Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 16

Simple Spanish?

This may not be the right place to ask this, I wasn't sure where to ask. Is there (or is there planned) a Spanish equivalent to this encyclopedia? I'm learning Spanish and think it would be very helpful. Gracias! 69.91.145.100 00:09, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

You can create your own wikipedia, see m:Proposals for new projects and propose a Simple Spanish Wikipedia. ionas ^talk _contribs 03:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

You could do that?!!?Wow... - 04:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC) HBSORGK BT,that's me.Let's talk.

Non English Letters

I can't see anything in WP:STYLE, but is there any consensus about using non-standard letters. Ho Chi Minh is simple but recently moved to Hồ Chí Minh. Also Ngô Ðình Diệm. Because these are not the names they are usually known by in english I intend moving these and similar entries to the simpler alphabet, while keeping the more complex version in the article itself. ---barliner--talk--contribs- 21:51, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I have moved it back to Ho Chi Minh, as Hồ Chí Minh is not defined as 'simple english'. -- Punk Boi 8 00:17, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, you did what? That doesn't appear at your changes' history. Barliner moved Ho Chi Minh, not you... Phaedriel - 12:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Um, could you please explain this? Phaedriel is absolutely right. Barliner moved the page...--Isis§^(talk) 13:32, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Punk Boi, Maybe my shorthand sentences didn't make it clear. I moved the Quốc Ngữ Hồ Chí Minh back to Ho Chi Minh.

I think other languages can be changed too. The German "ß" for example. I moved Fußballclub würzburger kickers to Würzburger Kickers, not because of the letter but to get rid of a non-english word, (The new page name is also the title on de:wiki), but you see the idea. Apart from me how many editors use a keyboard with ß? :) ---barliner--talk--contribs- 14:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I can type 'ß' on my keyboard as well. -Ionius Mundus 15:43, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

But 'Hồ Chí Minh' is not an English name. Thus it should be allowed to use characters not used in English so long as they are within the Roman script. The page should be moved back to 'Hồ Chí Minh'. Without diacritics given, his name could be pronounced 648 ways. The diacritics can do no harm, but rather only serve to provide more helpful information. In Việtnamese, the letters 'o', 'ô', and 'ơ' are completely different vowels from one another. The surname 'Hồ' uses 'ô'. Taking off the diacritics would not only wipe out the tone, a critical part of the Việtnamese word, but would totally change the vowel. This is like changing the word 'fund' to 'fan'. Furthermore, a particularly harmful practice is that of erasing diacritics selectively within one term. This was done to the article 'Ngô Đình Diệm', which was left as the ridiculous 'Ngo Dình Diem'. By providing one diacritic, not only do you entice the reader into thinking that that is the proper spelling and that the proper pronunciation is the toneless /ngaw ying yiem/, but you also undermine all argument in favor of the despicable practice of diacritic elimination. You say that because diacritics are not part of the English alphbet, they should not be used at all (even though the names in question aren't part of the English language in the first place!), yet you selectively allow 'ì' while denying 'ô', 'Đ', and 'ệ'. Furthermore, you say that because these terms are the most common in English texts (even though they are incorrect), they should be used. However, the idea that 'Ngo Dình Diem' is the most common misspelling of 'Ngô Đình Diệm' in English-language texts is laughable. Please take my suggestions into serious consideration. -Ionius Mundus 05:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Your intention of preserving proper pronunciation is to be commended, and I think you mean nothing but the best when bringing this. However, the reasons already explained here and in the thread below (that I won't repeat once again) are strong enough to counter that argument. But an important thing that I wish to tell you is, using the regular Latin alphabet (as the vast majority of the community believes to be correct) doesn't mean that there are not other ways of making clear to the reader the way a certain name should be pronounced. That's what IPA is for. Furthermore, there's an excellent template that you could benefit from, {{audio}}, which allows you to produced media clips that, after you upload them to Commons, you can use to make pronunciation absolutely clear by adding them to the article with this format: listen . We have enough tools to be safe on both regular Latinized forms and pronunciation at the same time, without sacrificing either. Phaedriel - 08:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

First of all, the same people who have argued against diacritics have also argued against IPA. See Mỹ Lai Massacre's discussion page. Furthermore, let's say we have an article on whatever and in the miđle of the article, Lữu Hưu Phườc is mentioned, but misspelled as 'Luu Huu Phuoc'. There is no page about Lữu Hưu Phườc. Do you want to just put the diacritics and audio in parentheses right in the middle of the article? It makes the most sense to always use the diacritics. What harm can they do? They can only benefit. Furthermore, if you want to get rid of Việtnamese diacritics, why not French? This is certainly an imperialist policy, intended or not. -Ionius Mundus 15:41, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

While we are at it lets change the spelling of Tbilisi (the capital of Georgia) with its official spelling of თბილისი.

Lets keep things Simple and in English. -- LoNdIuM   ^{Speak to me}_{Contributions} -- 16:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

As I have stated time and time again, we should stick to ROMANIZED FORMS. თბილისი is not acceptable because it doesn't use the Latin alphabet. I advocate using standardized, nativized romanizations. -Ionius Mundus

My point is lets not make sure we lose the scope of this wikipedia.-- LoNdIuM   ^{Speak to me}_{Contributions} -- 16:42, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I posted this below under Accented Characters, but it is pertinent here as well. Information regarding naming conventions (on English Wikipedia) can be found here and here. Perhaps we should think about creating our own Wikipedia:Naming conventions page here in Simple English. · Tygartl1^·talk· 17:05, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

VG article on the Main page

We now have 9 VG articles, just one short to the goal of 10 (although we'll have more than 10 in the very near-future), but I now wanted to bring up the disccussion on as how to format the new Main page with the addition of the VGA section. Any comments? --§ Snake311 _{(T + C)} 23:25, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is already the Test Page that everyone has been working on so hard (except me because that much text is scary), I rather like it and I think other people think likewise, maybe a bit more tweeking and it can be ready for the 23^rd, when hopefully we'll have the 10^th VG article!

Gwib^-(talk)- 23:37, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Does it really have to be Saturn as the first VG article on the Main Page? --§ Snake311 _{(T + C)} 23:59, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Saturn is as good an article as any other, but if you don't like it I suppose we could change it. ut remember that it changes anyway to a different random article after 8 days, I think.

Personally, I'd like to see what all of them look like after going on the main page first, so that we could edit them accordingly if they're cut off in the middle of a sentence or something.

Gwib^-(talk)- 06:54, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The main article has two references or, the test pages puts these as in line text making it look silly and confusing. Can that be fixed?

Main page symbol is ♄ which is the symbol of Saturnus' sickle.Sailormoon Terms and Information. Robin (1996). Retrieved on July 5, 2007
Article symbol is ♄ which is the symbol of Saturnus' sickle.[1][2]
---barliner--talk--contribs- 14:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Why don't we remove the references from the main page? I doubt I've seen English wiki use them in the front page (there's no section in there to display refs). The text itself can be kept, only with the refs deleted. RaNdOm26 15:04, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's the usual practice, not only for the Article featured at the Main Page, but for Portals as well. I have a long experience working with Portals at EnWP myself. If you want, I can take care of formatting the summary of the VG article that goes on the Main Page. Phaedriel - 15:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Do we have the 10th very good article yet? ... How about now? ... Now? ... ... Now? ... ... Now? ... ... Now? Panda Bear | Talk | Changes 20:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The 10th VG article is expected to come out on the 23rd. --§ Snake311 _{(T + C)} 03:03, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Some answers

Well, seems like I'm the person who has been most involved in the creation of the new main page (Main Page/Test 1), so I thought I should accept the responsibility to explain some things.

Gwib said "that much text is scary". Actually, there is a solution: To transclude some templates or subpages into the main page. The benefits are, the main page can be protected while editing some (or all) of the transcluded pages are allowed. This will reduce the chance of vandalism on the Main Page; it will also keep its code simple. And, it can be easier to edit each of this subpages since they content less amount of text and wikicode. I'm not sure if we're going to do this though.

Snake311 asked "Does it really have to be Saturn as the first VG article on the Main Page?" The answer is "no". I created some subpages, and the system automatically uses one of them, so the selected article text is changed every three days or so. We are on August 19th and it is showing Saturn's (merely because I saved it on Main Page/Article 6). On August 20th (UTC), it will change and show the contents of Main Page/Article 7.

I'm in agreement with RaNdOm26 about the references. Actually, I removed most of them, but missed some of them.

Best, - Huji ^reply 19:35, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

About my question for the first VG article on the main page, instead we have an automatic bot that randomly selects a VG article for the Main Page? --§ Snake311 _{(T + C)} 21:00, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, with a randomly selected article, there is always the chance (however remote) that an article is chosen twice or even three times in a row. This chance decreases as our VG articles become more numerous, but so far we have only 9 and a 1 in 9 chance is too big more my liking ATM...

