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Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 43

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Category:Caucasian-American actors

This category was recently created, and I have some misgivings about it. To be brief, no such category exists over on en; as an example, Harrison Ford, classified here as Caucasian-American, is categoried as a Jew, American with German descent, and American with Russian descent. CPacker believes that the use of Caucasian is precise and favors getting rid of it as long as the African-American actors category was gone as well. The question is, how should we handle race and ethnicity? Should we follow en, or should we create or owcn categories? cassandra (talk) 19:43, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here is the conversation up till now. Permanent diff link
Given that we do not (and most likely would not) have a category for Negroid-American actors or Mongoloid-American actors, Caucasian-American (Caucasoid-American) should be right out. Trying to prove race is next to impossible as the persons entire ancestory would have to be known. Race and stated ethnicity are two different things. African American is an self labeled ethnic group in the same manner as Irish American, German American, or Chinese American. The main issue with African American is that most people who fall in the category can not be more specific on their origin. (Nigerian american, Ethiopian american, etc). Its confusing enough to have to deal with the potential issues of Charlize Theron ever becoming an American citizen (which would make her African-American by definition but certainly not by appearance), having to go over a complete ancestry to check for connections to each major race grouping is a nightmare waiting to happen. For the most part, we do not do X of Y decent past immediate family (parents, possibly grandparents), only dual-nationality. Categories should be kept relatively simple. -- Creol(talk) 02:19, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agree, the cat seems redundant especially in the 21st century. I think that what's important is the nation the actor is from. I'm Canadian and I just don't see the relevance of a persons skin color. Besides which, technically we would have to only have people who actually genetically came from Caucasia; ie: Russians, Georgians and Azerbaijani's :-) fr33kman t - c 03:50, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So does everyone agree that the cats should just be American actors?--CPacker (talk) 18:42, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly do! :-) fr33kman t - c 20:23, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is a more straight forward category--Matilda (talk) 21:37, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've   Done it. - tholly --Talk-- 21:44, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(←) On the other hand, I've deleted the category under QD C1: Empty category and due to the fact that the community has agreed to use Category:American actors instead. Yours, RyanCross (talk) 01:25, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Where can I get an opinion on a new page from?

Hi, I'm here from en-wikipedia and have created Golda Meir and want to know where I can get a peer review from? If you do that sort of thing? Thanks! :-) PS: I like it here, I'm gonna stick around awhile. fr33kman t - c 03:42, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest posting it at Wikipedia:peer review. The page does not get a lot of attention, but it is the best option. Looking at the top of the article - prime minister, Minister of Labour, Foreign Minister, politics, British prime minister, murder, athletes, war and resigned are all terms that need attention (linked, replaced, defined, etc). The rest of the article likely has similar issues. Categories are also needed. -- Creol(talk) 03:54, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Cool, will do. Will also be on those links etcetera very soon. Found the place browsing around wikis and kinda like it. What's the policy on, shall we kindly say, "transwiki'ing" pages over from en and, trimming them, cleaning them up and creating links and cats for them? Oh, and do you have the rollbackers user group here? If so, what's the criteria? (I'm one on en) If not, never mind! :-) fr33kman t - c 04:58, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
PS: Can we interwiki links terms like that one? Or do you want pages made here? fr33kman t - c 05:01, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Many of our articles are based on those from other languages, mainly en:wp. This is basically an acceptable action as long as the articles are edited such that they are in simple English with missing images, categories and templates dealt with. Articles which are directly cut and pasted ({{encopypaste}}) and no steps were taken to change them into Simple English are subject to quick deletions. Interwiki links are fine for wikt: terms. This is especially true terms that do not exist in Basic English but need to be used for the article. Note that it must be a wikt: link not a wiktionary: link (use the SE wiktionary, not the En wiktionary as en:wikt defintions are likely as hard to understand as the word they are defining..).
Some people prefer to write their articles from the ground up, others to copy/paste and then clean up. Its a matter of preference mainly and both are acceptable. IF you copy/paste, the talk page should be tagged with {{Enwp based}} (subst:'d) to attribute the original authors and ensure there are no copyright issues. -- Creol(talk) 05:12, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Cool, will clean up in the next 24hrs. Probably will C&P 65% and ground up 25% and then just create redirects and "wikignome" other editor's stuff. And the rollback? Does that exist? I didn't see it... fr33kman t - c 05:35, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Non-admin rollback is not enabled here for Simple English Wikipedia. It has been discussed perviously numerous times, but the decision was not to enable it (yet...). Our most recent active discussion on whether we should enable rollback or not s located at Wikipedia:Simple_talk/Archive_38#Rollback_proposal. For now, only administrators can use rollback. I'm not sure when we are going to (finally) enable it in the future (if ever). Probably when this wiki is a lot more active with a lot more vandalism, we might consider allowing non-admin rollback here to help with vandalism reverting. Though, I don't think that'll happen anytime soon. – RyanCross (talk) 01:21, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1953 Iran coup d'etat

What does the community think of this article? Is there anything that needs fixing? My article writing skills may need some working on (I don't write articles frequently, the last one was en:Karl Yoneda). — Jonas Rand · (talk) 05:36, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's a bit rough. I've explained that Daniel Addie is fat and what it means to "nationalize" a company, removed the unreliable source of Angelfire. CIA is explained well in the lead, but MI6 should have some sort of explanation. cassandra (talk) 06:32, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I changed MI6 to be the UK's foreign military intelligence, (MI6) if that's better? fr33kman t - c 07:39, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Proposed very good articles

According to the PVGA rules, an article needs six votes and 80% support to be promoted. Red Hot Chili Peppers' vote ended yesterday; it has 100% support but four votes. Anyone else think the current way the PVGA system works is a bit silly, and that a consensus that the article is very good is more important than the number of people who sign their name?

(And, incidentally, anyone want to close the vote?)

