining which months/year are on the block. For one month, editors are encouraged to help clean up. maybe we set one weekend each month as a Clear Complex Big Weekend. At the end of the month, any article not reasonable up to par suffers the consequnces. If it is just a part of the content that fails, that part is pruned. If an admin feels the entire thing fails, they can (CAN not MUSt) decide the article fails to be useful here and remove it. This is done each month, 6 past months at a time, until we clean the back log.

Once clear, we shift to a shorter queue. Each month, month -2 is on the block. (ie. March 1, January is up, or Sept 1, July is up) We have one month to clear the list of article before they go to admin to deal with. Something similar to the wait tag or school tag can be used to buy more time to fix an article at the admins discursion. Certain articles could be moved to a Complex articles in process category to remove them from the monthly cat and be safe for a limited time. this would be a limited corner case by case thing. NO admin would ever be forced nor expected to delete, but all would have the option after the time limit has passed.

As this is always an issue in these cased: If the process is community approved, any admin can chose not to take any action. It is their right. They do not have to do anything they object to. They are not forced to act. But if the community feels the need, this would give them the authority to make the choice to take the action (not be forced to take it)

Steps:

1. 1st of the month: announcement made of which articles are actively being considered.

2. All month, people clean articles at whatever pace they chose (Big weekend, balls to the wall, one a day, Maybe I feel like it today, Screw it all, let em burn, etc - Everyone sets their own pace.)

3. 1st of next month, new announcement, remove prose that is causing the issues or delete the entire thing if it is all useless . Pure Evil (talk) 01:31, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

To do this, I imagine we'd need an objective way of determining what's too complex. What would that be? -- Auntof6 (talk) 05:45, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I believe that pages with excess science or math-related words, jargon, idioms, cliches, and other words not in SE1500 can count as too complex. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 16:49, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I think we really should cut out all or most of the complex articles or complex article content. They take up space where a new editor might start with a clean slate on a simpler path. There is not going to be an clean, objective measure for this, but some articles are just obviously too complex. The idea below of a simple intro followed by a more complex article just opens the door to complexity elsewhere. New editors may see that level of complexity and quite reasonably assume it is fine; they may not read the policies etc. The articles here can just be simple introductions to the topic. Readers who want the complex details can find that easily enough at EnWP or in their native language wiki. --Gotanda (talk) 23:30, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't think so. Simple English Wikipedia is for a lot of people. One group of people is those who may be somewhat educated or can speak English, but wants to read an article about a complex topic in a more simplified, quick manner which is easy to understand. For example, the idea of a "polygenic score" is complex. It requires a background knowledge of basic genetics, and the term refers to both an individual number and a predictive model, which complicates things further. It is created using math. But take a look at the enwiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygenic_score

versus the Simple English article: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygenic_score.

Another example is: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(mathematics)

Users who struggle to understand the complex wording on a complex article can go to the Simple English Wikipedia pages on these complex articles instead. There are many popular online posts [1] that talk about this as a useful "hack." Chamaemelum (talk) 06:58, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Complex article

I've suggested a very brief proposed guideline that would require editors to ensure that at the very least the introduction section of an article is in language that a lay person can read and understand. Thoughts?? fr33kman 04:28, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree. That sounds like a great idea. Kk.urban (talk) 06:15, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree too. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:44, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree three. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 16:00, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I tweaked it slightly. Mainly c/e and wording. I did add a blurb on linked terms as it is not always possible to stick with the approved lists and using terms with the link to a describing article can provide the info needed with minimal fuss. While I personally would have set the readability a tad lower (I like to aim for 6th grade level where possible), 7-9 is certainly an acceptable target. This level may drift some as certain article are forced to use a more poly-sylable vocabulary ( you can't talk about disenfranchisement without using that word but it would force up the readability level to use it. It is a solid goal, but we have to expect that there will always be corner cases that need to be handle on a per case basis. whether this needs to be mention, inferred or left quiet, I do not know. Pure Evil (talk) 09:30, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Do you want to lower to grades 6-7 (Junior High-School and post primary elsewhere) fr33kman 02:49, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I would prefer that age group and it is the range I try to personally aim for, but I accept that 7-9 is a lot more realistic of a target. It is still easy for most to read and gives room where needed for articles that maybe a bit trickier to word properly. I have nothing against it being the defined limit. Pure Evil (talk) 03:16, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Ok, let's stick to grade 7-9 as a guideline, but nowhere does it say that you personally (or anyone else) can't aim for grade 6. What's most important is the line ~that a non-expert can understand. fr33kman 04:17, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

That's great. Let's wait for others to comment and if it all goes well we can make it live in a few days or a week perhaps. BTW: Does anybody have the links to the readability websites. You know the ones where you give it a webpage URL and it tells you the readability score? fr33kman 16:15, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

NVM, I found them:

Tools for measuring textual difficulty (long words, long sentences, etc.) include:

Readability Score: online readability calculators

Edit Central: online readability calculators

Online-utility: online readability calculators

Writing Sample Readability Analyzer

Readability Report for OpenOffice

fr33kman 16:21, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

• If we get consensus (which I think is likely) we'll go live on Monday. I think this new guideline page might be good to add to the Welcome templates?!?! fr33kman 04:21, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

  I see the nutshell says 14-16 year olds, but US grades 7-9. So what was it supposed to be? Kk.urban (talk) 04:35, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

  Grades 7-9. The age was just me saying what age those grades represent but removing the age is a better idea. fr33kman 19:08, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

  @Fr33kman: For future reference, age 14-16 is not grade 7-9. Grade 7 is about age 12, not 14, and grade 9 is about age 14 -- there is a difference of 5 between the age and the grade. Of course, there are exceptions, but that is the norm. -- Auntof6 (talk) 21:32, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

  Yeah, I wasn't completely sure as to the age but knew someone would point it out, thanks!! fr33kman 22:42, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

• I'd like to suggest changing the wording to say that the language used should be at the 7th- to 9-th grade level at most, rather than implying that it's aimed at people in grades 7 through 9. The reason is that if you're aiming at the level of English, that just affects choice of language. If you're aiming at people in those grades, that would affect choice of content. Since Wikipedia is not censored, we don't concern ourselves with whether content is appropriate for people of all ages as long as it's an appropriate topic for an encyclopedia and written in an appropriate tone. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:42, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

  I think that's a good idea. The reason we need to use a grade level rather than an age is because the readability programs use grade level. fr33kman 19:06, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

  I don't see anything there about the content being appropriate for people in those grades, it just says it should be understandable by them. If possible, it could more clearly state that the reading level should be understandable by students in grades 7-9, while the content (of the introduction) just needs to be understandable by a non-expert. For most topics, I think a 7-9th grader should be able to understand it, but for some (like advanced physics) that might not be possible, but it should at least be comprehensible by an adult who is not an expert. Kk.urban (talk) 04:47, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

  There are articles contained here that I don't think are appropriate for me to read. It doesn't mean that they shouldn't be here. A person going to the library will come across the same thing; books that are inappropriate for them but that they could read if they wanted to. There is a difference between being able to read something and it being appropriate. fr33kman 19:03, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

  We get some people (including some regulars here) who think that this wiki is aimed at children, as far as content is concerned. I just want to make sure we don't give that impression here. -- Auntof6 (talk) 05:11, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

  The project is definitely not aimed at children. However, the language used should be able to be comprehensible by someone in grades 7-9. A grade person in grades 7-9 could most certainly read an article and yet not understand the concepts contained therein just as someone learning English may be able to read and pronounce words that they don't know the meaning of. fr33kman 19:03, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

  We can't fix stupid. There will always be people who will add something in there tiny little heads that is not written on the page. If is beyond realistic to try and accommodate each of their imagined texts. Say what we mean and mean what we say then screw those who make up their own words. They are beyond hope and past our words. If they want to live in their own little worlds, they really just do not matter at this point. Pure Evil (talk) 05:34, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Well said fr33kman 19:03, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

When we cant ensure that articles have references or categories how is this to be enforced? Rathfelder (talk) 08:53, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Whether or not an article has references or cats has nothing to do with reading comprehension level does it? fr33kman 19:03, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

No, but it is much more straightforward to detect, and we cant. Rathfelder (talk) 20:47, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

What do you suggest? fr33kman 21:10, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

How this is going to work is that all articles being made from now onwards should meet the new criteria and as we come across older articles we fix them if we can but if they are FAR beyond fixing they can be RfD'd. Remember just because something goes to RfD doesn't mean it will be deleted. fr33kman 19:03, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Of course, they can be RFD'd now anyway. All this guideline would do is counter the argument that deletion is not cleanup, for this specific issue. -- Auntof6 (talk) 21:34, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