Gwib^-(talk)- 21:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

If you all are really picky as to which very good article comes in the front page first, we could always start a nomination process, voting for which articles to appear in order. It helps if there are more very good articles out there to pick upon. RaNdOm26 08:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

About the selection of the VG article at the new Main page

I strongly advocate for a uniform "one article per week" criteria. This is very easy to code (and I've started talking about this with Huji already). This would also make the system less of an "anarchy", as well as completely clearing the concerns expressed by Snake and Gwib above. The selection of the next week's article should be given to a trusted an experienced editor (Eptalon or Huji are the most obvious candidates to me). Suggestions for this selection can be made at the Main Page's Talk, or at VGa Talk. I feel this is far less complex than mixing bots in the selection. I also feel it somewhat reflects poorly on a Wiki community to repeat articles at their Main Page, so this system allows us to constantly renew our contents. With our current number of VG articles (and hopefully the ones that may get promoted soon) we have material for 3 months. In the meantime, let's work on getting more! :) My opinion, of course. Best regards, Phaedriel - 08:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I would like to express my support for this idea (of having weekly articles). Thank you, Phaedrial, for your words of trust, by the way! - Huji ^reply 20:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree! -- Spiderpig0001 Does whatever a spiderpig can! 21:11, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Idiom

I posted a message on the article's talk page. Panda Bear | Talk | Changes 23:47, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Archival

I would like to request all users, to postpone archiving a discussion on this page (or any other talk page) to at least three or four days after it is discontinued. Thanks in advance, - Huji ^reply 19:01, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

WikiProjects

Hello, I have a question. Can any person make a new wikiproject? I come from the English Wikipedia, and wanted to make a new project, but am not sure how. Could someone please help? Thank you. Neranei 23:23, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I, and many other people, believe this wiki is too small for wikiprojects at this time. See here for more about this. --Isis§^(talk) 23:44, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Isis! Neranei 23:48, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject Trial

Well, to see if Isis is right, I will start a 30 day trial. There will be 3 projects running (see here), that will run for 30 days. After 30 days are up, there will be a new topic started here, to create a "No Wikiproject" rule or allow Wikiprojects. -- Spiderpig0001 08:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Void that, im QDing all paged as A7. -- Spiderpig0001 Does whatever a spiderpig does! 22:46, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Accented Characters:The voice of reason

Hello, there seems to have been a dispute about how to treat articles that have accented characters in them. I think we should clearly make a difference between a Latin-alphabet character with some modification that can be called an accent, and non-Latin language characters:

• There are languages that need those Accented characters to work properly. Among these is Spanish, Italian, and French; Other languages, like German, provide a way around, by offering substitutions, for all special characters. If we have an article about a thing that needs such characters, we should provide a redirect, either from the properly-accented version, to the non-accented one, or from the non-accented one to the properly accented one.
• This does not apply for transliterations, that is, languages that use an alphabet that is clearly not based on the Latin one. There, our main article should be the Latinized transliteration. There may be a redirect from the non-Latin name to the Latin one. Again, please think about the poor people who cannot input all the characters (ie. the item above applies as well).

In other words: I don"t care where the article about Ho Chi Minh city is, but I want to be able to find it, if I type Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Same for Hanoi, or Tokyo... :) Just my voice of reason. --Eptalon 09:16, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

The question at the moment is whether or not articles on Vietnamese proper names should reside at their Vietnamese spelling using the Quoc Ngu alphabet, or at their normal English spelling using the Latin alphabet. This is not at all comparable to the accents in French, Spanish, etc. which are normally written in modern English when writing proper names. For example, the name of the country, Vietnam, in English, is officially spelled "Vietnam". That's how you will see it in every almanac, atlas, encyclopedia, dictionary, that uses the English language, and not "Việtnam" which is the correct Vietnamese spelling. As a rule we go by the most common form used in English in each case. That would mean we do use the accents in most French and Spanish proper names, etc., but we don't use all the Quoc Ngu diacritics of the Vietnamese alphabet, except in giving the native translation. It's not imperialism, at least not intentionally, it's following the conventions of English as they exist today. Maybe 100 years from now it will be more common to use Vietnamese diacritics in English for Vietnamese names, but we should wait until if and when that happens, instead of trying to set a new precedent ourselves. Blockinblox - talk 12:54, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I see the most reasonable, as you say: Use (English, Latinized name) (eg; Vietnam) for the entry, and create Redirect for Việtnam, and on the page of course mention, that most Vietnamese won't spell it Vietnam... --Eptalon 13:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I think Vietnam should redirect to Việtnam, so if someone types in "Vietnam" they will know the proper spelling is "Việtnam". ionas ^talk _contribs 13:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

A note on French: According to the Academie Francaise, accents have to be put on characters when this is technically possible. Spanish and Italian use them only for emphasis, as far as I know. --Eptalon 13:54, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Why can't the same be done with Việtnamese? ionas ^talk _contribs 13:57, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Most of the simple users here do not have a way to input such characters quickly; I think we had a similar issue with Polish cities at some time. So lets be pragmatic: I type in Vietnam, and I get an article on that. The redirect should certainly be from the less used to the more used. Since this is a (mostly) English-speaking community, I would guess this is the Latinised, unaccented name. --Eptalon 14:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Totally agreed with Eptalon and Blockinblox here. And by the way, this should also apply to the contents of articles themselves. The title should be ie. Vietnam, and every time the name is mentioned at the text, it should also be. The foreign characters should only be displayed once: at the intro, by the first time the article's name is mentioned. And, while we're at this, we have a mess to clean up now, after last night's spree of moves of French and German names... Phaedriel - 15:01, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid, if we reach a consensus here, we should record it and save it somewhere. This really pushes me towards bringing the idea of having our own manual of styles, into your attention. - Huji ^reply 20:28, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I bet even the desk placard at the United Nations says "Vietnam" and not "Việtnam" ...! Blockinblox - talk 20:49, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Haha! Well, maybe. Anyways, I think the best choice is to keep the title of the article use non-accented letters, but create redirects from those dictations as well. - Huji ^reply 11:17, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think ^talk's idea that by redirecting the english spelling someone will know the correct spelling is correct. The article title should be in English - after all this is an english wikipedia - and the the local names can be mentioned in the first line. ---barliner--talk--contribs- 19:40, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I haven't really read this discussion but did anyone suggest anything like this? Basically eliminates the whole issue. --Isis§^(talk) 19:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I know I'm a little late entering this conversation, but information regarding naming conventions (on English Wikipedia) can be found here and here. Perhaps we should think about creating our own Wikipedia:Naming conventions page here in Simple English. · Tygartl1^·talk· 17:02, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Simplification

Could someone simplify this please? "A common cartoonish depiction of profanity substituting symbols for words." Panda Bear | Talk | Changes 20:13, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

"A cartoonish drawing of rude words being replaced by symbols"? You can replace symbols with signs or rude words with profanity, but I think it should do it.

Gwib^-(talk)- 20:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Good job Gwib. I would suggest "cartoon-like" for "cartoonish" as well. - Huji ^reply 20:27, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

"A drawing of symbols in the place of 'bad' words. It is regular to do this, because it makes the words not as 'bad'" is my suggestion. Or is that a little too "talk-down"-ish?ionas ^talk _contribs 03:31, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I think Gwib's suggestion is just fine. "Bad" just sounds sort of...patronising, IMO. --Isis§^(talk) 13:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I thought so. ionas ^talk _contribs 17:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Years

We need categories for each year (like Category:1992) and each of these should be inside a category for that decade (like Category:1990s) which itself should be in the category with the name of the century of question (like Category:20th century). The majority of this has been done, but some parts (like for years BC) is not yet accomplished. These categories are useful, even if we don't have articles in all of them at the moment.

I was thinking of creating a bot which would automatically create all missing categories (and the required subcategories, etc). However, I decided to mention it here first, so people could comment. If there are no objections, and regarding your useful comments, I think I will set it up and run it when I come back from my next journey (which will be next Saturday, hopefully). Please comment. - Huji ^reply 15:51, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Please do. This Wikipedia is growing, so I support the bot.ionas ^talk _contribs 17:18, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not a horrible idea, however, I do not think it is needed. Right now, when a year-related category is needed, it gets created. I, for one, do not let year-related categories sit in the Wanted categories for any longer than a few days. I'm hesitant about creating any categories that do not contain any articles because it could be a very long time before we have something to put in it. Plus, it creates questions regarding how far back we should be creating categories. I think the current system is working just fine. To quote the old saying, "if it isn't broken, don't fix it".· Tygartl1^·talk· 19:41, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

What about 22th Century ? LIAM !

Profanity

I've posted a message on the article's talk page. Panda Bear | Talk | Changes 18:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I've answered the message on the article's talk page.

Gwib^-(talk)- 18:40, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Need help

Its not that major but I created a table to put all the Richard Sharpe books in but the page order displayed is wrong, the table comes at the bottom of the page even though its placed in the middle of the article. Some text is in the wrong place as a result of this. -- LoNdIuM   ^{Speak to me}_{Contributions} -- 23:25, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. Hope that helps! :) Phaedriel - 12:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah thanks, it was such a small problem with the table but I just couldn't notice it. Maybe I shouldn't be editing wikipedia in the early hours of the morning.-- LoNdIuM   ^{Speak to me}_{Contributions}12:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Mike Garcia

I think this user should be blocked, even though he hasn't edited in quite some time. --Isis§^(talk) 23:53, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I think so too. Blocked! Archer7 - talk 23:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I did not know someone who is banned somewhere else should be blocked here. They be given another chance. Just my thought.ionas ^talk _contribs 00:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Did you look at my links? This user is not to be trusted. --Isis§^(talk) 00:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes. He should be still trusted. ionas ^talk _contribs 00:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

While it is fine and good to primarily judge a user's behavior by their activity here, this doesn't mean we should welcome all the EnWP vandals with open arms without analyzing each case's circumstances. Our project shouldn't be a refuge for those who have been banned there for blatant vandalism or constant disruption. We are not the French Foreign Legion. Phaedriel - 11:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Note: I removed the link from the term user because it was preventing popups from working properly -- Creol(talk) 13:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC) (unlinked: en.Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive133#Mike_Garcia)

Classify stubs?