Giggy (talk) 01:59, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's about the third time the PVGA process has shown its shortcomings. I'd promote it if I could Giggy, but I'm too involved with it so I'm sorry. Someone should be bold enough to realise that this article is worthy of the star and ignore the "rules". The Rambling Man (talk) 12:43, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'd do it, but I'm not sure how to tackle step 3 of the list. I'd be happy to cover all other steps though. Once again, I'll have to say that the VGA/GA system is good, it's just the users who are flawed. Without enough votes, how could someone criticize the system? It's the voters who should be chastised. --Gwib -(talk)- 12:49, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Re. Step 3; you go to Wikipedia:Very good articles/by date, find the oldest article that's still on rotation (ie. it doesn't say demoted or Out of rotation in the 4th column), click the link (I'll use Main Page/Article 8 for example), click the "Move" tab at the top, and in this case, move the page to Cuban Missile Crisis/VGA stub. Then, you go back to Main Page/Article 8 and edit it, replacing the redirect with the lead from the new VGA (eg. Red Hot Chili Peppers). Does this make sense? Giggy (talk) 01:15, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It should not require a vote, it should require consensus to promote - the people who edit this Wikipedia should be capable of understanding that concept so the hard-and-fast numerical rules are at fault, not the users. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:36, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindenting) The current criteria are the result of a lengthy discussion; the minimal number of votes have basically been set to warrant for a certain interest in the community. Otherwise it would be possible to promote 1-vote-articles to VGA. If the article in question is unable to reach the quorum, then this means it could not gather enough interest in the community. If you think this should be changed, please re-launch the discussion process. In any case, this would mean to either freeze the (V)GA promotions or work with the old rules until we have agreed on new ones. By the way, there is also a minimal number of votes for those wanting to become admins, and the (V)GA system does not have the restriction that those who proposed the article cannot vote. --Eptalon (talk) 17:01, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, there's something ironic here. Last time I tried to discuss the matter there was no interest in changing it. Now there's no interest from the community in even taking part in the PVGA process. Something is wrong. I am aware of the "minimum" number of votes for RFA which is also problematic. Also, what is wrong with promoting an article which has a clear consensus for support (I'm not suggesting a single support would be adequate - that would depend on the judgement of the editor promoting) - if the article is unsuitable then it can be reviewed and demoted. At least we'd get some debate as opposed to the deafening silence the process currently receives. This Wikipedia is ruled by apathetic voting rather than the idea of consensus which is a shame. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:38, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As a relatively trivial "quick-fix", would we be okay with rewording the duration of the "voting" period to something like " at least ten days"? That way the current slow traffic over at PVGA may still result in a half-decent consensus to promote being achieved? The Rambling Man (talk) 17:50, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Total time for discussion and vote = 1 month? --Eptalon (talk) 18:00, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm happy to extend the whole process but I don't want it to be too prescriptive, so if a consensus to promote is formed early on then the process should not have to go on for another, say, two weeks. I'm wondering what the best approach is for this. I think the biggest problem I have is that I'm happy to judge consensus while it appears that's not what happens here. But perhaps "Within one month of being listed as a potential candidate, 80% of named editors must agree that the article is indeed very good. There is a required minimum of 6 named voters." (although I clearly think the last two clauses are wrong, one step at a time...) The Rambling Man (talk) 18:07, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think we shouldn't have the "minimum of 6 named users" part. Some PVGAs don't even receive 6 votes, which sometimes might be the only reason an article doesn't become a VGA. I think finding the general consensus is enough. Maybe administrators should be the ones closing these since they usually have more experience with deciding consensus? -- RyanCross (talk) 22:17, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Removing the minimum number of votes needed is a good start. Consensus is more important than numbers. (And I'll say it again... anyone want to close the vote? :P) Giggy (talk) 01:24, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I will do it, but I don't know how to set the article up at Wikipedia:Very good articles/by date. If someone could do that part, that would be appreciated. Thanks, RyanCross (talk) 01:27, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Scratch that, I just remembered I participated (and !voted) in that discussion. en:WP:COI! I'll let someone else do it. -- RyanCross (talk) 01:29, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup

Just a while ago, Sebb asked me about this. I think it is a good idea, however I would like to know what the community thinks. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated. Chenzw  Talk  12:07, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm a bit fuzzy on why we should be doing this. Another issue is that it doesn't work, when writing {{/Sign|country|username}}, we just get a link to Sebb's userpage along with various red linked variables. --Gwib -(talk)- 12:17, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm doing it the same reason en is doing it: to make it a little more fun here at simple. And the 2nd issue is fixed. Sebb Talk 13:17, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think our community is large enough to do this, and we don't have all the different "grades" of articles en.wiki has. Majorly talk 13:26, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Mainspace edits is one of the main factors. And who said it had to be big? Sebb Talk 13:47, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like fun, after reading the ENWP page on it. You should try and make the rules clearer and come up with a different point system (since we don't have DYK, FA etc). It could be something along the lines of

Mainspace = 1pt
Template = 5pt
Wikipedia: = 6pt
GA = 20pt
VGA = 50pt

Just at a guess. We could only start the competition after 5 or 10 active users have joined though. --Gwib -(talk)- 14:11, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good :D, Gwib, would you like to judge? Sebb Talk 14:40, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, nvm :) Sebb Talk 14:40, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Quantity over quality is never a good idea. Heck, this page alone I would have gotten almost the same credit as a GA, and Fr33kman is moving up on a VGA.. Then there is the problem of people just removing an extra line from an article and getting a point for it, or if you decide the judges have to rule those out, then they have to look at each edit (instead of actually editing themselves). If someone it cranking out 200 mainspace edits a day (not realy that hard) you are talking one busy judge handing out the equivilent of 4 VGA's per day. This does not bode well. -- Creol(talk) 14:45, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have the time. And remember, it's supposed to be fun. Sebb Talk 14:48, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To Creol: easy, change the scoring system. Base it like this:
Article expanded = 1pt (we would have a before expansion/after expansion diff)
New article created (5,000bytes+) = 5pt
Article expanded to GA = 20pt
Article expanded to VGA = 50pt
It's incredibly flexible, what the rules would be. If an article is expanded to VGA/GA, then that's already quality over quantity (hopefully, since the criteria do demand quality). Strings of articles wouldn't count (-cough-), since they're not over 5,000bytes. --Gwib -(talk)- 16:35, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And when do you plan to start the WikiCup? (to Sebb) Yotcmdr Talk 16:38, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, i'm thinking as soon as we have 4 pools. And then register for next year's cup. Sebb Talk 16:43, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if I'll be participating myself, but I'll just be watching on the side lines. There's just one thing I'm missing here. Say someone "wins" at the end of the WikiCup... what happens then? Do they get some sort of "WikiCup" for winning? Or do they just keep the honor of winning and the thought about it? -- RyanCross (talk) 19:48, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Userpage template. Sebb Talk 19:51, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
{{userpage}}? -- RyanCross (talk) 19:57, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Coolcool. StaticFalcon -=Electrify My Thoughts=- 19:53, Sunday September 21 2008 (UTC)
A template to be put on a userpage. Sebb Talk 19:58, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I understand. StaticFalcon -=Electrify My Thoughts=- 19:59, Sunday September 21 2008 (UTC)
Talking to RyanCross :P...Sebb Talk 20:00, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK *mestupid* Falcon -=Electrify My Thoughts=- 20:02, Sunday September 21 2008 (UTC)

(unindenting) If we do it, we would probably need more editors. Also, I think we should differentiate between expanding an article and simpilfying one. As an example, both Plautus and Mumia Abu-Jamal sit there in the list, and basically have not been touched in half a year, yet both need simplification. If I then look at weighing some edits with a certain number of points, I really have to ask myself: do i do this because it gives me X points, or do I sipmlify foo, because I have an interest in it, and think that having a simple article on it will help a lot? Also note, that getting a contributionto GA or VGA is not something one editor can do alone. Suppose there are 50 points for the VGA article, and 5 people contributed, does each get 50 points, does each get 10, or do we have more complex schemes like 2x20, 2x4 and 2 points? - Is fixing a typon worth the same than adding a reference (form a scientific publication)? - Ideally what we want is quality. I therefore think a competition to get articles to GA or VGA is probably worth more than one which sipmly attributs points to edits. --Eptalon (talk) 10:48, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To put numerical values: GA = 10 pt, VGA = 25 pt; both to be distributed over all contributors. --Eptalon (talk) 10:55, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What we could to is take a list of articles in dire need of simplification (e.g. various articles from Special:LongPages, Category:Complex_pages etc). Once we have a list of 100 or so articles, users work on specific articles (alone) to improve them. When a user has 'completed' an article, he gets points. That way, we'd hopefully have quality, since the point would not be administered to bad quality work, 'bad' pages would get improved and editors would have a goal to work towards.
So basically, get an article from a chosen list, improve it and get a point. I'm aware there are issues with this system, but we can discuss? --Gwib -(talk)- 11:02, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Personal Attack