True, but in defining that at the very least the introduction should be readable I think we accomplish something. fr33kman 22:41, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Even articles that are far beyond fixing, then the content can be removed and stubified. There is no need for an RfD even in these scenarios. --Ferien (talk) 17:06, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

in an ideal world. sure. But you have to be delusional to think that idea is viable in this world. Who is expected to do this work? We have complex articles over a decade old. We have 250+ from this year so far. No one is touching these articles. To say they can be fixed is nice and all that, but in this reality nothing is being fixed. It is nice to dream about it, but unless you. personally. are offering to clean up 135 categories worth of pages and another 250 just sitting around, there is no chance of your dream coming true. These article will not be fixed. They will sit there being useless for all time until we do something about this blemish. Pure Evil (talk) 22:07, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Stubifying an article is a perfectly viable idea. It can be done in the same amount of time it takes to start and close an RfD nomination. It isn't going through and simplifying all the content - this is in cases where articles are far beyond fixing. Just remove the content and have it as a really short stub, then expand from there in the future. That isn't difficult and certainly better than full deletion. --Ferien (talk) 22:11, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

And still, who do you expect to do this work for you? If you want this to be the case, you need to fix these articles. Do not expect others to clean this up for you. Go stubify all these articles. If you want something done, do it. Stop telling others that it should be a certain way and then expecting others to do the work for you. We are not your employees. Your way requires slave labor... Pure Evil (talk) 22:17, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Come on now, are you genuinely telling me how replacing an absolutely awful article beyond repair with one or maybe even two sentences is somehow much more difficult than spending a week on an RfD, or somehow less beneficial to the project than deleting it? I think you are making a much bigger deal out of this solution than it actually is. It is literally just replacing an article with the bare minimum, that should take no more than a couple of minutes. And before I get told that I am just bossing everyone about without doing any work, I have gone through plenty of cleanup categories and simplified articles during my time here, and plenty of others have articles they have saved from A3 by doing similar things. --Ferien (talk) 22:27, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

That is exactly what I am telling you. You keep saying its faster to fix that nominate and close an Rfd and now for some reason you add in the week waiting. Of all that, 30 seconds. That is all of my time it takes - 30 second to click RfD and add a reason. The week it sits on the RfD list has no effect on me. I do not close it.. looking at the fact to 18 of the 35 active RfDs are past their close date, it looks like no one closes them. Over half the rfd are stale.. the topic has been up on the admin notice list many time and yet there is always a backlog. Are we that short of admmins that we cant close in a reasonable time? Your plan is to not RfD, just remove everything and write a stub.. If you are removing everything in the article, you are already deleting it in all but name. As to you doing the work.. per your contribution, in the last 50 article edits, this dates back to the 17th - less than 10 articles which were not reverting vandalim. One tagged as copy edit, one as simplify. so of 50, 2 were tagged for clean up purposes, so during your time here, but not anything recently. Pure Evil (talk) 21:29, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree that RfD-ing may take less time and effort than stubifying and moving on. Ideally it would be best to sort out the intro and leave the rest or if it's too hard to do that (say for something like "quantum entanglement theory") then we have the option of the RfD. I really don't like the idea of deleting material but this is the Simple English Wikipedia and if something is too hard to explain in simple English then it shouldn't be here, should it? There are articles here that I can't explain but at the very least I should be able to read them. fr33kman 21:56, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Let me be clear that I only support removing material if the article is beyond repair. --Ferien (talk) 22:10, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Ok! Understood fr33kman 11:46, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

So just to be totally clear, you support simple intros and stubifying but oppose RFDing articles. fr33kman 12:12, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

What would be the best title for the guidline? WP:Complex article, WP:Simple Introduction or something else? fr33kman 02:48, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

• I've gone live with the guideline and changed the title to WP:Simple Introduction (WP:SI) to better outline what the guideline is about. Thanks to everyone for discussing it. Let's hope it builds a better project. fr33kman 16:38, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

  I've undone the go live as an objection has been raised to the time period. fr33kman 18:00, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

  @Fr33kman: Please be aware that discussions of this type are normally left open for at least a week. This one appears to have been only three days old when a change was implemented. It's understandable that people want to quickly address issues they see, but there's usually no need to rush, especially when changing policies and guidelines. -- Auntof6 (talk) 17:55, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

  Ok, I'll undo all my changes (sorry) fr33kman 17:56, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

  akso, remember that word lists aren't everything. They are just a tool. Note that things like 'phrasal verbs' (verb plus pronoun) are difficult to understand as their meaning cannot be deduced from the components: how many meanings can 'put up' have? How many are perhaps specific to one group of users. What I want to point out is that if we rely on word lists too much, this project is pretty dead, as advanced scientific concepts need so specific well defined terms... Eptalon (talk) 18:25, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes word lists are not the be all and end all of how to write simply but they're a start. fr33kman 03:13, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Summing up Just to recap taking into account what people have been saying. The way I see this guideline helping is two-fold. 1)From now onwards we make sure that new articles meet the simple introduction criteria. That's not too hard to do. and 2) As people come across articles that need a simple introduction being in place they do the work keeping to the guidelines. I do not see us going about and deleting a whole load of articles because they don't meet the new guidelines; that would harm the project. Whilst a complex article can now (without the new guideline) be taken to RFD, this gives us an out by making it easier to keep the article (even with a complex body) by writing a simple introduction. Hopefully we get good new articles and hopefully we start cleaning up the base of articles we have. Thoughts? fr33kman 03:13, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I dont see effective quality controls in this wikipedia. More guidelines with no controls will make no significant difference. Rathfelder (talk) 08:38, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

That's what I'm hoping to introduce. We've allowed this project to get out of hand with regards to complexity of some articles. Hopefully we can reign it in. fr33kman 15:29, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I do not see how RfD should relate to this at all. In the time it takes to start and close RfDs, articles can probably be simplified. And for the really bad cases that would take ages, just stubify and have the bare minimum. Sending these types of articles to RfD is a waste of time. Other than that, I have no problems. --Ferien (talk) 13:41, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, articles can be simplified in the time it takes to do an RFD. That is the key to this solution. The RFD is there right now and always has been. Complex articles can be sent to RFD at the moment but usually don't get deleted which is making the project more and more complicated as creep sets in. This at least provides a way to make a simple introduction and aids the readers. fr33kman 15:02, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

We could take the RFD component out of this solution but it removes the teeth from the guideline and provides no more incentive than is there now. fr33kman 15:25, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Personally, I see the problem as this (although, of course, my opinion may differ from others!): we have lots of complex content just sitting around waiting to be simplified (often with a tag saying so), but sometimes it is just too difficult to do because the content is so complex and/or makes no sense, so it just sits there for years on end. After many years of this complex content sitting here, we can either send the article to deletion, where it will probably be improved then kept; remove the complex content and essentially start over, with the content still in history if anyone wants to try and simplify it one day; or let it sit there for even longer. What we have tended to do is just leave the complex content there, but with a tag, rather than removing it entirely. So what I think this guideline should say is feel welcome to just remove the complex intro, and replace it with something shorter but simpler. This is the Simple English Wikipedia, having the complex content on the page does not serve much purpose, and is always viewable in the history. And perhaps we could have a cleanup category to say, hey some complex content was removed from these articles, if anyone wants to take a look? That idea is still reasonable IMO, and different from what we have often done with complex content. --Ferien (talk) 19:53, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree completely! What I'm trying to do is encourage people to, at the very least, add info in the lead that explains the rest even if the rest remains complex. fr33kman 19:57, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Or even if the rest is removed and left in the page's history. fr33kman 19:58, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

At the end of the day, I think we are all on the same page with this, which is at least ensuring a simple introduction for all our pages, so I should probably finally note that I Support this guideline, although perhaps with stubifying articles instead of RfD :) --Ferien (talk) 20:05, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

At this point I wonder why we pick one language and say it is ok, but any other language is delete on sight. If someone wrote in Russian, its deleted. French, deleted. German, deleted. This makes sense as this is the Simple English wikipedia, not the Russian, French or German Wikipedia. It is also not the English Wikipedia. The language here is not English in its full form. It is an English based pidgin or creole that is separate from English. Yet if people write in the incorrect language of English, we just tag it, toss it in the corner and forget it exists. English is not Simple English and has no place in these articles. They may be similar, but they are not the same language. Pure Evil (talk) 01:20, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

No it's not a pidgin or creole, it is normal English with English grammar rules just using simplyfied word lists. You couldn't for instance write an article in New Orleans creole and expect it to stand. Pidgin and creole contain words from other languages like Hinglish and Singlish do. fr33kman 11:56, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

We want to stick to words and grammar that would be taught to grades 7-9 in the USA while at the same time making the intro so a nonexpert in the article's topic could understand. fr33kman 11:58, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Just a bit of history for those that don't know. This project barely got approval to exist as there is no ISO recognized language called "Simple English" and every year people on metawiki: try and get it shut down. If it were to be started as a new project today it would never get approval. Basically, we've been grandfathered in. They won't stop us now because we've become too big. We're one of the largest language Wikipedias. fr33kman 12:03, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

So is this to be written in American Basic English? Rathfelder (talk) 13:29, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

No, whatever version is already used in the article. The reason for the 'US grades' is because the tools for determining the readability are already programmed for US grades. If you want an age range it should be readable by a 12-14 year old. It should also be understandable by a non-expert in the topic (if possible, quantum physics articles, for instance, are going to be tough to simplify) fr33kman 19:31, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

I'll go with this. If anyone wants to see the source of the Simple English concept it is: C.K. Ogden's Basic English, as our various pages show. Unfortunately Ogden mostly wrote in about 1920, almost before modern science. Very important for context is E.D. Hirsch's The Philosophy of Composition. Walter Nash wrote English usage: a guide to first principles. Most things by Rudolf Flesch are helpful, such as The Art of Readable Writing.