Hello Community, should we have a category (eg. Short articles), that every stub is added to? --Eptalon 09:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, a general category for "Short articles" that every article bearing the Stub template gets added to would be very useful. As this isn't a major change in our Categories structure, I suggest to put it in practice asap. Phaedriel - 11:50, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, there's already this page, but I guess a category couldn't hurt anything – especially because they are easier to read. --Isis§^(talk) 12:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Category:Stubs has been brought up and shot down at least 3 (1,2,3) times already. This is mainly another "Netoholic doesn't like it" situation though as there was usually strong support for the category and him against it. The category is currently salted after repeated deletions but that can be easily fixed as can adding the category to the template itself. -- Creol(talk) 14:01, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm in favor of proceeding, then. If such a solid consensus existed in the past and exists now in favor of this, and the onlything that has prevented the implementation of this useful measure was the opinion of a now departed editor, then it also looks long overdue. Can any admin un-salt the Category, or recreate it, please? Thank you! Phaedriel - 14:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Done: category unsalted, created and cat linked. Stub template modified to automatically add Category:Stubs when used. It may take a little while until that change is fully applied. Newly stubbed articles will be added but old templated ones have to either be resaved or wait until the system checks/reapplies templates. -- Creol(talk) 15:23, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

One consequence of this is that many stubs otherwise lacking their own categories will no longer show up on the Special:Uncategorizedpages list, making it harder to find them. I think that (aside from Netoholic's fiat) was one reason we didn't use a category for them. Blockinblox - talk 16:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

This is already an issue with several other templates. Cleanup, wikify, complex, fact all do the same thing. Both cleanup and wikify commonly are added to new articles without checking for categories on it and hide the articles from the uncat list. Pages will always slip through some how, much like the other tags, they should also be tagged with {{uncat}}, but of course new editors will not know this. -- Creol(talk) 23:39, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed; and tho that's a valid point, dear Blockinblox, the benefits that having this new category provides outweigh any shortcomings that the Uncategorized special page provides imho. Thank you, dear Creol! :) Phaedriel - 08:53, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

May be we can gather a list of articles with a size of lass than X, and no categorization other than by using tempaltes, using the Toolserver (similar to this one). I should give it a try - Huji ^reply 08:00, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Template {{Link FA}}

Template {{Link FA}} doesn't work; and in fact, it never did, even tho the issue was raised many times in the past. To those who don't know it, it adds a small star at the interwiki links for Featured-Very Good-Excellent-etc. articles at other languages. Over a year and a half ago, Netoholic preferred not to update the MediaWiki:Monobook.js and MediaWiki:Monobook.css pages to display it, apparently because we could not keep track of these articles at every other Wikipedia, even tho he was repeatedly urged to do so afterwards. Today, it's just a matter of using a bot; that's what every Wikipedia does these days.
In my humble opinion, knowing which Wikipedias have the best available material on a given topic is extremely useful, especially because we are a project made for people whose first language isn't English. Netoholic is not around anymore; but is it possible for one of our admins to introduce this change, please? Phaedriel - 12:42, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Lots of fun trying to figure that one out.. The .js code on En was in common not monobook. I tested it with the sections in my two monobook files and got shiny little stars on iw's in articles, but no star at the top. I then transferred the changes to common.js (to keep with En) and monobook.css and reverted my files and hard refreshed to test. I still get stars, but I could have screwed up and I'm seeing the old stars... I think it works now, but I am not going to bet on it till someone else checks. (Lion should have lots of stars - someone go look) -- Creol(talk) 13:18, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Lion has stars. I added a star to Supernova. I think it works. --Isis§^(talk) 13:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Everything looks fine to me now, too. Fantastic work, Creol! :) Phaedriel - 13:51, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I have a star-less lion, what am I doing wrong? --Eptalon 07:19, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

You need to purge your browser cache. On Firefox, it is done by pressing CTRL+F5, and in Internet Explorer, by pushing SHIFT+F5. - Huji ^reply 08:07, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Yep, got a few stars now. :) --Eptalon 08:44, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

10 Very good articles

Congratulations, community. Jimi Hendrix is our tenth Very good article. The main page can now be changed to list one of them. --Eptalon 20:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Important notice

Like any Wikipedia, the Simple English Wikipedia is a community which can reach many people. Not all of them want to work with the community, to improve pages and make the site better in the ways they see fit. Sadly, some of them are here because they want to find out about the identity of the users of Simple Wikipedia. They may then do things that are considered a crime in many countries.

For this reason, editors who have accounts here should look that the following information cannot be found on their user pages (or in its history):

• Real name
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• Specific geographical location
• Any other information that could be used to track them down

Administrators can help, by deleting user pages and doing selective restorations, to clear the edit history of respective pages. Be aware that small amounts of information can be linked to others which can reveal a lot more about you. If you do not know whether information about you is suitable, or require assistance in it's removal, please ask an administrator via email.

Please also be suspicious if an editor tries to find out any personal details, no matter how innocent they may seem. If you receive any emails from other editors that are not about Wikipedia, please also notify an administrator and do not reply. It is impossible to verify that someone really is who they claim to be on the internet. If you become even slightly suspicious of a user, please email an active administrator immediately and we will investigate it. Do not worry about wasting our time - you can email us with anything at all and we will be happy to help.

If you do not wish to confirm your email via MediaWiki (which would allow other users to email you), you can email me directly by clicking here. This is a temporary email address to protect myself from spam and harassment, and will be deactivated upon receipt of any abuse. However, I would ask you not to follow my example; email addresses should never be posted directly onto Wikipedia, temporary or not. Thanks, Archer7 - talk 21:20, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm concerned about this new issue. As people have seen (and I'm not embaressed to admit), I've "revealed" my age and have a photo of myself on my userpage. I've been scrolling though English Wikipedia and can show you several userpages with photos of the person and age or location-related topics. That's on English Wiki, with over 5 million registered users so a small community here with just over ten thousand registered users would minimise risk considerably.

Though I strongly object to posting complete addresses and suggestive photos of oneself, I think that we should all be at liberty to show a photo of oneself without being asked to take it down and all memory of it erased.

Gwib^-(talk)- 22:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry Gwib, but due to recent problems, this is the way things have to be. Consider it another way: in a community of over 5 million, it's difficult to get noticed. Over here, anyone that does not like Wikipedia can easily see all of our active editors (around 30 of us). I think you are just as much at risk here. Archer7 - talk 22:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Do I have any choice in the matter at all? Even people who's pages get visited several times a day (such as Jimbo Wales) on En still have a photo of themselves there.

Gwib^-(talk)- 22:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I completely disagree with this coming down without community input. I think a generic warning about posting personal info on the web is sufficient. I think as an adult I can decide what and where I want to disclose personal information. As for kids, it's their parent or guardians responsibility to keep them safe. I think common sense about posting personal information is what is needed, nothing more. -  BrownE34  talk  contribs  22:48, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

A generic warning is all most people will get - at the moment I'm only really enforcing this for minors. I did send a quick email out to the admins and I didn't get any opposition, but maybe I didn't give it enough time for everyone to respond. The problem we have here is that we have had people come here and target young users attempting to get personal information, and they're probably still here. Archer7 - talk 23:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about everyone else, but I replied. I sort of agree with Browne34. --Isis§^(talk) 23:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Oooo, does this mean I can put my picture back up?

(an ever hopeful) Gwib^-(talk)- 23:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

While we're discussing it, I guess so :) I think I've misunderstood your message Isis... Archer7 - talk 23:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, that was my fault. :) I meant it was a good idea to tell users about the dangers, and strongly encourage them to remove personal information. I should have elaborated more :P. But...what I really don't understand is why you want your name, age, etc. on you page. To me, it really doesn't make much difference. --Isis§^(talk) 00:35, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

First of all, I don't consider revealing my city "specific geographical location" since my city is a big one "Las Vegas". My age is 11 and that does not make me prone to harassment. As for my name, my username must be changed if this silly "law" is passed, since it contains my personal name. Age, name, and city (if the city is big) should not make you a target for harassment, and I do not believe that someone can stalk you with the information I give. I personally believe that it is is ageist to let adults to decide what to reveal but control what children can reveal. I should be given the right to anonymity, not forced anonymity. I do think common sense removal should be done, like physical address, e-mail address, or phone number, but that's it.The removal of my last name and my city is what I thought pleased Lizix, now you guys are insisting on removing more. It turned out that Lizix was a hypocrite. I say no to this proposal. Ionas Rand [i.'ɔ.na.sız tɔk] 01:35, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Dear Ionas68224, Dear everyone else,

We have introduced these changes to protect our users; stalking, identity theft, and possibly more serious crimes can perhaps be avoided by the notice given above. These changes are not there to make any user uncomfortable, they are there to minimise the "face" that is open to attack. At our current state of knowledge, that notice is all we can do. There is usually not a single piece of information that might give you away. The criminals often spend a long time putting together information from different sources to find their victim. To see the long trail you leave behind try searching your real name in google.