It appears I missed a string of personal attacks on me while I was away. Could a checkuser please find the IP adress for me as since the vandal appears to personally know me I might know who they are. Cheers. FSM Noodly? 19:19, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

CheckUsers are not allowed to give out IPs. --Eptalon (talk) 19:30, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh ok then. FSM Noodly? 19:30, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In general, checkuser questions can be answered with yes/no, and are of the form is user X the same as Y?- If you want a CheckUser, please report it on the respective page. thanks. --Eptalon (talk) 19:38, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Manual of Style: Pronunciation

Does anyone object to the following proposed change to the Manual of Style? The previous discussion on the matter can be read at "Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 42#Manual of Style: Pronunciation":

When a word is pronounced (said) differently from the way it is spelled, a guide to the pronunciation of the word should be set out. Pronunciations of words should be written using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), with or without a respelled pronunciation.

If there are no objections in a week's time I will go ahead and update the Manual. — Cheers, Truth's Out There –talk– 03:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No objection from me. Giggy (talk) 04:04, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have no objection but note that I (and probably other) contributors are unable to contribute using IPA. "Should" be written ... therefore comes across very strongly - sounds mandatory. Perhaps we could soften it a little by saying: It is desirable that pronunciations of words should be written using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), ... --Matilda (talk) 04:12, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No objection as too wording I agree with Matilda. However, the IPA page is going to need a major overhaul, especially if we want readers to use it. I think that where an IPA pronunciation is given, however, a spelt out pronunciation [eg: PRO-nun-SEE-A-shun] should be used also. Even for people with advanced degrees (including myself, a dyslexic) have problems with IPA :-( fr33kman t - c 04:25, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
IPA is pretty easy to learn. And how do you transliterate (respell) Woolfardisworthy or donut (without assuming some very basic ideas on how to pronounce English)? ;) --Eptalon (talk) 14:02, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've heard that IPA is easy to learn from lot's of folk and I'm sure to them it was. I have serious trouble reading the different symbols and I'd hazard a guess that a lot of others do also. IPA is essentially "useless" if our readers can't use it. Asking many people who read this encyclopaedia (who may not be able to understand a word like "phonetic") to learn IPA is not going to happen, look at the IPA debates at en: for proof. I absolutely think that it should be used but it's going to wind up a lot less useful to people here than at en. A transliterative pronunciation is also imperfect as it requires some form of functioning in English already, IPA does not, admittedly. To me, this encyclopaedia is for two main groups of people; a) people who's first language is not English and so may have a hard time understanding new words, and b) people who's first language is English, but who don't have a good understanding of vocabulary. I have a picture of our readers in my mind's eye; a guy in Africa, a learning disabled student (Down's syndrome perhaps) at a school in Berkshire UK, and a new English language student in China with an IQ of 150. Some of these folk may be able to learn IPA, other's surely would not. And, I'd spell it; Mmmmm.... dOH-nut. Yes it doesn't fit perfectly and it may split it up into three syllables depending on the reader, but, if you said that word to an native English speaker, they'd understand it; and that is, after all, the sole purpose of any language. (Perhaps you could rewrite the article so that even I can understand how to use IPA) You'd get my vote for King then! :-) fr33kman t - c 20:53, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would disagree that IPA is "pretty easy to learn". It does require a bit of effort, and I think some people may find it difficult because of the different symbols that it uses, some of which look pretty similar to each other (compare "e", "ə" and "ɘ", for instance). I'm not saying that a respelled pronunciation is perfect – it is less precise than IPA, and one may still have to look up the chart at "Help:Pronunciation respelling key" to figure out how to pronounce certain words properly. However, in many cases readers should be able to figure out how to pronounce a word simply by looking at the respelled pronunciation if they cannot get to grips with IPA. As for how to respell the words you mentioned, I'd render them as "WOOL-sə-ree" (based on the rough pronunciation you gave at "Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 42#Manual of Style: Pronunciation" – I've not come across this word before), and "DOH-nut". The IPA page needs expansion, but for pronunciation purposes I think we need to have a table like "en:Wikipedia:IPA". We already have "Help:Pronunciation" and "IPA chart for English", but these only apply to English words and not foreign words (and the two articles need to be merged). Anyway, my reason for suggesting the change to the Manual of Style is to give editors the option to add a respelled pronunciation if they think fit. At the moment, the guideline only prescribes the use of IPA. — Cheers, Truth's Out There –talk– 18:19, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think our IPA page really needs work, both the English and the German include audio samples, we should too.--Eptalon (talk) 13:52, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, you know I'd love to learn IPA, I really would. I've tried but no one has ever been able to teach me. :-( fr33kman t - c 21:31, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

From the above discussion, I think there is consensus that the Manual of Style may be amended as I suggested, so I'm going ahead to do that. In addition, the following tasks have been identified:

  • Creating a Simple English version of "en:Wikipedia:IPA" with audio samples – the audio files already exist, so it's just a matter of putting them into an article. (Perhaps the article should be called "Help:IPA"? I'm not sure why the English Wikipedia article was moved into the Wikipedia: namespace.)
  • Merging "IPA chart for English" into "Help:Pronunciation" – having separate articles on much the same subject doesn't make much sense.
  • Expanding "IPA".

Interested editors are invited to help! (Fr33kman, maybe this is a good opportunity for you to learn more about the IPA – read up on it and beef up the "IPA" article! ;-) ) — Cheers, Truth's Out There –talk– 03:17, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:PGA

Hi, just an enquiry, the SPL article was put up for voting on 15 September, 7 days ago, therefore it should close today. Is there a time today that it will close? Kennedy (talk) 12:47, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

SPL currently has 5 support votes. It needs 70% to pass, in other words: 3 oppose votes will kill it. If you think that it is unlikely to get these, you can of course promote it; if it still does, it can always be demoted later. My (personal) opinion though is that votes end midnight UTC, on the day after the last day of the vote. in other words, mignight UTC tomorrow; about 10 hours from now. --Eptalon (talk) 13:55, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Neo-Nazism?