E.D. Hirsch Jnr pins down (in The Philosophy of Composition) the very important figure of Henry Bradley who really is worth a book on his own. Bradley was the senior editor of the O.E.D. in the 19th C. but whose interest for us is, or should be, profound. It is said he's the precursor of 'Enry 'Iggins (Henry Higgins) of Liza Doolittle fame. Anyway Bradley/Higgins is important to us because he was the most central scholar of the English language before science and technology really took over our lives. I'll maybe write something about him. The article on big wiki is rather formal. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:28, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Please reread proposal

Could everyone please reread the proposal page as I've put it into two proposals based on the discussion here. Thanks!!! fr33kman 13:29, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Also, could someone uninvolved please decide the outcome and close this discussion on Friday or Saturday? Thx! fr33kman 13:35, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

I believe this part will cause problems and is counter to the purpose of this wiki, "complex material can be left in the body of the article." It approves complexity in articles. If readers wish to read a complex article, they can read the EnWP version through the language links. If the topic is so technical or complex that only a short introduction can be written in Simple English, then the article should stop there. Keep the entire article text simple. Complex text is available everywhere else. --Gotanda (talk) 04:17, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Proposal Two is much better for the purpose of the wiki and requires less process and overhead. Also, proposal two is itself quite simple in how it works, which we should also aim for here. --Gotanda (talk) 04:19, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Ok, so you support a simple introduction and if the rest is too complex, delete it and rely on a simple introduction (ie: stubify it)? I can get behind that. fr33kman 23:28, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that would be ideal, I think. Thank you for working through these ideas. Some of the complexity has gotten out of control. --Gotanda (talk) 11:48, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

But that would throw out useful information, why can't we instead simplify complex parts. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 14:23, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

You can't force people to do work. If someone only has the time to simpfy the intro and not simplify the main then that's ok. Sometimes an editor may not know enough about the topic to simplify the main body but can simplify the intro. @Gotanda, you're welcome! fr33kman 15:17, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

So, if my understanding is correct, the way it stands now is; complex articles should be stubifyied into a simple introduction that is readable by someone in US grades 7-9 and understandable by a non-expert. Complex material should be removed. fr33kman 15:35, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

This is just an aspiration. There are plenty of articles which are too complex and not tagged as such. But I agree with the general idea. A short comprehensible article is better than an long incomprehensible one. People who need more detail will have to look on the other wikipedias. We cannot put everything into simple English Rathfelder (talk) 16:38, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Option 1. As long as the intro is simple enough, the rest does not matter. It can be as complex as you want, but it might get deleted.

Option 2. As long as the intro is simple, an editor will fix the rest rather than deleting it.

A. Isn't this the system we should have been using for the last 17 years and failed at miserably? How is anything different?

B. Who is this editor that will fix it all? Are we, as usual, just expecting it to happen.

c. How does this effect the trash fire that is our complex article collection.

d. Is there any negative outcome for people who refuse to do this? Many people are likely to have no intention of doing this, what is the plan for them? Do we have one? Are we just going to wing it or ignore it?

As I remember when this was not just another English wiki and it had a reason to exist.. I cam not support either option as they are based on a diametric change in what this wiki was created to be. Pure Evil (talk) 06:41, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Your reply is off-topic. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 14:37, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Not agreeing with a proposal is off topic.. some people are just.. <unkind words> Pure Evil (talk) 20:46, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

@Pure Evil You seem to have posted this in the wrong section ("WikipFan33 attacking editors" instead of "Too complex and not our remit"). Kk.urban (talk) 21:22, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

thanks for pointing that out. no clue how it happened.. Pure Evil (talk) 21:35, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

I already told him! 88.110.38.249 (talk) 09:23, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

This comment and the ones in reply were posted into the wrong section and I moved them into the correct spot. Apologies to all involved. Pure Evil (talk) 21:38, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, but he pointed out what the error was so I could identify it and correct it. You just did it vaguely in a manner which was easy to take personally. When I posted that, I thought I knew what I posted it under. Rather than point out that I did not do that, you stated what I posted wrong without pointing to why. A simple "Wrong section" could have cleared up the whole thing quickly.

What is too complex is subjective to a certain degree. I am against "too complex" material because some editor thinks that it is 10th-grade level, for example. (For example, I have a graduate degree, but some of the music articles are unclear to me, whereas other editors think they are easily understandable to pre-teens.) Allowing such deletions will almost certainly cause us to lose useful, readable material. If it is marked as too complex, we can hope that it will get simplified. Kdammers (talk) 04:02, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

My understanding is:

Option 1. Make the intro simple, the rest does not matter. It can be as complex as you want, but it might get deleted.

Option 2. Make the intro simple and delete the rest immediately if it is complex. Leave only simple text.

--Gotanda (talk) 18:17, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Why does everyone suggest only to keep the intro??? 88.110.38.249 (talk) 19:17, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Questioning only keeping a simplified intro

Why only keep a simple intro, that is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, since that will remove useful information. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 10:16, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

"The diagram (in this article) starts on the left side"

Malawimonad#Phylogeny.--Many articles use that kind of diagram. However, that section has one line of text, and then comes a diagram that does not say: "This diagram starts on the left side" - or something like that.--As the article stands, one might think that the diagram is a "top-down" diagram (and then one continues down the diagram, and sees that there are lines that spread to the left side ...). 2001:2020:313:86A4:858F:8C23:1A1A:2F (talk) 14:46, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

The diagram is correct. It's a biological branching diagram showing branching species. They always start on the left and branch out to the right. fr33kman 15:35, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree, there was no error, that is the correct way to use the {{Clade}} template. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 20:10, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Note: The phylogenetic tree does not show species. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 12:53, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

ST is big, tweak archival parameters?

hello, Simple Talk is rather big, should we reduce archival time? From 14 days to 10 days? Eptalon (talk) 18:31, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, something has to be done. It's become a monster. An edit can always retain sections by updating the section they want to keep. Good idea! fr33kman 18:33, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Keeping time set to 10 days, should archive quite a bit tomorrow Eptalon (talk) 18:49, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

The archiving bot removed 60,000 bytes! 88.110.38.249 (talk) 10:10, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Cartoon hoaxes

Can we please do something about the several IP editors editing cartoon pages? It's still a problem. Derpdart56 (talk) 15:12, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

This has been a long term issue. I have tried many times to verify some of these lists and brought up the fact that the vandalism is rampant there. At this point, it is easier to just assume any program listing for animated television programs on a channel are entirely a hoax and ignore anything they say. Pure Evil (talk) 21:19, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Note: The previous realted discussion is Childrens television vandals. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 13:00, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Did you know

Currently our Wikipedia:Did you know is only updated once a month. Lately it seems like DYK has been one of the most active pages on the project even more so than VIP and AN. I think we should start updating it more often. I am purposing we start to update it 2-3 times a month. As it stands, we currently have almost 7 full queues Template:Did you know/Queue and a bunch of pending nominations Template talk:Did you know#Nominations and many hooks in the holding area. The nominations page by itself has gotten over 50 edits in just the last few days. I think we could handle for sure updating it more then once a month. We currently have if we stay at once a month enough for 9-10 months. I have also noticed that the project as a whole that traffic has been picking up. Bobherry Talk My Changes 23:48, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Maybe once in 2 weeks? That seems better than once a month, once a month seems lazy. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 08:53, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