Really very sorry for the inconvenience, but at the moment it cannot be avoided.--Eptalon 08:38, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Friends, please understand that Archer7 has nothing but the best intentions by doing this. We've been a small, and in many senses naif and happy community when it comes to dealing with this kind of nasty stuff for a long time. But we keep growing and growing, and like every Wikimedia project (especially English speaking ones), we're consistently attracting a lot more of attention from an unpleasant element. I wish I could transmit you just a little part of the abuse, attempts to "out" peoples' real life information, stalking and harassment I've witnessed at EnWP, that continues to haunt me to a certain extent; and my own experience is nowhere as severe compared to what other people has gone through. While it's absolutely true that ultimately it's a matter of personal decission, I only wish to say, the dangers are real, and Archer7 is not acting out of whim. Love, Phaedriel - 08:49, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I do not think someone can pinpoint my exact location by the information given. Also, I will stick to my statement above. I don't think I should be told what to do. I don't believe people have that in their intentions — inside, they are the most loving, caring people on Earth and only have good intentions. Ionas Rand [i.'ɔ.na.sız tɔk] 08:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I have now stopped removing the personal information of minors until we can agree on this. However, I will continue to ask users to remove information. The dangers here right now are greater than those of many other community sites, and I would say greater than EN Wikipedia at this point in time. Stalking and harassment is now a serious problem for Simple, although I know many of you wouldn't realise it. Archer7 - talk 09:34, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I have created WP:PRIVATE and WP:PN, for users who need help during privacy problems. -- Punk Boi 8 07:44, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

New Main Page up: Selected VG article issues

Well, Ionas was bold today and replaced the Main Page with the new design, which includes a Selected Very Good Article; so now, we officially have a new Main Page. The design was basically ready, so I don't feel there's need to revert this. However, there are two things about it that I need to share with you all.

1. At the design stage, we missed an important element of every Main Page: interwiki links. For this reason, I took the liberty of creating the template {{MainPageInterwikis}}, and link it to the Main Page. Please feel free to review it/modify it at will. As it is somewhat sensitive (like every content that goes on the Main Page is) I feel it'd be appropriate to semi protect it.
2. The haste in which this measure has been implemented has left an important matter undecided, and we need to settle it as quickly as possible: the selection of the VG that we showcase, and for how long it will be displayed. Just a few days ago, I had proposed a "one article per week" criteria. It is of high importance to put someone, just one trusted and experienced person in charge of the selection and update of this section. Leaving this as "anyone and everyone's" attribution can and will result in all of us stepping on each others' toes. To make the system run smoothly, Wikipedia:This week's Very Good article and Wikipedia:This week's Very Good article/requests (to make suggestions for next week's selection) should be created; this is rather easy. It reflects poorly on a Wiki community to repeat articles at their Main Page, so this system allows us to constantly renew our contents. I personally feel Huji should be given this task, as he's experienced both in wiki markup and VG articles; but of course, that's my personal choice.

While a more calm discussion would have been preferable, this is a matter that must be resolved as soon as possible. Please share your thoughts. Thank you all for your time! Best regards, Phaedriel - 12:15, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

IIRC we currently have 10 very good articles; I was under the impression that the selection and display of each was automagic. I therefore think the article should be changed about every 3 days. To last us through the month, till we hopefully have more. --Eptalon 12:54, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The process of selection and display is not automated. Huji manually created 9 subpages, arbitrarily assigning a number from 1 to 9 to each (one for ever Vg article, when we had 9) that cicle in that order every 2 days. This was fine as a draft, and it may work fine if we don't expect to get new VG articles for a long time. But fortunately, we actually do: in less than a week, we will most likely have 3 new ones. This creates several practical problems:

• Each time a new VG article gets promoted, it needs to be manually queued to the Main Page's code
• With just 3 days, our current material will run out quickly, and we'll have to repeat content rather soon
• The older material will be displayed more frequently; Pope John Paul II will be back at the Main Page in a month, while newly added VG articles will take exponentially longer to return to the Main Page.

Repeating material, when we can have a fresh one each week, doesn't give the best impression, imho. The proposed system serves to solve all these issues, and in fact it's nothing new, but an adaptation of the process of most major Wikis. Phaedriel - 13:12, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The coding part would be fairly simple to shift it to a once a week change. Actually the current coding is a lot more difficult than it needs to be to do the job. It currently checks 10 different options to get the value of the article name based on the day of the month divided by 3.2 (would result in each article rotating every 3.2 days and all 10 articles being used over a months time). By changing it to use {{CURRENTWEEK}} as its base, the calculation {{ #expr: {{ {{{CURRENTWEEK}}} mod 10 }} would return a number between 0 and 9 to select the article to be shown at the beginning of each week. We could either keep that and renumber Article 10 to Article 0 or just add 1 to the number calculated (Currentweek mod 10 +1). Maintenance on the system would only require rotating the subpages it trancludes as we get new pages. As we get new pages, they would replace the oldest page in the rotation. We could also just expand the rotation (by increasing the number in the calculation) and add a new article subpage. Really the only part that would not be very simple would be reformatting the version of the article for the main page display. Maintenance would not be very time consuming either as once the initial pages are set and the main page coded, with a 1/week setup the person doing it would have 63-69 days before repeating would be an issue to replace articles in the queue. That time would be expanded if we added to the 10 article rotation. Eventually we could have a 53 article rotation and when we get a new article it could be coded and used to replace the article expected to be displayed during the third week of March the following year if we wanted to take it that far. The only problem I see with this layout would be at the end of the year when we shift from week 53 (a very short week) to week 1. The articles would shift back from Article 3 to Article 1 instead of 4. This would require a once a year correction of either the article page numbering or the calculation (add 3 to currentweek each year in the calculation). -- Creol(talk) 16:18, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Creol, let me tell you the idea is excellent, and it saves a lot of work. It is by far the most simple, yet effective way of handling things within the plan of never repeating the selected VG that I've read so far; much simpler than my own, and like you said, it only requires minimal attention. No other pages need to be edited, because the subpages already created by Huji serve the purpose perfectly. I see you've tested the code already; I personally strongly suggest we implement it at the Main Page itself. As usual, fantastic, utterly professional work, dear Creol! :) Phaedriel - 17:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Update

I found the idea great too. I changed the real main page, to use this weekly method. About the selection of the articles to be added to new subpages and thus to be shown on the main page in future, I would like to propose myself and Creol, as the two people who are responsible to maintain the process. If you think there is a need for voting or something, please comment below. Otherwise, simple write in agreement or disagreement of this below. Best, - Huji ^reply 08:40, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

In general, I agree with it. However, we should look to automate the process as much as possible. --Eptalon 08:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely no need to vote on this, imho - I have absolute trust in your ability to do this perfectly :) (I suggested you, after all, so I may be biased when I say this! ;) Phaedriel - 19:09, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Major changed to welding article

I've done a substantial overhaul to Welding. Could someone look it over and tell me how I can improve it further? Are there any major problems that I need to fix? 13:42, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

It's very well written, and has many links. However I think that you repeat the information in the introduction in some of the various sub-articles. But I'll try and fix it, you can always revert me if you think that you could do better. Thanks for expanding it!

Gwib^-(talk)- 16:40, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I decided to revert your last edit and redo it myself. The rearranging caused some technical errors that were bugging me. Sorry, I'm a nitpicker. Maybe that's a good thing when writing articles. What do you think of it now? I moved the specific arc welding definitions from the intro to the arc welding section and wrote some new material about power sources.

02:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I've just given it a quick scan and I see some grammar that needs fixing but otherwise it's very well written. Don't worry about the nitpicking! Welding isn't my strong point and you seem to be very knowledgeable in it's field. I'll read it in detail later and see if I can add any links or information.

Gwib^-(talk)- 05:50, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Monobook help

I was wondering if anyone knew javascript here or if you know how to fix my problem? I want to use popups by [en:User:Lupin/popups.js] in conjunction with [en:User:Cacycle/wikEd.js]. As I think this would be a perfect combination for me by allowing me to patrol recent changes easier, navigate wikipedia much better and having a good text editor which will aid me in editing articles much quicker and efficiently. My only problem is that I cant get both to work at the same time!

-- LoNdIuM   ^{Speak to me}_{Contributions} -- 16:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

No need I have got the two to work programs to work together. I think I forgot to purge my cache. -- LoNdIuM   ^{Speak to me}_{Contributions} -- 20:16, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Sidebar HTML

I must admit, I am starting my own wiki. Clould I please have the Sidebar HTML code so that I can use it on my wiki ? (I know enough about HTML whereas I could change things such as Simple Talk etc.)

It isn't written in HTML (directly). We don't normally help people with their own wikis, but are you using MediaWiki? If you are using MediaWiki, I can't really see the point in copying ours, you can just change MediaWiki:Sidebar. If you are using other software, it's far too complex to even try. Archer7 - talk 18:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

If you are using software like WP, called MediaWiki (note these are not all Wikipedia-like wikis, a man named Brion Vibber develops it), then the sidebar already comes. You still have to design the Main Page, which I can do for you if you want (just no rich colours). I recommend you look at this first. I chose Scribblewiki, and got Nevada Wiki and Encyclopædia Phonetica. Ionas Rand [i.'ɔ.na.sız tɔk] 21:09, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Scribblewiki? They have a space that says : Sidebar HTML:. I just don't know what to put in it. LIAM !

Its imporant that I stay away from here.