I was wondering can you instantly block people for racism and or promoting of racist propaganda on a wikipedia? This guy added Neo Nazi symbols toMichael Schumacher. I'm not suggesting he be blocked now, but I wondered if it had been noticed at the time would it have been grounds for a block, regardless of his other edits? FSM Noodly? 20:52, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would have thought you could block them as blatant vandals - you don't have to categorize the vandalism as racism or propaganda or ... --Matilda (talk) 00:42, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've placed a warning on their talk page. Do we have templates for this? Thanks fr33kman t - c 01:39, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes we do. -- RyanCross (talk) 01:45, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Cool, I take it the rules are the same here as en, ie: any one can warn a user? Also, I'll add myself to the project list. I'm pretty handy with templates and other such stuff (ie: wikitext). Cheers! :-) fr33kman t - c 02:31, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, of course, anyone can warn users in any instance of vandalism, spamming, etc. Glad you're here to help. :-) -- RyanCross (talk) 02:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Glad to be here! Feel I probably can make bigger difference here than at en:. fr33kman t - c 03:00, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindenting) Please note that while most people will not agree with fascism / national socialism, the ideology and symbolism are only banned in a few countries (mostly in Europe). The Swastika has been in use as a symbol of good luck in many countries. And please note, we do not block people for using neo-nazi symbols, we block them because they made bad changes to articles or user pages. --Eptalon (talk) 09:27, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely correct, I have a Swastika on my bedroom door (I'm a Buddhist) :-). Use of the triple seven is use of a neo-Nazi symbol however. I agree that people should be blocked for their actions, not their ideas! You are correct in that it is illegal in many European countries, not in UK but they have an overriding rule that makes public racism itself illegal. :-) fr33kman t - c 15:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New bot?

Hi all. I've been looking through the encyclopaedia and it's apparent that many articles don't technically meet the requirements for Simple English either because of words used or words used not being defined. What do people say to a new bot that'd go round and find all words not on the BE 850 or BE 1500 lists and puts interwiki links to wikt: for any it finds that have actual entries at wikt:?? Comments? :-) fr33kman t - c 15:56, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose: I'm afraid that sounds like a recipe for disaster as it would lead to massive overlinking. At the most, the bot should add a template at the top of the article informing editors that the English in the article needs simplification. (Someone remind us what the name of that template is.) — Cheers, Truth's Out There –talk– 05:41, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
{{Complex}} (or {{simplify}} -- Creol(talk) 06:02, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In addition to overlinking issues (which could be sorted out fairly easily - ie. only link terms once per article), there is the Issue that most of these terms are not on Simple.wiktionary to begin with. The bot would most often be linking to articles which do not exist. It would also be dealing with linking to wikt: when there is an article here (usually under a different name/tence/root). -- Creol(talk) 06:02, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - I too think overlinking and linking incorrectly could be a problem. Furthermore, when I have looked at readability for articles such as Oklahoma, there are quite a few words that are not necessarily on these lists - starting of course with the article subject. That doesn't make the article a target for tagging for complex or simplifying - there is more to it than that. See for example the readability tool at Article readability (note prefix article with simple: ) and also (external to wikimedia) another tool http://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp . Perhaps the bot could test for some things and make a note on the talk page for a human to review and confirm whether the article needs tagging for improvement. Automatic linking seems an issue for the problems suggested by Truth'soutthere and Creol.--Matilda (talk) 07:09, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Due to the issues mentioned above, I'd rather do the linking manually than have bots do the work for us. It'll take a long time, but I'd rather link them myself when I see something that needs linking like normal. – RyanCross (talk) 12:54, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The following issues also occurred to me:
  • If an article has many difficult words in it, what is really needed is for an editor to review it and simplify it, not just to have all the difficult words linked to the Wiktionary.
  • It may be difficult for a bot to know the correct word to link to. Here's a silly example: say the bot comes across the term "Milky Way" and links it to "wikt:Milky Way", which defines the term as "the galaxy where we live in". However, the article could really have been talking about the Milky Way chocolate bar.
Nice idea, but I don't think a bot is smart enough for the work that is needed. — Cheers, Truth's Out There –talk– 13:15, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

:-) Kinda knew the answer before I asked, still; had to ask. I could make the bot smart enough, I've done similar stuff before (AI etc.). Okay, no problems. I agree that manually is inherently safer. Cheers :-) fr33kman t - c 13:42, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe instead of running it directly, have a bot post the changes it would make on a user subpage, so people can go through and make them (if they're good changes). That way it would still be useful. Giggy (talk) 22:24, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think to pick up on Giggy's point but use the article talk page and create a category such as Category:Article with suggested improvements. Apart from the two tools I mentioned above - another one at http://www.editcentral.com/gwt/com.editcentral.EC/EC.html gives some ideas - it reports on the varying readability indexes but also highlights the complex words. For example in the text from the subsection within the article on Ben Hall#The Araluen Robbery (157 words, 8 sentences, 4 paragraphs) it found 14 complex words (I have italicised place names) Note there were similar results also from the readability tool see results - browse down the page and look in 3rd column for highlights  :
regularly, Araluen, robbery, January, policeman, constable, Collector, policemen, reportedly, properties, Canowindra, government, Apprehension (part of the title of the legislation), Parliament.
Place names we can do nothing about and I think they are clear from the context but perhaps we can make them clearer with article links (even if they are at the moment redlinks).
Of the other words, the following are part of the Wikipedia:Basic English combined wordlist:
regular (a redlink here but is in simple wiktionary), January, policeman, property, government.
Missing are
robbery (neither it nor rob are in simple wiktionary either but we do have an article on it at robbery and the simple word is Thief which we redirect to an article on Theft),
constable (nothing here nor on simple wiktionary but there is an article on English wikipedia),
reportedly is listed as a related word in the simple English wiktionary entry for report,
apprehension (nor apprehend) have entries here or on Simple English wiktionary,
Parliament has a useful article here.
So if these words were listed we could look for other words to use or we could make useful links (but I don't think a bot could do it) and that might involve creating entries in wiktionary. A bot alerting us could be useful though.
It would be best if the bot chose words that were outside the Basic English combined wordlist. --Matilda (talk) 01:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Something else useful the bot might do would be to spot articles that have been lifted wholesale from English Wikipedia without simplification and to tag them with {{Complex}}. Some articles may have been copied over by Simple English editors in order to be simplified, but the bot can be programmed to exclude such articles if they are tagged with {{Underconstruction}} or are in editors' user namespaces (personal sandboxes). On the other hand, if a copied article has not been touched for a long time, say 60 days, then it should be tagged so other editors are notified of its existence. — Cheers, Truth's Out There –talk– 03:11, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Those ones also get tagged with {{en copy paste}} (and eventually deleted). Giggy (talk) 04:05, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is this already done by a bot? — Cheers, Truth's Out There –talk– 08:26, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

More participants needed for Wikipedia:Requests for deletion

Hello. If some users could participate in the current RfD, that would be appreciated. It has been open for days and hasn't received any !votes since. I also encourage the community to check WP:RFD often to make sure there are no expiring RfDs with little to no comments. It's hard to find consensus with no discussion! Thank you, – RyanCross (talk) 01:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GA/VGA drive..

Hello all,

In theroy, it should be easier to make a Good Article than to make a Very good one, but we currenlty have 20 VGAs and 19 GAs (39 total "better articles"). We should strive for quality, not quantity here. In other words, how long will it take us to get the number from currently 39 better articles to the symbolic 50? (ie. add a total of 11 articles with either GA or VGA status)?