I would support doing twice a month. QuicoleJR (talk) 18:28, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Just today alone the page has gotten 40-50 edits. 9 hooks have also been approved. Bobherry Talk My Changes 20:20, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

As I have said before, I would support increasing the frequency to twice a month, from 1 September, then check up in 3 months on 1 December to see how it's going. We're not at risk of running out this way – monthly updates would currently last for around 9 months and twice-monthly updates would last for around 4.5 months. --Ferien (talk) 12:50, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. QuicoleJR (talk) 17:31, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Since it doesn't say how often Did you know should be updated as a policy or guideline, and there are a lot of pages ready for Did you know, Just do it? Kk.urban (talk) 17:38, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Or maybe once two weeks? 88.110.38.249 (talk) 20:22, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Ferien. Bobherry Talk My Changes 20:31, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

• I feel that now we have a good amount of hooks ready and more participation, updating DYK twice a month isn't a bad idea (update every two weeks). --TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 21:41, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

  I think twice a month is s good idea. For simplicity: 1st and third Friday, or 2nd and Fourth? Eptalon (talk) 22:25, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

  Agreed. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 09:10, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

  The result is that it will now be updated on the 1st and 16th of every month. Kk.urban (talk) 18:18, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Template:Did you know/Archives

Does the community have an opinion of the size of the current DYK archive? Currently, there are 34 sets of previous hooks in the archive. I'm currently making a bot that can automate most of the DYK process, and I'd like to know if there's any opinions regarding the maximum size of the current archive before creating a new one — *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 06:40, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

humor on simple wikipedia?

As therein humorous material on English Wikipedia, I ask thee one inquiry. Will there be humor essays/pages on this wiki? (Ex: Wikikittens.) Simpleist (talk) 12:48, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

We are no enwiki, so we are unlikely to allow that. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 17:53, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

No, we don't have that type of a community. There are less than 50 active editors here fr33kman 17:55, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

One reason for not having humor essays and such here is that this wiki is for people who do not have good English skills, for example people who are learning English. Humor is one of the most difficult things to understand when learning a language, so it would not be helpful to have it here. -- Auntof6 (talk) 20:04, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Excellent point. It's why people always say that people from X country are not funny. Humour doesn't translate well. fr33kman 20:05, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Our administration does not have to be simple, so we can have some humour. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 10:37, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Do not tempt me to make a project lage about wiki kittens. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 10:37, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Category talk:Illegal drugs

There is a discussion there to decide whether to change the name of the category, please comment ON THAT PAGE. 2601:644:907E:A450:B9B7:E918:C328:8EF7 (talk) 05:32, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Topic ban discussion

Kojak Savalas (talk) and Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) are banned from editing the article Aromanians and articles of closely-related subjects, broadly construed. Both parties are also banned from interacting with each other. Per WP:FOLLOW, the restrictions of the interaction ban are laid out in the English Wikipedia's interaction ban policy. These bans are in place for four months. The bans will be lifted at the end of the calendar year 2023.— *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 10:33, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

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

---

Hello all, There has been a lengthy discussion about POV-pushing, at the Admin noticeboard. The Users Kojak Savalas and Super Dromaeosaurus were unable to agree on edits on the subject of Aromanians. They are anethnic group, on the Balkans; mostly in Greece, but some in North Macedonia, Albania, Bulgraria, and Romania. As far as I can tell, they are mostly defined through speaking a common language; thats not the point here though. I want to propose a topic ban or an interaction ban or both editors:

• Articles (only applies to topic ban): Aromanians, and closely related articles (notably: if X is or is not Aromanian)
• Length of the ban: 3 months, that is: until the end of this calendar year.
• Admin action: Warning on first contravention, block on second contravention.
• As an alternative, an interaction ban, on both editors. Time periods, and other conditions are the same.
• Minimum are five valid votes. One vote per named editor. Ip editors are welcome to comment.
• Discussion to run for 1 week (2 Sept); Admin to decide on outcome.

Three possible options: 1) topic ban 2) interaction ban 3) no ban. Ideally, you decide for one of the three. Eptalon (talk) 21:29, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Eptalon, the discussion also included Albanian issues (Fustanella, Arvanites, Souliotes; those three are mentioned a lot on the discussion). It is why I proposed a Balkan-broad topic ban. Also, does the topic ban apply to the both of us? Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 22:22, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Hello, Dromaeosaurus. I talked with Ferien. We are no experts in this field (ethnic groups on the Balkans). To get a result that is as fair as can be, any measure taken has to apply to both of you, to an equal extent. Eptalon (talk) 22:41, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

I do not agree with that. I do not believe my behaviour has been equal to theirs. Thus we shouldn't be treated the same. I did not revert several people's sourced contributions, and I received a large amount of personal attacks. Here I explained Kojak Savalas' problematic edits [2] and here on the third paragraph their personal attacks directed at me [3]. It is not a sensible decision. This was not a decision in which two equally guilty editors couldn't manage to agree. But if we're to be treated the same, maybe I should also start removing sourced content without explanation [4], since the outcome is the same.

I doubt that you two have read the thread completely, since you even got the focus of the discussion wrong. It is not restricted to the Aromanians. It is understandable, as the thread became pretty long. I'd like to ask you both if possible to read the content on the first two diffs (those regarding their edits and their personal attacks towards me) that I attached in the first paragraph of this message. May I mention that on the ANI thread I initially received a treatment equal to that towards them from two different editors (first editor: [5] [6], second editor: [7]) who changed their attitude towards me after I explained the situation to them (first editor: [8] [9], second editor: [10]). For this reason I think my request for reading those two diffs is reasonable. If I convinced two editors maybe there is a reason. Plus two editors proposed a straight-up block (I do not see that as inherently necessary) of the other user ([11] [12]) while I received no such thing; again, there must be a reason for that.

To be fair I don't really mind if the discussion decides on sanctions being applied to me as well. But why eliminate the possibility of sanctions being applied only to one editor? Now that is not fair at all. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 23:09, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

By the way, I've already argued, in summary, my point. This will be my last wall of text here. Yes, I myself am very tired of them. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 23:11, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

• Topic ban and interaction bans for both fr33kman 21:36, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

  I'm more for a ban against Kojak but understand tht banning both ends the problem. Whoever, one one will need to put the articles in a NPOV status that we can retain. Super Dromaeosarus seems more likely to acconplish that in a NPOV manner. After which both with be topic banned. fr33kman 00:43, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

I am okay with this solution.

By the way, even in this context Kojak Savalas keeps their POV-pushing. This time in the cherrypicking of information [13]. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 08:20, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

• Topic and interaction bans for all. As I posted in the original thread, because of edit warring and the drama on ANI, I support a topic ban on all parties involved in the edit warring and dramafest. I also support further action against Kojak based on his continued disruptive editing (and constantly crying victim and general narcistic attitude. There is no editor this, or any, wiki would not survive without.) I also support an interaction ban between all parties for this topic. They may interact on other topics but should be held to the highest levels of civility at such times. So that is Super Dromaeosaurus: topic/interact ban, Yung Doohickey: T/I Ban. Kojak: T/I Ban and/or indef. Me: T/I Ban. Pure Evil (talk) 23:26, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Oppose sanctions against Yung Doohickey and Pure Evil. I don't know if this is supposed to be an attempt by this user to look noble. But it's nonsense. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 00:10, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Oppose I'm not exactly sure what I did (or what you did), I only reverted some of his disruptive edits in a couple articles; I don't believe in engaged in an edit war. Yung Doohickey (talk) 18:44, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Oppose Why are we putting a TBAN and IBAN on Pure Evil? That makes no sense. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:27, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

• @Super Dromaeosaurus, Pure Evil, and Kojak Savalas: Pinging editors who were involved in the initial AN topic ban discussion, who may wish to participate in the ST discussion. --Ferien (talk) 21:42, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

• Topic ban and interaction ban for me, Yung Doohickey and Super Dromaeosaurus. Leave Pure Evil alone. Kojak Savalas (talk) 03:07, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Oppose sanctions against Yung Doohickey. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 08:20, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Oppose sanctions for pure evil and yung doohickey, they have not done anything wrong. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 17:47, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

{{oppose}} and action against Pure Evil and Yung Doohickey; TBANs against both Kojak and Super D. Without being able to edit war I doubt we'll here much from them in the future. fr33kman 15:41, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

• Topic ban for Kojak Savalas. I don't care about interaction bans. If I am to receive a topic ban too I'd be perfectly okay with Fr33kman's suggestion here [14]. My intention with filing the topic ban proposal was to later rewrite the articles removing all the POV elements. I did this with one here [15]. Could anyone argue against this version? It surely looks more neutral than this [16]. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 08:20, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