Hello all, I have some exams coming up soon, so it is very important that I stay away from here, sometimes I cant help myself coming here. I was wondering if an admin could temporarily block my account for about 2 weeks? That should stop me coming here instead of studying. Then after my exams I can resume my editing. -- LoNdIuM   ^{Speak to me}_{Contributions} -- 20:43, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

How about as a last resort? First, try to stay away on your own, and if I see you editing here again before your exams are over, then I'll block you. Blockinblox - talk 20:53, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Sure, but this confirmation of my agreeance doesn't count! -- LoNdIuM   ^{Speak to me}_{Contributions} -- 21:42, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

When I had my IGCSE exams, whenever I had the mishap to getting lost for words, I would look it up on wikipedia if it wasn't in my notes. Then I would bookmark the page for future reference - and I didn't do badly :) (apart from in Art, because a lamp can draw better than me).

So maybe you should not edit, but just scan the appropriate pages whilst studying?

Gwib^-(talk)- 09:19, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I am a kid and know nothing about thesse exams. Tdxiang also went inactive for "O exams", but could you explain the purpose of these exams? Ionas Rand [i.'ɔ.na.sız tɔk] 15:22, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Why, explanamations is exactamaly what tiggerz (and encyclopedias) does best! see en:General Certificate of Education! Blockinblox - talk 15:41, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

en has a script to enforce breaks, you could do that. Oysterguitarist 20:41, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm back, fyi my exams were university retake exams. -- LoNdIuM   ^{Speak to me}_{Contributions} -- 01:37, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Changes made to the VG Article process

Hello, after some discussions, mainly on the talk page of the Very good article guideline, it was decided to ipmlement the following changes. Please note that these do not affect the guideline, but only how it is implemented:

• Articles can stay in the proposed-for-voting phase for 2 weeks, maximum. After that time, they should either be moved to the voting stage, or the {{pvgood}} tag should be removed, and the article unlisted completely. Of course, they can be moved to the voting stage earlier, if they are ready earlier. That way, it takes a maximum of 3 weeks for an article to become very good. Also, there will be less articles up for discussion.
• The deadline for all articles that are currently in the proposed very good state to be voted on is September 8, 2 weeks from now.
• Our "This is a very good article" template {{vgood}} is rather bulky. It also has a lot of text in it. Therefore please add {{vgood-small}} at the top of the article, and only add {{vgood}} at the bottom. In that way, it will distract less from the very good article. I have done this change, for all very good articles.

In general, these changes are undisputed. --Eptalon 06:20, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea on the first and second parts of your proposed guidelines, but for the third one, I think it would be better to move the {{vgood}} template to the top of the article's talk page where it would eliminiate all (minor) inconviences to several users who find that annoying (well based on my opinion that is). --§ Snake311 _{(T + C)} 06:40, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The discussion has been going on On the requirements talk page. I think it would be better there. I see the problem as follows: currently the cat (Very good articles) is added by the {{vgood}} template. If the template was on the talk page, would it then add the talk page? - Personally, I am open on where to place which template. But since changes invove changing all very good articles, it is better to change now than later. I propose we continue the discussion at the discussion page. :) --Eptalon 06:48, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Holiday

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but here goes:
I'm on holiday for the next 5 days (I'll get back on Thursday) and will be unable to answer any messages sent to me or do any work on my articles; one of which is in the voting section to hopefully become a VG article (vote here! shameless propaganda! ).
I'll see you all in 5 days! Ta ta
Gwib^-(talk)- 14:42, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Criteria for becoming an Admin, part 3

Hello once again! Now that we have successfully determined the criteria we will be implementing for votes for adminship and cratship (no neutral votes; no section for neutral votes; only support votes oppose votes, and comments will be allowed; support votes + oppose votes = 100%), we now need to discuss what percentage is enough to consider a request as successful. The discussion can be found here. Please come and express your opinion! · Tygartl1^·talk· 15:28, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Naming conventions

The following are sections of en:WP:Name. I suggest they provide a basis for an official policy here, but I don't know how to go about developing and prosing a full policy.

Generally, article naming should prefer what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

This is justified by the following principle:

Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists.

Use English words

Convention: Name your pages in English and place the native transliteration on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly recognized by readers than the English form.

Rationale and specifics: See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)

Use common names of persons and things

Convention: Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication, use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things.

Rationale and specifics: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)

---barliner--talk--contribs- 15:43, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we need something exactly like this here too. If anything, the argument for readability and recognizability applies even more here. Let's simplify it and make it a guideline. Good lookout again, Barliner. Blockinblox - talk 15:58, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Very good/FA stars

I'm wondering if we should place/will be placing the {{Link FA}} template on the corresponding pages in other languages of our Very Good articles. This would show a star next to Simple English on the interwiki list on the other language Wikipedias. I think that this would be an excellent idea. What does anyone else think? · Tygartl1^·talk· 15:59, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Dear Tygart, actually, I've been doing that for days now :) And in fact, that was why I brought up the {{Link FA}} issue a few days ago. But by all means, help is most welcome! Just keep in mind that the template has different names for each project. In order to learn the proper name, I suggest checking any article that is featured in another language first. Love, Phaedriel - 16:06, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't we have an FA bot? - Huji ^reply 17:01, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I thought so at first, but I don't think there is one, no. The fact that the {{Link FA}} has different names through many projects, and in fact a completely different syntax at several of them (ie. in Spanish, it also adds to a "Featured articles in x language" Category) may have been a practical problem when it came to coding one. Just guessing; but the truth is, our Very Good articles have to be manually added to each project. Again, this is a daunting task; so help is most welcome! Phaedriel - 17:06, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, only 2 of our current VG articles show stars next Simple English on the English Wikipedia counterparts of their pages. I only checked in English, so if you're going through other languages, great! I did not know that. I think making sure they get placed on their "regular" English counterparts will be a good way to get some interest in our project here. · Tygartl1^·talk· 19:10, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Please, dear Tygart, update the EnWP counterparts at will. I've already visited several other projects (German, Spanish, Japanese, French and others) and added the appropriate templates there. However, I have not updated EnWP yet - I'll leave that one up to you, then ;) Love, Phaedriel - 19:14, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Done. · Tygartl1^·talk· 21:40, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Adding interwiki - advice, please

I've been looking for quick ways I can improve brief articles (since my time these days is limited). I discovered that very brief articles may lack interwiki links, the ones that show up in the lefthand bar's lowest box, "In Other Languages." I think this is an easy and useful edit. Since I'm quite new here, I'd like to be sure I understand what I'm doing and then recommend it to others.
What I do, while logged on as an editor in the English Wikipedia:

• Look up the page name in the English Wikipedia, where there's usually a page (or with a similar name, possibly with a redirect).
• Edit that page, and go to the bottom where the interwiki links are, usually below the Categories.
• Copy all the links.
• Add [[simple:PAGE NAME]] where PAGE NAME = the name of the page in Simple English Wikipedia; write an Edit Summary "interwiki :simple:" and mark as a minor edit, then Show Preview, check, and Save Page.
• Return to Simple, open Change This Page, and paste the copied links at the bottom of the editing field.
• Write an Edit Summary = "add interwiki", Show Preview, check, and then Save Page.

I would appreciate any advice about the above. I think having the links on the Simple English page will be helpful to readers of this Wikipedia so they can easily find the related page in other languages they can read, and use to improve the page here. -- Cheers, Deborahjay 19:52, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Great work, adding iw's is a great way to expand short articles. My only advice is keep up the good work if you get the chance! Thanks! Blockinblox - talk 19:57, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, a lot of times we all forget to re-add the en: link when we do that, so it's good to check that if you remember. Blockinblox - talk 19:58, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I want to mention: I think updating the English Wikipedia with an interwiki link to the Simple English page will help make English language editors aware that there's a Simple page they can help edit or even expand. (I was editing the English WP for a year before I "discovered" the Simple English WP.) -- Deborahjay 20:05, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm blocked there 'till Sept. 10, 2007, but I'll copy the source! I know how interwikis are done. Ionas Rand [i.'ɔ.na.sız tɔk] 21:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Main page

I ever so often browse wikipedia and stuff and I know there's recent changes, and I realize that theres a lot of "comotion" going on, mainly with administrating stuff and the main page. Are we renovating the place? If so, what can we as the community do to help? Thanks!--Purplecloud 20:09, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I also am a newbie. Ionas Rand [i.'ɔ.na.sız tɔk] 21:25, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Currently, we are just debating about this wiki's policies. How you can help is by adding in your thoughs or give constructive suggestions. --§ Snake311 _{(T + C)} 21:42, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation guide: "sounds like..." ?