Any bets? --Eptalon (talk) 17:00, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Before they fix the LHC and plunge us all into oblivion. Again. Microchip • talk 19:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This gives us about half a year...--Eptalon (talk) 08:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know?

I propose that we add a 'did you know' section to the main page. I think it would bring in a lot of people and since one of this sites target audiences is younger children I think having a 'did you know' section full of odd/funny/bizarre facts might bring more visitors/editors. It would be run along the lines of the En Wiki section but I think we could use facts from all articles, not just new ones. Obviously there will be quality guidelines ie no stubs etc but I think it would be a good idea. By the way I would be willing to run most of it if anyone wonders, just I would need an admins help for updating the main page. It's only a thought at the moment, and I wondered what the community would think of it. FSM Noodly? 19:38, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Last time I looked the Main Page was unprotected. Microchip • talk 19:45, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh thats good. Still I will need help as I'm not good with that complex formatting and would probably mess it up if I tried to add a DYK section. FSM Noodly? 19:47, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Try using Main Page/Test 1 first. Have a go! Microchip • talk 19:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How about this. The DYKs start here. Could be useful... Kennedy (talk) 22:57, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No self referential (talks about Wikipedia) DYKs please. Giggy (talk) 00:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(←) Since I do a lot of DYK work (reviewing and moving hooks to the next update) over at the English Wikipedia myself, I'll be happy to help run DYK here on Simple English Wikipedia, that is, if we even decide to add a 'Did you know...' section on the Main Page. I, for one,   Support the idea of adding a DYK section on the Main Page. If the community agrees on adding this new section, I'll start working right away on the DYK pages needed for this, along with the criteria for DYK I will propose that we can discuss. – RyanCross (talk) 04:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I like Kennedy's format for the DYK section. I think it would add alot more activity to the main page. Im not sure how great it would be if anyone at anytime could update it, how about proposing DYK's and the community voting on them? Then different groups of about 5 or so are rotated out every day or two? Just like we do with the featured articles.--CPacker (talk) 05:47, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The DYK template on the English Wikipedia (en:Template:Did you know) is updated every six hours after every update. The time between updates here would vary depending on how many accepted nominations there are. Wikipedia gets many accepted nominations from my experience. Since we don't get many non-stub articles a day, I think updating DYK once or twice a day is a good idea. But of course, we'll see how it all works out first, then we'll decide when we should update DYK depending on how many nominations we get. But we still have to decide whether we'll even have DYK on the Main Page. – RyanCross (talk) 06:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also, we need to find a place to put this link to purge the Main Page so whatever is updated actually appears on the Main Page. – RyanCross (talk) 06:05, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like I have community support then. We can vote if you want and after that I'll make the project pages. FSM Noodly? 08:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm already in the process of making them. I know most of the pages at DYK on the English Wikipedia because of my experience in that area there, so it shouldn't be too hard to make one similar to it with some improvements since our main focus is to write simple articles. – RyanCross (talk) 08:14, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindenting) I think generally, having a DYK section would be a good idea, however:

  • Where do we get the tidfbits from? (in other words: What qualities does a DYK mentioned article have to have? )
  • Suppose we get together (say) 10 snippets, will they stay the same each day, or will there be some kind of randomisation?
  • How long does something stay in the DYK?
  • Do we have enough "oddity" articles to put there?

I think attracting new users is important. Our community is pretty stable at the moment (between 20 and 30 regulars), about 10 more would be nice.--Eptalon (talk) 08:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Any article can become a DYK, generally as long as it is new (less than 5 days old is preferred), has an interesting hook, has an inline citation verifying the hook used, the article must be at least 1,500 characters long (excluding infoboxes, lists, references, other websites, etc), and the article must be simplified. Of course there's more, but these are the major ones, and we can always make more. The time something stays in the DYK on the English Wikipedia is 6 hours. That's because there are many, many hooks waiting to me moved to the Main Page. Though, since we're probably not going to receive that many nominations, let alone verified nominations, we're probably going to have to update once or twice a day (it depends). The type of hooks on DYK should be random and not about the same topics. The order of the DYKs also count. (Somewhat) Related hooks shouldn't be next to each-other. For example: It's not good to have 7 out of 8 hooks related to the United States. They should be different kinds of hooks on DYK, and not anything related to other hooks currently on the Main Page at the time. – RyanCross (talk) 08:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Suppose we can agree that we want DYK, would the next step then not be to have some "criteria" (guideline) as to what can become a DYK item?
  • 1.5k text (excluding infoboxes, lists, ...; thats about half a GA size)
  • Has a References section
  • Has interwiki links
  • Has "few" red links
Of course we could also use DYK to valorize our GAs (which currently get on mention on the Main page) --Eptalon (talk) 08:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't matter what the name of the section that has {{reflist}} is. I'm not sure if it's necessary that a DYK needs an interwiki link. I would think that our DYKs would be mostly simplified articles from the English Wikipedia, but what about the ones that haven't been created yet at the English Wikipedia or any Wikipedia for that matter. It's really new for us if not even en.wikipedia doesn't have an article about something that is a DYK here. I'll be writing out a draft of a criteria sooner or later so we can all discuss it. We'll see how this goes. – RyanCross (talk) 08:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've left some comments at User_talk:The_Flying_Spaghetti_Monster/DYK_Ideas incase you would like to see some ideas for hook formatting. – RyanCross (talk) 09:04, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • We currently are incapable of keeping up with either the VGA or GA procedures and are even struggling to get people to notice RfDs. Adding yet another side project into the mix when we can't deal with the ones we already have is not a good plan. Our editors are already overworked compared to other wikis, each new addition is just taking more time away from actually writing an encyclopedia. -- Creol(talk) 14:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rollback

Hi. We've had a rollback proposal circulating Simple English Wikipedia for yonks, but it has never been implemented. Most of the time everyone has said that it is a great idea, so I've opened up this section to check that there is still consensus. Once we've got a good consensus, we can then finally file the bug to get it going. I don't anticipate any opposition, but this needs to be done, just in case. Microchip • talk 19:44, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, this is entirely coincidental from Ryan's edit above. Microchip • talk 19:53, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So I've noticed. ;-) – RyanCross (talk) 00:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators would be the ones giving out this permission (like on en.wikipedia), yes? – RyanCross (talk) 00:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Mind you, some kind of rollbackers can give out rollback might be good. But I've not filed that. It can always be changed later! Microchip • talk 11:51, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support