• • Give it a rest already. You haven't learned anything after all the back-and-forth bullsh*t you started. All because you can't understand something as simple as WP:V or ask users respectfully to collaborate instead of attacking them. Not to mention you haven't learned that neutrality means nothing if you don't know how to read sources and if you don't know how to distinguish bad sources from good sources. In short, you are in no position to rewrite anything because you are not competent. Your incompetency is evident on both the Evangelos Zappas page and the Aromanians page. And this coming from a "second rate editor" or whatever. As for Pure Evil, he shouldn't even be here though I'm surprised he hasn't figured out that I exaggerated things on purpose to test his resolve and to spite you after you declined my request for an apology, a shot at de-escalation, when you said "Take a seat" (narcissism my foot). After all this, you still can't say "I am sorry for what I put you through. Can we start over?" Had you done that, everything would have been water under the bridge, and we'd probably end up being a good team. But who cares at this point, right? So let's hurry up with the bans and move on. Kojak Savalas (talk) 09:27, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

You have far more to apologize for than me. I did not call you an online abuser, or liar. And you're still insulting me, calling be incompetent and whatnot. But I don't seek any apologies because I am not prideful and I really don't care if some Wikipedia user apolgises to me or not. I would say this far more bluntly if we weren't in Wikipedia. But don't worry, we will have our fair share of discussion in the future. I do not like this outcome and I will bring this problem up in the future. Ideally we would do this by more diplomatic manners. I am willing to compromise and I hope that you are as well.

Prideful my foot. You started the fight. I pushed back. You escalated when things didn't go your way. I defended myself. You flippantly dismissed prior yet relevant rational discussions and the rationality of WP:V all in the name of your irrational fixation on neutrality. You boohoo baited other users. I tested you to see if you can apologize for once (because I suspected your appeal to compromise as a battle tactic). You smugly said "Take a seat" in response (you failed the test). I escalated things (on purpose). So you're not fooling anyone with your "it's really your fault" spiel. And if I can apologize to Pure Evil, you too can apologize to me. Try it and don't worry, I'll apologize right back topic-banned or not. Kojak Savalas (talk) 16:21, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Also, we're going to receive the same punishment despite you having insulted me in a far more severe manner than I have insulted you, and despite you having done completely indefensible, in theory, actions like reverting fully sourced additions. But since nobody cares about this conflict and everyone is too lazy to go too deep into the details we will both receive the same punishment and people will call it a day and feel accomplished with themselves. Even if in reality they solved nothing. So you have nothing to complain about.

And you didn't test anyone. It is clear that you felt things had spiraled out of your control when you started increasing your personal attacks against me and when you were talking about how I was "executing" you or whatever. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 10:38, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

I did test you and you got an F. And if you think this was about control, think again. What I care about is quality, which you would have figured out if you had read WP:V and the pre-required rational discussion on the Evangelos Zappas talkpage. That we are both getting punished is beside the point. Kojak Savalas (talk) 16:21, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Yeah roger that. I apologize for having called you a Greek ultranationalist and for having done back-and-forth reverting at some pages (mainly at Aromanians). An ANI report from the start might not have been the most appropriate measure either. Although to be honest I doubt we wouldn't have ended up there anyway. Perhaps such an unpleasant discussion was necessary for better future cooperation. From what I see we are two quite stubborn people.

Oh and. Please stop writing in between my messages. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 20:17, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Finally (thank you). I apologize for escalating things (and for writing in between your messages). Kojak Savalas (talk) 20:36, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

(Reply to the original post.) User:Super Dromaeosaurus seems to have insight about his/her not having handled himself/herself, up to a higher standard: Topic Ban for 3 months or 6 months, is (somewhat) strict (for that case), so maybe that is an okay solution.--Regarding the other (main) operator, impulses have been provided by user:Pure Evil; In that case, I am thinking at least 3 month block plus at least 18 months topic ban (counting September). 2001:2020:309:7C75:953D:E0AB:44B9:A0E0 (talk) 13:22, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

note: after we do the bans we are going to have to do something about the articles as they are in a mess now and we don't know how to fix them. I'd suggest reverting to a point before either editor edited them. fr33kman 15:44, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Note: The article in it's current state looks fine. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 17:46, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

---

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

Niggling changes

We get a lot of small changes which do not improve or make pages worse, always (one suspects) from schoolchildren. I suggest we agree to change these back to the original even though they are superficially harmless. The reason is twofold: 1. The editor(s) who wrote the original text deserve its integrity being kept. 2. The constant changes of wording (etc) gradually destroy the coherence of the article, even if no single change is any kind of vandalism. 3. Of course, I'm not talking about changes which correct errors or introduce missing ideas. 4. Here is where it should be said that the source is almost entirely IPs. I'm afraid this would mean checking all contributions by IPs, and reverting 95%+. Perhaps that is what happens often, but I am thinking it should be more general. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:01, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Since they are not vandalism, we should ignore such changes. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 20:03, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

If pages are being made worse, I don't think we should ignore those edits. It brings down the quality of the wiki by a wide margin. Derpdart56 (talk) 20:06, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

But they don't help, nor make pages worse. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 20:23, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

If they don't help, we should revert them. QuicoleJR (talk) 22:12, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

But they don't make pages worse either. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 09:54, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

This has been an issue for a long time now and finding a fix will take a lot of effort. Firstly, of the 1,342,295 users with accounts here, perhaps less than 500 are what we have called 'the community' over the years, a large portion of the rest have contributed good faith edits and moved on, the rest are vandals and schoolkids messing about. In the enwiki most new content is made by new editors and IP editors, enwiki probably only has 5000+ regular editors who edit quite often with perhaps 30-55% being 'the community' over there. One solution is to ban IPs from making changes (something we've discussed a few times here at simplewiki:). If we ban IPs we stop the creation of a lot of good new content as well as cut down on vandlism. It's something we could try for a few months and see how the project is effected. Another issue is the sheer amount of time and effort it'd take to patrol all new edits. Thoughts? fr33kman 23:20, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

FYI, I have always been against the wholesale banning of IPs fr33kman 01:01, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

"Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change."

Well, not anyone, only the people we deem acceptable. IPs are not real people and as such are among the unclean who shall not make changes. We have standards after all. We can not be seen mingling with their kind. What would people say?? Pure Evil (talk) 00:18, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

I beg your pardon??!!! Is that a joke? If not then that's plain rude! fr33kman 00:19, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

He means that this is how SEW would be seen if it banned IPs from editing. 2607:FB91:185:C8DD:751B:E27A:5D57:157C (talk) 01:04, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Recently Portuguese Wikipedia and Farsi Wikipedia banned IP editing. Here are the reports: IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/IP Editing Restriction Study. It is worth the read if you want to find out the results to form an opinion. --WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 01:10, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

But IPs are human, that is what people from fawiki and ptwiki don't understand, and I hope it does not happen here! otherwise, wikipedia is doomed. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 09:57, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Finally pure evil is acting evil :P 88.110.38.249 (talk) 10:01, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Don't even think about banning IP editing, it won't help the few constructive IPs. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 09:59, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

A full IP ban is probably never happening here. QuicoleJR (talk) 12:37, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

OMG thanks!!!!! 88.110.38.249 (talk) 13:05, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Hopefully AI will never edit wikipedia. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 13:39, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Bird

I tried to simplify the page, but chenzwbot reverted it :-( 88.110.38.249 (talk) 09:53, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Chenzwbot only reverts once, do it again and it'll leave your edit alone. Plus something in your edit must have triggered it. Review what you wrote. :) fr33kman 20:07, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

But I dont know how to revert on mobile

But chenzwbot is an automated program, so it makes mistakes. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 17:06, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Simple start

Can this be updated to mention nominating articles at Did you know in addition to Good articles and Very good articles? "Did you know" is easier to get involved with.

Also, can someone remove "Help clean up articles in the current topic: Science."? The page has literally said that since 2009. 2601:644:907E:A450:B9B7:E918:C328:8EF7 (talk) 06:23, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Under what section should we add the link to DYK? - DYK nominations don't make articles better, DYKs also do not. Eptalon (talk) 14:20, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

I added a link... Eptalon (talk) 22:39, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Template:Slavery probably needs some work...