Noting the present discussion about the (sole?) use of IPA to indicate pronunciation of foreign words in the Simple English WP: I myself am a native speaker of English, university educated in late 20th C. USA, who once learned and then forgot IPA. I respectfully suggest that this system wouldn't be familiar to many (even most?) readers. Would it be appropriate to indicate the pronunciation of foreign words by adding "rhymes with..." using words from the Basic Vocabulary? I've done this, typing the stressed syllable in all caps. I realize this is only partly adequate for a tonal language like Vietnamese, but would support some approximation (which could be indicated "sounds like" --??). Wound't this be more useful than a purist approach likely to be inaccessible even to many educated readers who are "tone-deaf" or simply unaware of the subtle differences? What are the guidelines here? -- Thanks, Deborahjay 22:16, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

IPA is good, because it represents all phonemes specifically and accurately. Can someone with enough time on their hands put in an IPA guide in the article for IPA? I dopn't have enough time, but I do understand IPA. Ionas Rand [i.'ɔ.na.sız tɔk] 00:21, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't question the value of IPA. However, I suspect that the IPA-unfamiliar editors AND readers of the articles would be unlikely to take the time and trouble to use the guide you suggest adding (that exists on the English Wikipedia). The Simple English Wikipedia aims to provide a "streamlined" version of the material for the sake of accessibility to the reader AND in light of editors' abilities. So I'm asking about the practice of adding a "sounds like..." pronunciation (as above), likewise for editors who want to provide useful-though-simplified content and themselves do not use IPA. -- Deborahjay 05:26, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

MEE-LYE is not simple enough, "MEE" might be interpreted different ways for different pronunciations of the letters "e" and "y". IPA is easy enough for me to understand, a guide will only help. Ionas Rand [i.'ɔ.na.sız tɔk] 07:30, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Tom-ay-toe, tom-are-toe any "sounds like" system system will depend on where the editor comes from. The IPA on the first line of an article should work, with a category for articles without ipa to alert skilled editors to the need to add ipa. -barliner--talk--contribs- 09:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes I think we should stick with IPA, and we should also have a page in Wikipedia namespace, which describes the pronounciation of each of IPA symbols, in simple examples (hopefully accompannied by OGG sound files). The page should have a link from every instance of IPA on any article. - Huji ^reply 12:31, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I recommend:

The My Lai massacre (National Script:Mỹ Lai), pronounced in IPA:[mi.˧˩˥'lɐːj˧˧] was...

I will always stick to IPA because different interpretations of letters as certain phonemes will result in confusion with MEE-LYE. Ionas Rand [i.'ɔ.na.sız tɔk] 18:20, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree about IPA. It is standartdized and simple. English orthography is the opposite. -Ionius Mundus 17:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Naming conventions again

Hello, I have started Wikipedia:Naming conventions. I hope it is simple enough. Please discuss (on its talk page) and edit, so it can become a guideline, one day. Thank you. --Eptalon 09:35, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Categorization

I was out of a good idea about how to categorize Freeganism and Feedback articles. Please either suggest or boldly apply the necessary changes. - Huji ^reply 17:10, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I suggest the creation of "Subcultures" category, where Freeganism would fit perfectly. This category would also serve many others of our entries, like Veganism. As for Feedback, I feel the article's contents are too broad; maybe it would be better to break it into a disambiguation page? Phaedriel - 17:45, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Freeganism would fall in well with Cat:Lifestyles (basically, simple :subcultures) and may include in others (not sure there). The Feedback article is all over the place and could use a complete cleanup/rewrite before even hoping to figure out how to categorize it. -- Creol(talk) 00:32, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks for the information about the existence of that Category, dear Creol :) Glad to see we also agree on the Feedback article issue as well. Phaedriel - 01:21, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Given that when I started on cleaning up Specialpages:UncatArticles the list was well over 2000 articles and I got it down to the point the only listing left was "Main Page", I have to say that I have a lot of experience in dealing with our categories and trying to find the correct place for things. -- Creol(talk) 05:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Creol, I'm doing the same thing now, and I've build up some skills; nevertheless, I'd be thankful if you share some ideas and learn me some special tricks about better categorizing uncat articles. - Huji ^reply 10:20, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Keeping the list of cats bookmarked is a necessity. Many of the cats you will remember off hand with all the searching you have already done up to that point. The En;wp page will usually get you in the right general direction, but you will often have to go up 3-5 levels from their concise cats to our more general ones for many topics (languages are a good example of this). There are three pages to watch for cat issues in addition to just cruising the cats and looking for things to clean up.

• Special:Uncategorizedpages is the obvious one
• Category:category needed will catch those tagged with the {{uncat}} template
• Special:Newpages is the one most forget about. Many people create pages and hope for the best in categorizing them. Newer users are rarely right, and over time you learn which users consistantly get them correct (even the most experienced editors slip up though). By checking all the new pages, you can catch issues early rather than having to clean up articles later. Certain types of article have requirements for # of cats that are easy to spot on the list with popups. Bio articles are the most obvious as they tend to require at least 4 cats (nationality, notability/occupation, born, died). The {{BD}} template and combined cats (ie. Russian physicist instead of russian people and physicists) cause false hits at times but not that many to be an issue.

When the cats are mostly straighted up, The new pages list alone can limit future issues alot. Monitoring it regularly (or just hitting all the articles created that day once a day - we really do not get that many new pages most days) will prevent cat problems as well as aid in tagging with complex, wikify, cleanup and QD templates to help in other areas. In May, we had only one page uncat'd (main page) and I would check every new page daily to prevent new additions. With my increase in work over the summer, I had to stop with the daily checks and things started to slip some. We are currently back under control relatively with a lot of help for dedicated editors. -- Creol(talk) 07:22, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Added note: Some times the correct category just does not exist. At this point there are two viable solutions. Cat:Misc includes anything that just does not apply somewhere else. This is a catchall category, but should be used as a last resort after exhausting every attempt to place the article correctly. The other option which many people hate to do is redlink the category. Certain articles are destined to be in a specific category, but that category does not exist. The category is in all likelihood going to exist one day, but right now we do not have enough articles to warrant creating it (3-5 minimum depending on who you talk to. I create with 3, others think it should be more). One article does not warrant its own category. You could always include it in the obvious parent category and just hope it eventually gets cleaned up. This is entirely viable but leaving it redlinked provides a good work-around. This lists it under the special page for Wanted categories. If other articles are created later using this same category, eventually there will be enough to warrant creation. Doing both is also an option. For example the category for Goggles obviously is protective clothing (Subcat of Clothing) in addition to possibly swimming and construction. We currently do not have that category but things like aprons and helmuts would also apply there. We do have a helmet article.. maybe an apron one. Redlinking Cat:Protective clothing without creating it yet does not hurt anything and actually does function. Redlinked categories will show all articles in that category even if the actual page is not created yet. They also stand for a placeholder for the potential need for that category at a later time. The page for wanted categories also helps combine and creat new categories. Even if a wanted category only has one entry, that may lead you find other pages in the same theme or identify a page requesting the category that could be categorized differently. (Redlinked Category:Actors from Unite States needs to be edited to be placed in Category:American actors, for example. Category:Eastern European film directors born in 1943 indicates someone just copy/pasted and that article really needs to be looked at to clean up its categories and probably a general simplification/cleanup as well.) -- Creol(talk) 07:57, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Purplecloud

It has been proven that Purplecloud (talk) and several other users are sockpuppets of a banned user. What do we suggest? What was the original ban for? PS. SarahM has personally E-mailed me and she can certify this. ANd I do not believe that LifeloverElena is Encyclopedist, because that user is proven here to be Kimberly Ashton, and on Wikipedia Review, Encyclopedist denies being any of those users. I do not know how it was determined that Encyclopedist was LifeloverElena on en. Ionas Rand [i.'ɔ.na.sız tɔk] 20:19, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Please note that usernames do not always match across different wikipedias. If a certain user is not active on a certain wikipedia, it is easy to create an identically named account on that wikipedia. Also, please be suspicious before you trust information given by a suspected sockpuppet (SarahM is laso editing from the PurpleCloud address). To know how Checkuser works, please look at its usage policy. --Eptalon 22:38, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

As to "What was the original ban for?": As many of the users here do not know the background for the constant bans on KA sockpuppets, here is some of the information that is known. The history of KA is a long a convoluted one. No one but her(/him) knows the entire story. The original ban on this wiki was for vandalism in September 2006, but it is not that simple. KA created her account here on September 4, 2006. At the same time she was editing normally, vandal attacks were coming in from an IP (71.231.130.56 ). KA reverted and warned the IP several times as any good NC patroller would. The problem was that KA was editing from that same IP. The same user would vandalize and then log in and revert her changes and warn herself but if it wasn't known that the IP and Username were the same person, she looked like a dedicated vandal fighter. She had already received multiple blocks and second chances on En:wp for adding and uploading copyrighted material and each time claimed she was innocent and that someone else in her house made the changes or that someone stole her password or stole her ip, etc. Most of these are documented on the talk page for the IP on en:wp along with her arguing that it was never her that did any of it but that it was always someone else.

Eventually her vandal/revert-warn actions came to light here and she was blocked for it. After that, every so often a new user would join and edit in a way very similar to her (same articles, same style of wiki-markup, same relatively perfect timing with reverts) as well as having the similar basic information personally and dealt with other users in similar manners (young girl who gets very close to younger members, communicates often with them personally (email often), goes out of her way to get closer to them by helping with off-site projects such as other wiki's). Each time these new persona's of hers would be found and blocked again and she would just move on and create new persona's and repeat her actions. As bad as her vandalism attacks were, the fact of her targeting younger members for whatever actions was more disturbing and made it more and more important that she be dealt with as soon as possible with each new version. As more and more information comes in about how certain of her persona's have acted (wiki-stalking and harassment of other users) it becomes even more important that actions be taken to prevent her from causing more trouble.

The one sad part is that when she actually want to contribute, she does a fairly good job. Unfortunately, a handful of good edits and helpful comments on talk pages does not compare to the amount of disruption and potential damage to both the wiki itself and its users that her presence always brings.