  1.   Support Microchip • talk 19:44, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2.   Support - It certainly would make it easier. I use(d) it at en.wiki and it was a good tool. One click... Kennedy (talk) 19:51, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3.   Support - I just want to know, would you still have to apply to get it? FSM Noodly? 19:55, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Hrm? To get the capability to rollback, we need to notify the developers, but, once we have rollback on Simple, then any admin can give it out to normal users. Microchip • talk 19:57, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I think he means if we need to have a certain page to request rollback? I guess Wikipedia:Requests for rollback would be good, since Wikipedia:Requests for permissions wouldn't do good since we would only have one permission to give out to non-administrators. – RyanCross (talk) 00:33, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    We already have WP:AN; I don't think there'll be that much demand that we need a new page. Giggy (talk) 01:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, that could work instead. AN is a good place to request for rollback if we decide to enable it. – RyanCross (talk) 01:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  4.   Support - I cannot see the harm in letting established trusted users have the tool --Matilda (talk) 01:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  5.   Support per Matilda. Giggy (talk) 01:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  6.   Support - It makes life easier for reverting vandalism (admittedly not the problem here that it is at en: but still useful). Also, would having rollbacker at en: qualify an editor for rollback here? I don't think it should automatically qualify one, but it may provide evidence for granting it here. (sorry about the rollback icon, I couldn't stop myself)  :-) fr33kman t - c 03:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  7.   Support I didn't like the popups. Rollback is a lot better. Synergy 04:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  8.   Support - This would definitely help me some of the time. - tholly --Talk-- 16:49, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  9.   Support - I think it can benefit the trusted non-admins when reverting vandalism. I've noticed Simple Wikipedia has been receiving more vandalism than we used to. Non-admins can help with reverting quicker now with rollback as long as they know when and when not to use it and when it would be the appropriate time to use it. I think our administrators will know when and when not to allow rollback to an editor. And per my comments below. – RyanCross (talk) 18:45, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  10.   Support - Works fine on en. Why not here? Malinaccier (talk) 21:33, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  11.   Support - I recommend it because it can help with vandalism, and because it's there, anti-vandalism tools like Huggle can be used. Techman224 (talk) 00:40, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  12.   Support - I think it's a good thing. Alfred Nobel Questions? 16:14, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Comments

FYI: User:Giggy/Rollback proposal. From last time this was discussed (Check what links to it to find the last discussion). Giggy (talk) 00:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Last discussion was at Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 38#Rollback proposal --Matilda (talk) 01:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)Small Text[reply]
Umm - I have a question - why would we need this functionality when we can use popups to preview and revert? I am an admin on English wikipedia and thus I have access to it and have used it but I find the popups tools just fine too. --Matilda (talk) 01:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I know some users aren't using the right browser that allows popups to work. Rollback can be used by everyone who has the flag, no matter what browser you're using. – RyanCross (talk) 01:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
thanks for the clarification--Matilda (talk) 01:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. – RyanCross (talk) 01:31, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What browsers does it not work in? I've used IE6 and 7, FFox 1 and 3, Safari 3, and Chrome 0.2 and it works fine on all (just tested the lastest versions of all listed browser models). Opera mini browsers are likely disabled still (main proxies got blacklisted for vandalism) so maybe the main Opera, but as during all my checks, I have never seen an Opera user outside of the Omini vandal, I would not list that high on the list of browsers that are causing issues. -- Creol(talk) 14:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Out of chronological order comment: I use Opera. Microchip • talk 18:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What problems (if any) do the popups have on Opera? -- Creol(talk) 18:33, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
They appear to not work at all. Microchip • talk 18:45, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just downloaded and tested Opera 9.5. Revert not only works, but works perfectly fine. -- Creol(talk) 19:47, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't it also employ less bandwidth in doing the reversion? And less space in the DB? fr33kman t - c 04:51, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Bandwidth: Yes (both for you and for the servers). DB space: No (it's still one edit that gets saved, regardless of how it's done). Giggy (talk) 09:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Unindenting) Yes, I am an admin, I do have rollback. But I also see "undo" (which I think everyone has. Ok. needs two clicks, and gives an edit summary. Very basic question: who is likely going to profit from this? --Eptalon (talk) 09:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Surely the philosophy should be "Why not?" instead of "Why?"? Microchip • talk 12:33, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oddly, It makes admins better than other users. Admins get to solely decide if you are worthy of the tool. No debate, no discussion. You request, they chose yes or no. Of course, if one choses yes and another choses no, then the fun realy gets to begin. And we get all this for something that provides little to no improvement. I have rollback - the only time I ever use it is something that also needs admin access anyway - Bot rollback. -- Creol(talk) 14:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I've never thought of admins as better or worse than anyone else: you get some very good ones and you get some very bad ones, just like any other type of editor. Some would claim that adminship itself can be perceived this way as admins can decide if an editor should even be allowed to continue to edit, whether their edits should remain or be deleted, if they should be barred form doing a certain activity, etc. Surely an objective set of guidelines for granting could be decided? If one admin granted it outside the guidelines the way forward would be clear for the others to revoke it, if they granted it within the guidelines then it should only be revoked on evidence that the user is not able to use it correctly. Rollback is not only useful for vandalism (which does happen here) but also for userspace reverts (and one or two other narrowly defined uses). There is, I suppose, the possibility of an extra perceived layer of trust, or not. It does, however, imply that the grantee is trusted to not a) commit vandalism, b) revert vandalism and c) not abuse any extra privileges granted to them. To me, things like rollback demonstrate a taking on of extra responsibility, not power. Perhaps on simple: the community could take part in rollback granting, at least at an advisory level?fr33kman t - c 15:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with undo, is that it only does one edit. Rollback does all the consecutive edits by that user/IP. Otherwise it is several clicks going back through previous versions until you find the good one. Then click edit, add an edit summary, and save. When there have been 3 or more edits, this can take a while. Also, I've never managed to get popups working. - tholly --Talk-- 16:49, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you were not using popups, you would still have to spend the several clicks going back through the previous versions. If any of the versions were good faith, they should not be rolled back and so each would have to be checked. At that point, you either click edit, type revert and save or go all the way back to the contribitions to hit rollback which is counter-productive since you are already at the page you need to rollback to. Even if you toss AFG out the window, all it takes it grabbing the last version before that user from the history and click/type/click. -- Creol(talk) 17:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Generally, if an IP has had three consecutive edits, where the last is complete vandalism (obviously no AGF anywhere) then it makes sense to rollback. This is much quicker and then you can check the edit just to be sure. Another issue I find with undo is that sometimes when a vandal is doing several edits to an article, by the time you have got the right thing ready to save there's an edit conflict (from the IP) and you have to start the process again. If you rollback, check, then warn them, you can avoid that. - tholly --Talk-- 18:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've actually found myself using rollback quite often; I've used it mostly this month to revert vandalism. cassie (talk) 16:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like we have pretty much consensus; I'm off to file a bug. Microchip • talk 12
20, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
bugzilla:15747 Microchip • talk 12:27, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

toward a new language proposal policy

many Wikimedia community members strongly disagree with the current language proposal policy, because it is very restrictive. Now they are making a draft for new policy. You can help for it giving your ideas. Crazymadlover (m).

The above was written, according to history, at 21:10, 25 September 2008.

More editors?