Hello, {{Slavery}} is a template that was "imported" from EnWP a few months ago. What we have is the EnWP version, as far as I can see. It lists a great number of articles, covering different aspects of slavery. As can be expected, we don't have most of these articles. So: we are looking at filling about 70-80 red-links with articles to be created/simplified from EnWP. As this is alot of work, do you think we could ask some of the editors of the related Wikiprojects at EnWP? Please leave ocmments on the template talk page, at Template talk:Slavery. Thanks. Eptalon (talk) 14:59, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

That does not feel right (regarding that exact idea about EnWP).--Please enlighten me: However, could, say, user:Eptalon use Eptalon's user-page (on Simple-wiki) and ping users at En-wiki (one at a time)? Would that work (as far as technology)?--I am assuming that, that would not be breaking any rule at Simple-wiki. 46.15.98.222 (talk) 15:35, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

EnWP has Wikiprojects, and the template is listed as "interesting to" several of these Wikiprojects. I would leave a message on the talk page of these Wikiprojects. Worst thing that can happen is that they say no. Each Wikiproject has several contributors, and if anyone feels like that's something worthwile, we get another editor. Eptalon (talk) 15:42, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Those projects are for making En-wiki, better.--'Spam, with the best of intentions', is still spam. (That is the view that I am leaning toward, for now.) 2001:2020:315:807E:B41D:DE49:6519:592F (talk) 19:32, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

I dont think templates that produce hosts of red links are very useful unless there is a real prospect of all those wanted articles being created in the near future. Rathfelder (talk) 21:20, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:45, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Ditto. A collection of links telling people how to get to articles that do not exist is not high on the list of being useful. Most en navigation lists were created to get from one article on En to another similar article. As we do not have those articles, they do nothing here. Pure Evil (talk) 23:55, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

I recommend that somebody should delete most of the redlinks from the template. They can be added back later if they are created. Kk.urban (talk) 18:14, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Sounds like a fun game thing.--Kk.urban can delete all red-links.--When user:Eptalonnn has made one or two articles, then anyone can copy 'the newest' version of the En-wiki template.--If that is the best use, that one can make of Kk.urban's time, then so be it.--If "my" "view" is helpful, then fine. 2001:2020:315:807E:9500:D20D:22DC:6D9F (talk) 18:41, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Problem with Content translation tool

The content translation tool (en:Wikipedia:Content translation tool) seems to be automatically transferring over categories that originate from maintenance templates on the original page. To see what I mean, look at special:permalink/9045022 in the source editor.

The following categories:

• "Category:"Related ethnic groups" needing confirmation"
• "Category:Articles containing Tamil-language text"
• "Category:Articles containing Sinhala-language text"
• "Category:Articles containing Chinese-language text"

were included in the translated page. These categories were not explicitly included on the English Wikipedia article, but were transferred over anyway, even though they don't belong here. This should be changed; only categories that are explicitly included should be transferred automatically. Can somebody write a bug report for this? Kk.urban (talk) 20:42, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't know about the first and last, but that article does contain Tamil and Shnhala text so those two did belong on that article. As the article was trimmed from 25K to 2.8K, it is likely those two came from the parts deleted. The Chinese could be from the infobox.. That last one, i got nothing.. Generally speaking. SE is not a good target for automated content translation as it is not simply a cut and dry change. Pure Evil (talk) 22:23, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

The problem is that these categories are supposed to come from templates (such as {{Lang-si}}), not be included directly. The content translation tool automatically copies over all categories from English Wikipedia, if they exist. As you can see here, this created a problem, because the Simple English Wikipedia article doesn't have Chinese text. The settings should be modified to only copy over hardcoded categories, not those generated by templates. Kk.urban (talk) 22:54, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Governments

The central question is: What is a collection of governments. Is it a government or are they governments. Our guideline on naming does not cover this so we default to the English guideline. Per WP:Category names:

• Names of topic categories should be singular, normally corresponding to the name of a Wikipedia article. Examples: "Law", "France", "Hillary Clinton".
• Names of set categories should be plural. Examples: "Writers", "Villages in Poland".

per Wikipedia:Categorization:

• Topic categories are named after a topic (usually sharing a name with the Wikipedia article on that topic). For example, Category:France contains articles relating to the topic France.
• Set categories are named after a class (usually in the plural). For example, Category:Cities in France contains articles whose subjects are cities in France. A category may be explicitly labeled as such using the {{Set category}} template.

Looking at that, the singular is for the topic. This would be Category:Government for articles that are on the topic of government. When talking of the collection of the individual governments, we are talking about the entire set of items. Each item is a collective noun ( Government of India is for articles that deal with that subject) but the collection of all articles is plural.

For a comparable example , The Kennedy family is a collective noun. It is singular. That category would contain articles related to that specific family. The category would sit in cat: American families. That is a plural name as we are dealing with multiple families. In this case, Cat:Government of India is a collective noun. It contains articles that describe the government of that country. It rarely if ever describes the topic of government in general. While am example of a government, it is not the description of some part of the topic of government. A group of such categories would be .. a group. ie plural. It should not be the singular "Government by country" because that is not what it is. It is not about the topic government, it is about the items that make up the collection that is that the government of each country.

While the terms are almost identical, the means are not. Government is the idea of how people are rules. A government is the body that rules. One is an idea, the other is a collection of people and institutions. One is singular. Whter is ony one idea that is government even though that idea has many sides and approaches. There are many instances of national governments. Each is a totally different entity. They are many.

Once again, En ignores its own guideline. They chose to name the set category with the singular. By their rules, their categories are about the topic of government in each place and not how that topic has been handled. Whe are not talking "Democracy in Sweden". That would be an article on the topic. These are articles about the governments in each country, not about what aspects of the term government means in each. This is about the concrete and not the theoretical. This is not the first time En has done something and we blindly follow with out noticing it is a violation of the guideline we are expected to follow. It isn't the first time I asked why only to be told "that's how the English wiki does it" even when the English wiki is ignoring its own rule.

Are the individual national groups the many Government (the entities) or the one Government (the concept).

Auntof6 stated "You say that "government" as a topic would be singular, but it wouldn't" which is a complete violation of the policy stated by EN. As she is in violation of multiple guidelines while explaining that en and commons do it that way, I have little faith there.

TLDR: En states: Topic should be singular, sets should be plural. So would it be the topic Government by country or the entities Governments by country? Pure Evil (talk) 04:59, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Please don't selectively quote me. I said "You say that 'government' as a topic would be singular, but it wouldn't: it would be collective, neither singular nor plural.' Anyone interested in reading our previous discussion of this can find it here. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:27, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Not singular and not plural. so Not singular as the guideline states it should be. I fail to see how this changes the fact that you are violating the guideline. government as a topic is singular according to the policy, Your claim that it is not singular is in opposition to the guideline you are expected to uphold. Seems pretty cut and dry. I say the topic is singular because the guideline says it is singular. You say it is not singular which is the opposite of what the guideline states... Pure Evil (talk) 05:46, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Sometimes the distinction between topic and set is blurred. Categorisation is not an exact science. Rathfelder (talk) 22:00, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

I do not see how there is any blurriness between the concept of what a government is and the real world instances of it an action. That is about as blurry to me as Movie for the concepts of filmmaking vs Movies for the products created by such. THe individual goverments of each country are separate entities. the category is for the collection of this set of entities. It is not for a collection of topics. Government by country should be for what articles on what the topic of government is defined as in each country. Governments by country should be for collecting the entities from each country. While it is only one letter different, the meaning is not even the same type of noun. Intellectual concept vs physical entity. Pure Evil (talk) 23:41, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

"Movie" is never used as a collective noun the way "government" is. It's not a general concept like "government" can be. -- Auntof6 (talk) 23:44, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Categorisation is not only about concepts. For smaller countries we often dont have enough articles to seperate topics from sets. Rathfelder (talk) 09:03, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Agree! Colinymm (talk) 07:04, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

@Pure Evil: By the way, why are you accusing me of violating guidelines? I neither created nor renamed the category. In addition, guidelines are not policies: there is not as strong a requirement to adhere to them. -- Auntof6 (talk) 23:42, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

You are not worth a reply. Pure Evil (talk) 00:05, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Are you sure this is the kind of tone you want to have? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:05, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

You are not going to win support by being insulting. Rathfelder (talk) 09:04, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

If I had decided to go for insulting, not commenting would be the last choice i would make. Being quiet rather than saying what I actually think is in the best interest. Saying what I actually feel would be far more abusive than staying quiet. I chose discretion over honesty. Pure Evil (talk) 06:15, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

I would not agree that each country's government category in Category:Government by country consists of a singular item. For example, the USA is a federal system, so each state's government is separate and somewhat independent from the federal government. For that reason, the English Wikipedia title is en:Category:Government in the United States — "in" not "of". So the reasoning for this rename isn't that solid. Kk.urban (talk) 20:03, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

QD log with Twinkle

Anyone here know how to make a QD log with Twinkle here on simplewiki? I know how to do it on en but I don't really know how to do it here because I'm pretty new to contributing to simplewiki. #prodraxis ^connect 01:13, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Twinkle/Preferences - QD section - bottom of the page is a tick box for keep a log in the user space Pure Evil (talk) 03:02, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Ok got it :) Thanks for letting me know #prodraxis ^connect 04:45, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Simple intro