Always remember: Just because someone emails you and tells you they are or are not something, that does not mean it is true. Where KA is involved, He, she or it, has been lying constantly for over a year and will tell you whatever (s)he thinks will have the best results for him/her (we do not know if it is even really a 14 year old girl, or a 55 year old gay midget Italian plumber, or anywhere in between). -- Creol(talk) 08:53, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Goodbye

I am not sure where to put this, but I am very saddened. My mother has learned that I posted (slight) personal information and has punished me and grounded me for a week, starting from Sunday, to not go on any wiki, or anything related to any wiki, exclusively mentioning this, Wikipedia Review, and anything else "wiki-related". I know this is absurd of her. Being stalked is not a "good-guy/bad-guy" situation as my mother makes it out to be, and it is not as black-and-white as the rules of my household think. But, it is in good faith and I will miss you all. Goodbye (temporarily),

Ionas Rand [i.'ɔ.na.sız tɔk] 06:14, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

ROFL alert. LIAM / LIAM 02:00, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

School

Dear all,

I, like Ionas, will not be able to edit regularly for a while. But in my case, that "while" happens to be two years because of the edit conflict that is school.
I started to edit Wikipedia when school had finished and I had a month or so with nothing to do, I was soon sucked in. However, I'm starting the [Diploma Programme] and teachers (for some reason) always give us lots of homework on the first few weeks to impose their Alpha status or something. I already have a test and a book to read and it's the first day!

However, I'll still look forward to editing every now and again in the evenings, when homework is finished, editing at school would be social suicide! But thanks to you all for your warm welcomes and help, and will see you all on weekends from now on, ta!
Gwib^-(talk)- 17:49, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I, Snake311, also have the same problem with Gwib as school as prevented us from editing reguarly (which explained my inactivity for the past few days). But in my school, I have absolutely no way of editing Wikipedia there since my school policies dosen't allow me to bring in my laptop; also it is social suicide. However, on the top of my userpage, I've created a new template explaining my frequent absences. --§ Snake311 _{(T + C)} 00:29, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for merging several stubs

I would like to know your opinion about merging the following stub articles, into one article:

• Decillion
• Duodecillion
• Quadrillion
• Septendecillion

...

Refer to Category:Numbers to find other similar articles. - Huji ^reply 18:30, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello, I think there should be one page that lists numbers, how to make 1 plus many zeroes into the respective number, and how to get the 1 plus many zeroes from the respective number. Other than that, I think articles like This number is called that. It is written .... belong to wiktionary. They are not encyclopedic. --Eptalon 20:49, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Eptalon. I think I will merge them, if there is no objection in the future three of four days. - Huji ^reply 07:40, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

 Done, - Huji ^reply 11:02, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Stubs

I think it is time to add stubs for different articles by category. e.g., this article about an American singer/songwriter is a stub. you can help simple wiki by expanding the article LIAM !

This has been discussed recently ([1], [2]) and it has been decided that we are not yet ready for them. · Tygartl1^·talk· 21:45, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry I missed those discussions. See my comments on Wikipedia talk:Stub. Maybe we could start using some very basic, broad categories, and leave the smaller, more specific stub sorting for later. For example, a {{bio-stub}} stub type seems quite reasonable (I didn't know there was one! If consensus is against it, let's remove it, though), and a {{Europe-stub}} stub type might be okay, too, but I guess an {{Armenia-bio-stub}} stub type may be too specific for us right now.

I still don't think that if someone wants to do something with stub types that we should hold them back because "we aren't ready for it yet." If that person is ready for it, I think we are ready for it. If eventually we will have stub sorting (and I hope we will, since it helps people who want to work on stubs of a particular topic), why are we holding ourselves back now? Deleting it now just to create it again later is counterproductive and extra work for nothing. If it doesn't actually hurt us, why are we deleting it, when most everyone seems to agree we should have them eventually? It's not like the specificity will hinder us! Please keep in mind that I'm trying to change consensus, not rebel against it. If consensus says that we shouldn't have stub types yet, I'll follow that, even though I disagree. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 22:50, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Cromwellt, I don't think people are voting against stub categorization to stop those who want to do this, but to prevent creation and use of lots of stub templates, with no good reason behind them. I generally agree with creation of some major stub categories. However, I think:

1. A special team should be assigned to be responsible about deciding how new stub tempaltes are defined, or, a guideline should be prepared so everyone knows how to propose a new stub template.
2. The major categories should be selected based on at least the following two factors:
   1. The subjects about which we have more stubs. For example, if we have lots of stubs about cities around the world, but few about actresses, the first one is more a priority.
   2. The subjects should be chosen in a way that someone expert in that subject can find and fix the stubs. For example, history stubs or chemistry stubs or good choices, because a person who has lots of reading about history or chemistry can find and fix them; on the other hand, biography-stubs is not a best practice here, IMHO, because we don't have people who are accademically (or otherwise) experts of biographies.

Hope it helps, - Huji ^reply 10:48, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

New quick deletion criterion

The discussion originated here.

I was wandering arround, when I noticed an article was speedy deleted by Tygrrr, and the reason mentioned in the Edit Summary was that the article was a copy-paste of English Wikipedia article. I started discussion with Tygrrr, to know if this is a general rule, and the cons and pros in applying this rule, and we reached a point that we thought we need other users to comment about it.

Then I remembered that I had brought the Copy-and-Paste issue to Simple Talk, previously, here. There, we only had two replies from rimshot and Phaedrial, and I believe it wasn't answered properly (maybe because none of us knew the answer completely). Anyways, with the amount of my understanding of GFDL, I think giving a simple interwiki link is not enough an attribution, to meet GFDL, and at least, the history of the article should be copied on the talk page, or something like that.

Nevertheless, I also think Simple English wikipedia shouldn't be a place to copy articles from En WP. On the other hand, we should allow creation of a simplified version of what exists on English Wikipedia. Thus, I more or less agree with speedy deleting such articles, as Tygrrr said on his talk page. Here is what I suggest as a new criterion for speedy deletion:

• An article which is an exact copy and paste of all or part of a relative article on English Wikipedia should be deleted, if it is not simplified within four days from its creation.

Needless to say, the idea of a four day period comes from WP:CSD#C1.

Please comment. - Huji ^reply 07:38, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Generally, I think we have more like 1 week/7 days as timespans here. Other than that, I would say that an attempt of simplification should have been made.--Eptalon 08:22, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

One week seems enough for an attempt at simplifying the article. If it hasn't substantially changed in that time frame, I would support speedy deletion. By substantial change I mean that only the content and the structure of the original article still exist. Most formulations should have been changed by that time, to avoid copyright issues. A proper list of prior editors is hardly feasible for any but the newest EnWP articles. If a way is found to provide this list, the requirements can be lower. In that case, an obvious attempt of simplification, or something like that, should suffice. --rimshot^talk 09:22, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Anyone of us can reformulate the copypaste within a week's time, especially if a special template is made to flag such en copypastes. I don't think there is any copyright issue with en:wp to here by the way. Blockinblox - talk 09:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

How do you read section 4.B and 4.I of this document, then? w:WP:C says that giving a link to the original article may be enough, but encourages copying the list of authors. The license itself speaks of five principal authors, but m:Help:Transwiki asks to give a complete list of authors. I don't think the copyright question is quite clear yet. --rimshot^talk 12:46, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I would propose the copy pastes from IPs be immediately deleted after say 1 hour of waiting for simplification. Named users would be entitled to a waiting period. I like 3 days. Also, named users who are copying and pasting multiple articles at the same time, should be stopped and encouraged to copy and paste and then simplify one single article before moving on to repeat the process. Then if the warning is ignored, I think those pages created by the named users should be qd'd. -  BrownE34  talk  contribs  13:20, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, section 4.B reads "List ... at least five of the principal authors of the Document ... unless they release you from this requirement". I'm going to check if this is possible to ask Wikimedia foundation to change their licensing to let copy-and-pastes possible through Wikimedia projects (or at least through Wikipedias) without a necessity of citing the authors, but merely by giving a link. I'm not sure where to ask this though.

Anyways, as I understand it, it is enough to mention "five" of the authors of the orignial work, which means, not all of the document history needs to be copied, per 4.B. How this changes according to 4.I is not yet clear to me. - Huji ^reply 13:21, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

It would surprise me if it's copyvio to use the en:wiki articles as a source. But I admittedly know very little about copyright laws. Asking the question, though, inadvertently opens up a can of worms, because even articles that are not direct copy-pastes are almost always created using information from en:wiki. If we do have to add some sort of attribution to the source, that's almost 20,000 articles we'd have to back-track and make sure are properly sourced.

Regarding simplification of copy-pastes, I am for a fairly strict timeline, more along the lines of what Browne34 suggests. If a named user has the intention of simplifying, 3 days (in my humble opinion) is plenty of time to do so. I would also be for the creation of a template that says something like "This article was copy-pasted from English Wikipedia. Please help simplify it! If significant changes have not been made by (insert date), it may be quick deleted." In theory, this would allow for the articles to be followed by an admin to check the progress of simplification and also make it easier for users wanting to simplify to find the articles that need the most help. Of course, in practice, it could allow for (pardon my language) half-assed efforts of simplification just to "save" the article from deletion rather than actually trying to get it to proper standards. · Tygrrr^·talk· 14:11, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Tygrrr, it would also surprise me if it would be copyvio to use En WP acrtilces "as a source", in general. It is not being a "source" which is the problem (although, to be honest, En WP is not a reliable source, I think). It is "copying the exact text without correct attribution" which is the problem. I discussed it with a people or two, and they all think "linking" is the "least" thing we can do, and there are several documents which insist the history of the page should be copy-pasted completely. - Huji ^reply 15:27, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed with Huji and Rimshot here. Indeed, the derivative work from EN articles is one thing (and if we really feel like complying with the requirements of GFDL, we should provide a link to the version used as source at least at the article's talk page), and quite a different thing to make verbatim copies, mirrored from a given version of an EN article. It's very interesting that Tygrrr and you kickstarted this dicussion, because I was thinking about this myself after the spree of copy-pastes made by SpiderPig001 that Tygrrr dleted in a show of excellent judgement. I was also thinking about a tag to be added to copy-pasted articles that adds to a potential "Category:Copied articles" or something equally descriptive, much in the way of the "Prod" tag of EN. I also endorse a 3 or 4 day deadline, which is ample time for the article's creator to properly simplify it, thus creating a derivative work that also happens to loosen the tight grip of the GFDL. Phaedriel - 13:28, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

result

Okay. I think we should separate the "tag" issue and the "rule" issue. Reading all above again, to me it seems that everyone has a more or less agreement with letting the article stay there for four days, and speedy deleting it if it is not simplified and changed within this time period, in a way that it could no more be named a derivative work of the En WP counterpart.