Hello. EnWP has many editors, they can afford to do things like "DYK" (hinted above). If we reasonably want to do this, we need more people (not vandals, named editors). Open to suggestions on how we are going to achieve this. For your information: At the moment there are between 20 and 30 named regular editors. The number varies a little depending on what is seen as "regular editor". I would say that admins make up roughly half the team. --Eptalon (talk) 14:45, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is an excellent point! In my case, I was just a bit bored with en:'s bickering (I've been doing a lot of dispute resolution over there) and started wandering around sister projects. When I found simple, which I knew existed, I was impressed by the ability to do something that would have a larger overall impact on a project than being one in three million or so. I, personally, would have been very open to a "recruitment campaign" if one had been around. Would it be allowed to approach and encourage editors to come and have a look (or would that be dangerous?) Perhaps approach WikiProjects rather than a Villiage Pump. Perhaps also set up a set of instructions specifically for editors of other wikis would be useful? fr33kman t - c 16:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The twentyish people we have are already editing to the fullest of their capacity. If we want this wikipedia to grow (and also have people to do more projects), we need more editors.--Eptalon (talk) 16:20, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Mmmm, that's why it might be a good idea to spread the word that this place exists. When you type something into Google, it comes up with en: and one of the consequences of this it that they end up getting the editors. Unless you go looking for it, this place doesn't exist for the vast majority of en editors. The links that some of their articles have in the language bar don't help that much, I would guess, because how many people editing or reading Wikipedia think of simple english as a different "language"? When New Zealand wanted more people, they advertised overseas. Is it wrong for this place to do the same? (btw: I'm staying put, so that one more at least!) :-) fr33kman t - c 20:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I feel bad because all I've done this month is rollback vandalism; I haven't edited the mainspace other than marriage. I tried enlisting people from the PCP, but only A Link to the Past came over. I dunno how we would convince more people to come... cassie (talk) 16:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But rolling back vandalism is key: you doing so means that other editors can work on the article. Perhaps we could redesign {{welcome}}, and perhaps try and push for English Wikipedia to have our interwiki link at the top (the rationale being that WMF's vision is free knowledge for all, and linking to a simpler version of the article is surely that for those less-fluent in English). I came to here by noticing the interwiki from EN's Main Page, which I wouldn't have noticed if it was further down. Cassandra: Nice sig, by the way. Microchip • talk (SWMT) 17:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think what would help out (just a small amount), is if we welcome all new users as soon as their account is created. We should have a few more, probably personal, welcome templates made up for this purpose. Synergy 18:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've just added a notice to my userpage asking other users to head on over (viewable here). Perhaps others can do the same? Malinaccier (talk) 21:57, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've updated my page at en:. What about "Wiki-ads"? fr33kman t - c 23:25, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know anything about "Wiki-ads" but I would imagine that RyanCross would? Malinaccier (talk) 00:47, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would? I don't have any experience in creating "Wiki-adds". User page designs, yes, Wiki-adds, no. – RyanCross (talk) 00:57, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I can create it and display it in my user space for all to see first. fr33kman t - c 01:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've updated my page at en: also --Matilda (talk) 00:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Me too. Hopefully, this might bring in some new active contributers. – RyanCross (talk) 01:23, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps updating our talk pages would help also. Most people tend to go to my talk page (I'd guess) rather than my user page. fr33kman t - c 01:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(&rarrow;) Wikipedia ads. Microchip • talk 15:03, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Welcoming new user accounts

Today while adding {{welcomeg}} tags to new user accounts, I spoke with ChristianMan16 (talk · contribs) about the appropriate time to welcome a new user. When should that be? I've been using the "policy" of a new user account that has either no edits or else no inappropriate edits. Should we (do we) have a set of guidelines as to when we should welcome a new editor? My view in doing the welcomes were that get them right away, and they ay stick around (or at least not vandalize?) Comments? fr33kman t - c 02:30, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I simply think we should wait until new users make their first main space edit to welcome them because that's what I was told to by Razor.--  † ChristianMan16  02:38, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would say that its at the same time we notice that a new user has registered, we should welcome them (I mean, thats the point of welcoming them, right?). As you pointed out, this very act might retain them as an editor. Or, if they've created their account, and you just now notice them making an edit, but have a redlink talk page. I would stress though, that we shouldn't just welcome everyone dating back to the beginning because that might result in a large amount of user talk pages being created and they just might never edit. Synergy 03:41, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Which is why I said we should wait until they make their first main space edit.--  † ChristianMan16  04:30, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It shouldn't be limited to just main space edits. Some users, migrating from en.wiki will feel more comfortable making talk page edits. I just wanted to make it clear that we shouldn't be creating talk pages for the sake of it. Synergy 06:36, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Could we, somehow, find talk pages that we've created via {{welcome}} and that haven't been updated in some period of time? fr33kman t - c 19:34, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(un) We get relatively few vandals, and even fewer named ones (which arent blocked for bad username). Nevertheless I think, that welcoming a user should only be done after they have made their first few edits. We do not want to welcome vandals, do we? --Eptalon (talk) 09:48, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, we certainly don't want to welcome vandals. My criteria, thus far, has been; 1) a new user who shows up as a manually created account rather than an automatic one via SUL, 2) no edits or no inappropriate edits. I guess I think that someone who goes to the trouble of creating an account manually is probably not a vandal and might be here to be a productive editor and that just maybe, a welcome might get them to stick around. Creol's welcome to me is the reason I stuck around long enough to find out I like it here! :-) I also think that the small number of vandals that we'd end up welcoming would be worth the rest. fr33kman t - c 19:34, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just because they go through the trouble of creating an account manually doesn't necessarily mean they have good intentions.....some of them have bad intentions, they're called "Vandalism only accounts".--  † ChristianMan16  20:21, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I'm aware of what they're called. Should we refrain from welcoming the majority because of a minority? This place needs editors, 20 regulars is a likely death sentence in the long run. fr33kman t - c 22:44, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just think we should make sure they're serious about editing before welcoming them.--  † ChristianMan16  00:48, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

79, 42, 321...

Articles such as 678, 555 and 657, for example, are generally about the year. However, it may just be me, although I think otherwise, but when I see '641' most places I normally think of a number first, and not the year. Although this is probably there to facilitate date linking, consensus seems to be to not do so, and the change could easily be implemented with AWB and a "date" template, with something like [[{{{1|{{{month}}}}}} {{{2|{{{day}}}}}}]], [[{{{3|{{{year}}}}}} (year)|{{{3|{{{year}}}}}}]]. Input? Microchip • talk 18:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you're suggesting. Could you clarify? The Manual of Style was recently updated to state: "It is not necessary to add wikilinks to all dates ... Only add a wikilink if you think the reader will find useful information at the date-related article you have linked to." — Cheers, Truth's Out There –talk– 06:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. What I'm wanting is the date articles to actually be linked to the number articles instead. So 42 would link to an article about 42 being the Answer, not an article about the year. Microchip • talk 11:53, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Now that routine wikilinking of years is deprecated, I agree that having the articles named after Arabic numerals be about A.D. years is less useful. But I'd prefer that we maintain consistency with English Wikipedia, and thus have "42" remain as an article about A.D. 42 and "42 (number)" be about the numeral. There's no point being different for difference's sake. — Cheers, Truth's Out There –talk– 18:38, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pakistan editor and stubs (and categories)