Only keeping a simple intro would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and this wikipedia is for grades 7 to 9, not for pre-teens. (I put in bold the parts i want to discuss) 88.110.38.249 (talk) 14:37, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

we don't have a hard limit, we are also a focus for people learning the language. Also certain technical articles need specific well defined terms.. Eptalon (talk) 15:35, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

No, in part - yes, as it has always been. Pure Evil (talk) 20:42, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Links from wikipedia to fandom

How do you make links from wikipedia to fandom without using external link format. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 15:05, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

you don't.Fandom is not a Wikimedia site run by the foundation. Eptalon (talk) 15:36, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

I know, but you dan make meatballwiki links by using the format :meatball: on normal links (example: meatball:ViewPoints) so is there something like that for fandom. 88.110.38.249 (talk)

Category:Categories named after people

Why can these categories not also be included in other categories? I put Category:Muhammad into Category:Islam. That was reverted. Isnt the purpose of categories to help people find other relevant articles? In other wikis many of the mare in other categories. Rathfelder (talk) 09:21, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

With eponymous categories like this one, it's often better to individually categorize the category's contents instead of categorizing the eponymous category itself. That's because there is often a better, more specific category to use. To use this one as an example, the article Muhammad is under Category:Islamic religious leaders, which is already under Islam.

• Category:Family of Muhammad is under Category:Muslims, which is already under Category:Islam
• The article Muhammad is under Category:Islamic religious leaders, which is already under Islam
• The article Muhammad in World Scriptures is under Category:Islam

I realize that that isn't everything in the eponymous category, but that's the idea. We might currently not have the categories needed to give more-detailed categories to everything, though. I just looked at enwiki's Muhammad category, which does have more categories on it, and I think some of the ones they have don't belong there. Their Muhammad category is in categories for founders of religions, Adanites, Theocrats, and Prophets of the Quran. Many things that you would put in a category for Muhammad (for example, his family members) don't fit under those categories, so it's better to put the Muhammad article in them instead.

Another point is that some things under Category:Muhammad -- things we have now or things that might be there in the future -- might not be related to Islam. I know that sounds odd, but is Muhammad's military career really related to Islam just because of who he was? Maybe, maybe not: it's hard to tell from the article we have.

Just some thoughts. There's definitely room for discussion. -- Auntof6 (talk) 10:29, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

I dont think these arguments support your position. If we have eponymous categories it is better to put them into categories, than the individual article. Then people can more easily find related articles. Rathfelder (talk) 10:40, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

You would think that but they keep with that tripe time and again. Last I checked, Joe Montana was not a city in California but lo and behold, there his is many layers down. Follow the treeː 49er players - San Francisco - Cities in California. That is ok, but this is not... The fact that it makes things harder for the reader just to they can put subsets in subsets to the nth degree.. seems they have things a bit off to me. Pure Evil (talk) 22:11, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

So there isnt an agreed policy. It's just your opinion? Rathfelder (talk) 09:07, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

The closest I have seen it FOLLOW - En does it this way so that is how we do it. End of convo. and yes, it is just my opinion that Joe Montana is not a city in California. IMO, anyone who thinks he is a city (in any state) is a bit off in the head.. Pure Evil (talk) 17:06, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

But this is not the way En does it. Their Categories named after people [[17]] are all in other visible categories. Rathfelder (talk) 21:00, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

The fact that some articles are miscategorised is not really relevant. Rathfelder (talk) 21:01, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

1. As they should be. It makes it easier for the reader to find articles of interest to them. 2. Almost totally agree. The only issue I would have that while they are not directly related, they are not miscategorized. they are in a solid path for the user to find them and that is the best reason for the cat system.

A huge problem with the way en does things in this regard is that they are not consistant. People are fine under cities, characters fit in fine. Musical acts are the exact opposite for often vague reasons. There are two other eponymous cat branches that follow the pattern of musical acts though I do not recall which. Trace back from the Beatles and they will pop up. My stance on the subject has always been to link them in such a way that they are easiest for the readers to navigate. ie. Cat:The Beatles in cattree :English bands and Steelers players in Cat:Pittsburgh among others. Pure Evil (talk) 22:35, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

The categories are very inconsistent on English Wikipedia because there are so many editors that people will only work on one subtopic, and thus each subtopic ends up doing things differently. A couple of editors recently got banned over this subject: en:Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/SmallCat dispute Kk.urban (talk) 23:33, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Categorisation is not a science. It will always be imperfect. Rathfelder (talk) 19:09, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Twinkle

Hi, I'm a new contributor to Simplewiki:) I have a question about Twinkle.

1. Is there no TW rollback link on history page? If so, why? More specifically, I'm wondering if simplewiki hasn't added the feature yet, or if it hasn't been added for a specific reason.
2. Can't I use Twinkle on mobile in Simplewiki? I'm using vi:User:Plantaest/TwinkleMobile.js but it does not support revert functionality. Is there any way to enable the revert feature on mobile?

Thank you. --ginaan(T/C) 12:13, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

@기나ㅏㄴ Twinkle is not as updated here as on the English Wikipedia. Its development is set back by the fact that not many people are able to maintain it. In addition, You can't use twinkle on mobile. — *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 13:19, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer:) --ginaan(T/C) 13:56, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

 (change conflict)  how to revert on mobile. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 16:21, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

I use mobileundo script(link) but IP user can't. IP user can use user script by typing the code into the console window but its hard on mobile. If you turn on advanced mobile mode, you can enable the undo button. However, as far as I know, the undo feature is not available for mobile IP users. You should switch to desktop mode to undo edits. -- ginaan(T/C) 02:24, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Gothic cathedrals

Can somebody please fix the terrible grammar on the main page? See Talk:Gothic cathedrals#Grammar. Kk.urban (talk) 18:16, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Actually, as Gothic cathedrals is used as a single term (it is used as the name of the style not as the physical objects) , the grammar is correct. It is just a case where correct grammar sounds wrong. As it is based on a good article, I shifted the intro a bit to better reflect the actual article, this changed the angle the intro is projected from and says the same thing while sounding better. Pure Evil (talk) 19:49, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't think any expert in this field would say "Gothic cathedrals is a style of architecture", just as they wouldn't say "Romance novels is a genre of fiction". But that's not important; the sentence is better now; thanks. Kk.urban (talk) 20:45, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

The confusion comes from the fact that this article is listed as gothic architecture itself at wikidata as we do not have an article on the topic itself. So here, GC is Goth architecture so when linking, GCs says it is the style. try it.. link the term Gothic cathedrals and it says "Style of architecture" my bad.. Pure Evil (talk) 23:16, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

The article used to be "Gothic architecture". Because there are very few buildings done in gothic architecture, that are not cathedrals, it got renamed.(see gothic buildings for a few. That article is basically an image gallery). Eptalon (talk) 12:34, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

talk pages

there is no direct link to an article/user/wikipedia talk page on mobile unlike normal english wikipedia o the top of the page. i think there is a problem ஃ (talk) 22:16, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Interesting, on my mobile device it works fine and mobile view on desktop shows it where it should be.- FusionSub (Talk page) (Contributions) 12:37, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

On my mobile, I see the talk page link if I am logged in, but not if I am logged out. I think we ought to make it visible to logged out users too. It will make it easier for readers to give input on articles. Also, it's what enwiki does. Kk.urban (talk) 22:52, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

ah ok I think that is why I didnt see talk page link. keeping the link on would be very useful ஃ (talk) 22:53, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Editor Review

Hello I would like review of my edits. I am currently considering doing a self nomination for an WP:RFA. Overall, I have been here for a while and I am one of the more active people on the project. I have a lot of experience working with new editors as well as in the maintenance areas of the project. I also reach out to the project's admins for help when I need it. Thank you. Bobherry Talk My Changes 19:51, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

The accuracy of your QD log shows great improvement. Most recent request have been accepted by admin so it is likely they needed to go. I can't verify that you used good reasons, just that the articles needed to go. Your opinion on what needs done there is not an issue. You spend a lot of time on VIP but as that is constantly being cleared, its hard to rate the work.