I'm fully aware that some people have suggested a number of days other than my "four days" proposal in the beginning. However, I believe none of the people who suggested a "three day" period, will argue extending that for one more day; on the other hand, the majority of the comments referenced either three or four days (or both) and the other options are far from consensus, in my humble opinion.

So, I am going to add this to WP:CSD, by tommorow, as the "fifth" criterion under Article section (A5):

• Articles created by directly copying all or part of an article on the English Wikipedia will be speedy deleted after four days of their creation, unless
  1. they are changed in this time period, in a way that the document would no longer be a derivative work; or
  2. the source of the article is correctly attributed, per GFDL.

In case you think it is not written good enough, please feel free to fix it. - Huji ^reply 16:07, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Needs some simplification and other clarification; how about:

• Articles created by directly copying (or copy-pasting) all or almost all of an article from the English Wikipedia may be speedily deleted after four days of their creation, unless
  1. they are changed within this time, to make them different enough from the original (not word for word); or
  2. the source of the article is correctly attributed to name the authors, per GFDL.

Blockinblox - talk 16:15, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the above and think its unacceptable. You are saying that if they source the copy/paste, we keep it. The second bullet point should be deleted and the first bullet point should be amended to say:

• they are changed to bring them in compliance with simple English language standards (simplified) and formatting

You are putting the focus on copyright violations when the focus should be copy/pastes having long, complex, articles with non-existent templates and other formatting inconsistencies. -  BrownE34  talk  contribs  16:28, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I would also make a pitch to change the time frame for articles copy/pasted by IPs to 1 day. Also, I think we need to extend this discussion past the arbitary deadline of tomorrow set by Huji until we have something closer to consensus. -  BrownE34  talk  contribs  16:28, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I fear this might not be as simple, there are some things we should do before we actually go down that path:

• Suppose there was a template. This template would allow to specify the exact revision (of the en article copied), and could therefore link to a special version of the edit history of EnWP article. Would this then fulfill the proper attribution criterion?
• I am unhappy with the idea that this should also be valid for parts of an article, without specifying the size of a part. Does it apply to parts of a sentence, a paragraph, a whole section (between two titles)?
• Most of our delays are counted in weeks, 4 days looks unnatural. (That's probably just purely personally me).

--Eptalon 16:29, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to come right out and state my opinion: I do not believe that we should keep articles that are direct copy-pastes. Period. I feel very strongly about this. It defeats the purpose of having a Simple English Wikipedia if the articles are not in simple English. A few days is plenty long enough for a user to simplify his or her copy-pasted articles if they indeed have any intention of simplifying them at all. And I agree wholeheartedly with Browne34 that unregistered IPs (who are less likely to still be around in 3 or 4 days) should not be given as long to simplify their copy-pastes.

The GFDL issue is entirely secondary to this fact. If we do not allow copy-pastes to remain in our encyclopedia, there will be no need to attribute the source of the copied information. · Tygrrr^·talk· 16:38, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I just made a new Template:encopypaste, based loosely on en:Template:Copypaste. We can always add more details as we work them out. Blockinblox - talk 16:57, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

In reply to some points brought up above:

1. I'm strongly against making any distinction between articles created by IPs and registered users, for this idea overlooks a basic fact of any Wiki: there's no reason why the article cannot be improved/simplified by a different user. How many times have all of us encountered a complex article and polished it ourselves? I know I did, and I've seen all of you do it as well; this is one of the major differences between the ocassional editors and those who steadily contribute to our project.
2. The GFDL is most definitely not an unimportant fact, because, believe it or not, there are many articles at EN that are written in a way that could be more suitable here than there; and are tagged as such at EN. Yet a copy-paste of said articles without attribution, while in compliance with our language requirements, would be in breach of the GFDL.
3. If we agree that 4 days is an acceptable time frame (or any other non-immediate time deadline), then we should stop talking about adding it to the QD deletion criteria, for a pretty obvious reason: keeping it for 4 days is "not" quick.

Quoting the proposed words of Blockinblox above, I think the best solution would be two folded: first, adding it as a Criteria for deletion (not QD), but changing two critical words:

• Articles created by directly copying (or copy-pasting) all or almost all of an article from the English Wikipedia may be speedily deleted after four days of their creation, unless
  1. they are changed within this time, to make them different enough from the original (not word for word); and
  2. the source of the article is correctly attributed to name the authors, per GFDL.

The template made by Blockinblox should add the tagged articles to the new Category En copy-pastes that he also has created, not to the QD category. That would make two important tasks easier: one, allowing their quick perusal to those of us who are in favor of polishing and simplifying articles brought by ocassional editors; and two, helping admins keep track of them, because tossing them into the same category where those articles that should "really" be quickly deleted should be is confusing and not truly accurate, as they're not supposed to be deleted until the deadline has expired. Phaedriel - 18:01, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Just a quick note to make sure we all agree on this point, I think the phrase "speedily deleted" is used to mean that after 4 days of no change, they may be automatically deleted without discussion or proposal at RfD. · Tygrrr^·talk· 19:58, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, Phaedriel, I think you bring up a fine point in your #2 comment regarding GFDL. However, I think this is the exception, rather than the rule. My experience here has been that the language used in the copy-pasted articles is much too complex to qualify as a Simple English article. For that reason, I believe that the GFDL issue is not unimportant, but indeed secondary to the fact that they are not really appropriate articles for this project based on the level of language. · Tygrrr^·talk· 20:05, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

This is the third time I'm writing these! I got two edit conflicts, and each time, Tygrrr had said part of what I wrote, so I had to rewrite myself!

I also think "speedy" here, doesn't address the four day period, but the time after the four day period and the actual deletion of the article. We already have one other criterion, for categories, which has a four day timespan bound to it. - Huji ^reply 20:14, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, I agree with Phaedrial that the GFDL issue is not secondary to any other thing. As we all know, copyright policies are set by the foundation, and not by consensus of users of a project. Nevertheless, I don't think the point Tygrrr made is totally wrong. We already have rules for copyvios, and a copy-paste from En WP with no attribution of the sourece can be (and if you ask me, it should be) treated as copyvio. We should try to make this new criterion have no confilcts with our copyvio regulations. - Huji ^reply 20:18, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

And finally, I don't think we should set a different duration for articles created by IP. I'm writing this with complete understanding that articles created by IPs are less likely to be maintained or fixed; nevertheless, that is how I think. - Huji ^reply 20:23, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Copy-pastes should be allowed to stay for about a month so they have time to be simplified. If they are not simplified within a month, they should be deleted. As for how much time a speedy deletion should be, I think about three days for a speedy and about 6 days for a regular deletion. Hope this helps,

→Ionas Six Eight Two Two Four 02:15, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a really fascinating discussion, and I'm enjoying the way we are reaching consensus. I think that a month is way too long to keep a copy-paste without simplification. If at least a start has been made within three/four days (a week would be okay, too), I think it can be kept, but if not, it is not an actual contribution to the project and should be quick deleted (simpler English than "speedied"), with the same time limit for anons and logged-in users. There is a problem with the term "quick delete": the term as we use it means "delete without discussion", not necessarily "delete immediately". It is true that if something is in the quick delete category, that usually means that it can be deleted immediately, not after a specific period of time. However, this should be after at least a quick review by an admin because anyone can place a speedy template on almost any page. That quick review should avoid our problem with quick delete vs. time limits.

Regarding the GDFL, as far as I know it has never been a problem to copy between Wikimedia wikis. That's why the import tools, etc., exist. They also import the history, which helps, though, I guess. I think a link is necessary and a small tag might be recommended, saying that it is based (heavily?) on the EN article. As long as we do that, I don't think it matters (in a legal sense) if the document stays exactly the same. There are lots of mirrors of Wikipedia. It's just our rule that it be in simple English (which almost all over there are not) that makes the changes necessary. Happy editing, everyone! --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 23:20, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm out of idea how to conclude this discussion, or how to push everybody towards reaching a conclusion. Others' help is appreciated. - Huji ^reply 10:36, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Is anybody eager to push this conversatin towards reaching consensus? - Huji ^reply 11:27, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm definitely interested, and I'd support making a summary of the discussion that took place here until a few days ago as a new thread below, in order to try and reach a definite conclusion. Phaedriel - 18:28, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

That's a good idea. I'm busy now, so I will do it tomorrow, unless you are faster than me! - Huji ^reply 18:33, 17 September 2007 (UTC)