Then there is the issue of drama at a certain recent RfA. Everyone has drama in their past. The problems here are how recent it was (less than 2 weeks old) and there is no sign of you acknowledging your part in it. No admin is perfect. They all make mistakes. Am important part is their willingness to own up to those mistake. If I were to !vote right now, it would be Oppose - not yet. Pure Evil (talk) 23:38, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Im also wondering if you have error reporting turned on or are you doing maintenance in the dark. I am not seeing a commons.css or other skins .css version which would have errors pointed out. Pure Evil (talk) 23:43, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. @Fr33kman: and I made up off wiki on Discord and emails and get along great now and chat regularly on Discord. Bobherry Talk My Changes 00:33, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm going to comment, I wasn't going to but I think I must. The specific problem that I see is a lack of responsibility. When you reveted your edit on my talk page I was left with the impression that you knew you'd done something wrong but wanted to quickly hide it like it never happened. You can't do that on a wiki; our mistakes last forever just as every edit lasts forever. I've made mistakes before but I've always owned up to them. This leads me to think that the problem is one of maturity. So, if you want my opinion on running an RfA I'm going to say not yet. I do think you'll become an admin here at some point but I think waiting a little while longer would be best for you. You do show a need for the tools but I think that shadowing the admins is the right thing at this time. As for us getting along on Discord please note that I am never rude to anyone, on wiki or off; real life or in cyberspace. As a doctor I've had to practice this for a very long time or I couldn't have been a good doctor. It is in the area of communicating with others that I think you need to grow. I realized a long time ago that on the Internet some people would use it to embolden themselves in ways that they never would if the other person was in the same room as them. I have never done that. I realize that on the end of every keyboard there is a real live person with thoughts and feelings and I respect that fact. You are a good editor and I think you'll be a good admin as well. fr33kman 02:37, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Templates

Hi, I've noticed that quite a few nav templates (such as Template:Infobox selenium isotopes‎) are coming over from enwiki without being simplified. Where do we stand on this? On the one hand they are useful for navigation to related pages but on the other hand they contain complex wording that we either have to live with, delete or fix ourselves? Thoughts? THX fr33kman 04:21, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

@Fr33kman: Are you talking about the text in the "Data sets read by {{Infobox element}}" table?

As far as this question in general, I don't usually see anything needing simplifying in the navigation area, but I do see doc pages that need simplifying. An issue with simplifying templates is that sometimes we update our templates by copying the enwiki version over. When we do that, any simplification that has been done is lost, and the person doing that doesn't always realize that it was simplified. -- Auntof6 (talk) 05:12, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

@Auntof6: Yeah, I figured that'd be the case (re: updates). I guess we just live with it. I was thinking more along the lines of linking complex words to articles we have here, but even that'd be lost eventually. Thanks for mentioning the docs pages though, it'll give me a new task to do. I'm currently going through all the pages a brand new user would read. Thx fr33kman 05:49, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

The one issue I see here is the one you alluded to. If we link or reword terms, those changes will be lost the next time the en. version gets flashed over our outdated version. To prevent this, we would need to keep a list of all the local mods we take for the page to work best here. I would suggest a /translation sub page that contains all the needed change. With that, each time a new version is brought over, we have a handy list of the added step we need to take to have the page work best for the audience here.

the /translation concept would allow work well for collection general terms we have chosen a favored version on. Think Movie vs Film or Writer vs author. It wouuld not hurt to have a page documenting prefered terms in a manner similar to the manual of style covering structure and presentation. Pure Evil (talk) 07:00, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Category for district attorneys/prosecutors

What is the appropriate category for district attorneys or prosecutors, such as Alvin Bragg? Are they considered politicians or lawyers? In the USA, most of them are elected. Kk.urban (talk) 18:31, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Any reason they can't be both? fr33kman 18:32, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Okay, I can put them in both categories. Is it the same for state and federal prosecutors, which are appointed rather than elected? Kk.urban (talk) 18:33, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

I think appointed people are just staff, not politicians. fr33kman 18:35, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm going to make a new category for prosecutors and put it under lawyers. Then the elected types of prosecutors can go under the politicians category also. Kk.urban (talk) 18:38, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Cool, why not? fr33kman 18:40, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

The lawyer part is easy. If they are trained and worked at some point as a lawyer, they go in a lawyer cat. Politician isnt that much more. By the article for the term politician, a politician is someone who holds a position in a government. They are split into two categories depending on if it is a democratic govt or not. If it is, they are elected into power. Being appointed usually also counts (Secretary of State is a political position that is appointed) If the government is not democratic, there are various other ways to get to power. Trying and failing to get elected is often enough to qualify.

In this case, the subject was elected as the DA so he is a politician. ADAs are hired to power so would not meet this qualification though there may be many other aspects of there like that could work. When in doubt, look at any defining article as see if you feel they meet the definition. Pure Evil (talk) 20:13, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Categories "Civil servant" or "Public official", if not voted in to office. 2001:2020:32B:9D18:2040:9C9A:BB6F:E1B (talk) 21:01, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Human penis

This page has been getting a lot of activity, and I think the gallery is getting too big. Would someone like to try to get it under control? -- Auntof6 (talk) 03:33, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

I dont like it, it is innaproppriate, so someone should, agreed. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 10:53, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Just letting you know that Wikipedia is not censored. We may remove photos from the gallery because it is too large, but not because it’s “inappropriate”. Thanks for commenting. Illusion Flame (talk) 11:18, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

but i am under 18. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 11:43, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Please read w:Wikipedia:Guidance for younger editors. MathXplore (talk) 11:46, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

I wasn't thinking that it was inappropriate, just that there seems to be duplication of what the images are illustrating. We don't need to show every possible combination of characteristics. Some solutions (which I might try if no one else does):

• Move some of the images into relevant sections of the article.
• Remove images if others are basically showing the same thing.

-- Auntof6 (talk) 15:45, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

I've removed a lot of extraneous images and left only those images that explain the topic. fr33kman 16:38, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

@Fr33kman: Thanks! -- Auntof6 (talk) 22:16, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

WP:CENSOR Wikipedia is not censored. Bobherry Talk My Changes 20:43, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

@Bobherry: That is absolutely true. I am not suggesting that we censor the page. There are a good number of images already in the body of the article, and I wasn't addressing those. In fact, one of my suggestions was just to move the images from the gallery into appropriate sections of the article. The issue is that among the images in the gallery there was not enough difference to justify having so many. Did you see what was there at the time I posted this? I would have the same issue with any other topic if a gallery had a lot of similar images. -- Auntof6 (talk) 22:23, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

I also thought that there was excess images. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 10:12, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

There are several reasons I think it is desirable to have an array of images:

1. Search Engine Optimization: I tried to put words in the captions that people are likely to search on. It is important (in my opinion) to draw readers to Simple Wikipedia, particularly on a topic like this for which there is a great deal of poor quality information on the internet. Having more images with high value search terms in the captions increases the chances that someone will find this article. On a topic like this, a fairly high proportion of people may do an image search in deciding what website to go to. We have good content here. We should not hide our light under a basket (i.e. we shouldn't be shy about trying to get listed near the top of search results in search engines.)

2. In a topic like this, a lot of people come to the article wondering, "Is my penis normal?" Presenting a variety of images will help reassure people that, yes, they are normal.

3. People may need an image for a report or some similar purpose. People may need an photo taken from a particular angle, etc. Rather than direct people to the Commons, which is filled with poor quality images, I think in this case it is preferable to present a curated selection of a dozen or so diverse images.

4. Where possible, we should try to include different skin tones. Tetsuo (talk) 04:47, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Good solution. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 09:30, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

It's important to note that Wikipedia is a source of education not medical diagnosis. I've removed the gallery because there are enough pictures to show the subject of the article. If a person is trying to find out if a spot on their penis is normal or if the shade of their penis is normal they are better off to go to a medical site. fr33kman 20:15, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

My intention was not related to medical diagnosis at all, just self image. A high percentage of males have insecurities about whether their penis is "normal" in appearance. Many females may also be curious about whether their boyfriend's penis is "normal". The skin tone issue is a matter of trying to make Wikipedia relevant to a wider racial spectrum of users. Wikipedia has been reported in the media as being very white-centric. Tetsuo (talk) 17:58, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

It would take an infinite number of pictures to show every variation of penises out there. There are other sites where people can review such information or they can ask their doctor about such questions. Our job is to provide an understanding of the topic and not every single possible option. I think the article as it stands right now fulfils our purpose very well. fr33kman 18:06, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

How was my answer related to diagnoses. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 19:27, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Hello there, no matter what your age is: don't complain that on a page on penises you might see an image of a penis. There are groups of people who think that women should go through their lives fully veiled, yet we have pictures of women showing their face, their hair, women in bikinis and nude women. Images are there to illustrate and explain. Eptalon (talk) 05:31, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

I know that, but someone said my answer was reakted to diagnoses, I did not see how that was the case. 88.110.38.249 (talk) 11:42, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

ofc xx Liam Flynn 08 (talk) 11:04, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

What the heck?! is this vandalism?? 88.110.38.249 (talk) 07:03, 13 September 2023 (UTC)