The Pakistan POV editor (which has been blocked many times) has created a ton of categories that seem to contradict each other. In addition, many stubs (and even categories) are POV. Can someone with a knowledge of this help out? The only thing I know about this is that India and Pakistan have agreed to restart peace talks. Chenzw  Talk  13:45, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I'll try to fill you in, to the best of my Knowledge. More info is probably at en:Kashmir conflict. Today the situation is basically, that India and Pakistan have fought three wars (that were at least idirectly related to Kashmir). Kashmir has been split between India, Pakistan and China, more or less since the creation of the modern-day states of India and Pakistan (in the second half of the 1940s), and the secession of Bangladesh form Pakistan (in 1972, I think). We have
  • The Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir (which is basically all of Indian territory in Kashmir. Population mostly Muslim, but belongs to India.
  • The Pakistani territory of Azad Kashmir (which officially is called Azad Jammu and Kashmir); split from the now indian-controlled part after a revolt, before Independence of India, IIRC.
  • The pakistani territory of Northern Areas
  • The Line of control (with UN troops being shot at form both sides) in between.
  • The Siachen Glacier as a disputed territory, unsettled problem so far. India ocntrols the glacier, Pakistan the valley(s) below.
  • Two areas (Trans-Karakoram Tract given to China by Pakistan, disputed by India) and Aksai Chin administered by China, claimed by India.
While I do not know the details, I think we should stick to Official Naming as much as possible,alternative is to get a set (2-3 competent) editors from respective Wikiprodjects in other wikipedias.
In any case, the very first step would be to get the editor to talk.  ;) --Eptalon (talk) 14:09, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just to let everyone know they,(92.3.59.58) are currently adding category:mammals of Pakistan to every mammal article.

By this reasoning we could have category:mammals of 'country here' which is ridiculous. Blatant POV use of the category. FSM Noodly? 14:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Get this Sorted!

These entire subcategories need to be cleaned out. Any suggestions, I'm pro mass deletion of 90% of the un-wikified, POV stubs gathering dust in there, but I want other opinions before nuking it. --Gwib -(talk)- 21:12, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My only suggestion is we reduce some of it to lists. Others articles look like they need to remain, but most of that stuff will do better in a comprehensive list on each subject. Synergy 21:15, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

DONE

Geography of Pakistan

Entire category cleaned out, with over 80 deleted articles (every article without an IW link deleted). Every remaining article is a stub but has at least 1 IW link. The issue now is to remove any articles lacking content or which are NPOV.

Cities in Pakistan

NOTABLE
NB: All articles below have at least 1 interwiki link - All are stubs

Dassu seems to be the capital of en:Kohistan_District,_Pakistan - I think we could include it in an article on that District. The district has three tehsils, one of which is Dassu. Literacy is among the lowest in Pakistan (around 10%), thew peole mainly live form agriculture, and (I dont know whether that is still accurate) they don't seem ot be muslim, but hindus. In sohrt, I think while Dassu many not be notable, its district certainly is. --Eptalon (talk) 12:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Pakistani culture

NOTABLE
NB: All articles below have at least 1 interwiki link - All are stubs

Fauna of Pakistan

NOTABLE
NB: All articles below have at least 1 interwiki link - All are stubs


Union Councils of Abbottabad District

Category purged, each article has at least 1 IW link. Issue now is POV and content.

Union Councils of Mardan District

Category purged, each article has at least 1 IW link. Issue now is POV and content.

Union Councils of Punjab (Pakistan)

Category purged, each article has at least 1 IW link. Issue now is POV and content.

Fauna and Flora of Pakistan are OK as categories, but should only contain animals that are endemic to Pakistan. Counterexample: The trout and the sparrow probably occur all over the world, they shouldn't be listed here. --Eptalon (talk) 12:02, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed the cats from some of the more obvious articles (yak, peafowl etc), but in more detail, I don't know which fauna suit the category and which don't. Reading the article doesn't help, since they're blatant POV and don't give any more information on anything un-Paki related. --Gwib -(talk)- 13:36, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

STILL TO DO

Districts of Pakistan

Main category and all subcategories have not been verified. Check each article for IW links. If it has none, delete/QD it.

I guess most of them haven an IW-link already, I try to keep up with all new pages created to find the IW's. Maybe I'll have to change my username to 'Interwiki' :-) JurgenG (talk) 05:39, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tehsils of Pakistan

Main category and all subcategories have not been verified. Check each article for IW links. If it has none, delete/QD it.

Very nice work, Gwib! - As to the Tesils, these should ideally go under the districts, ie. each Tehsil should be in its corresponding district. --Eptalon (talk) 11:55, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

--Gwib -(talk)- 23:29, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nice work setting this up, Gwib. – RyanCross (talk) 23:44, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism

Sigh. I don't think we're winning the war on vandalism. This edit to mouth was there for six weeks. People clicked on that page 409 times and read "we put food when we fail". I've learned to systematically check all new edits – it's all I do now – but stuff like this that slips by really damages our credibility. alexandra (talk) 16:57, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you should be so hard on yourselves. I revert at en: and I've seen stuff that was left for weeks over there as well. I almost never revert the "quick &obvious" over there but hang around on "Recent IP edits" and let it run for an hour before going through and checking; and it's amazing the stuff that vandal fighters over there let through. :-) What bots are working here to find vandalism? fr33kman t - c 19:24, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
None that I'm aware of. Although I think it would be a good idea to have a vandalbot and a copyviobot. Synergy 19:31, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
#cvn-simplewikis Microchip • talk 20:17, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
at the nl-wiki all edits and new pages by anonymous users are systematically checked!JurgenG (talk) 06:36, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Teletubbies articles

All of the Teletubbies character articles are very bad. They all contain lots of rumours that are there to make the show look bad, and are written very poorly. I think we should redrect Tinky Winky, Po (Teletubby), Dipsy, and Laa-Laa to the Teletubbies article, and the protect the redirects, as these problems have been happening for quite a while.

Are there any objections to this? Giggy (talk) 01:43, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No. I'd say its needed as well. Synergy 01:48, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, redirect fr33kman t - c 01:57, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I went ahead and redirected them (except Tinky Winky, which is creation protected). Giggy (talk) 23:57, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've redirected the Tinky-Winky one. I'm not sure if they should be fully protected redirects though. Majorly talk 12:52, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Given that this guy actually knows the mechanics of Wikipedia (he created an account just for autoconfirmed status so he could create Tinky Winky), I would say yes, let's protect. In the meantime, I'll watchlist all of them. alexandra (talk) 16:14, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template:User wikipedia/Administrator

Hello. I created {{User wikipedia/Administrator}} based off of en:Template:User wikipedia/Administrator (though, removing the "Administrators open to recall" category since we don't have that process here). Not sure why it wasn't created before. I just thought I should let the community know. Administrators can use the userbox on their userpage if they would like. Thanks, – RyanCross (talk) 03:38, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And I created {{User:Synergy/GnomeIcon}}. If you click on the icon, it takes you to the partial essay. Synergy 03:55, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We did. See {{user admin}} alexandra (talk) 05:21, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey

I just thought everyone should know I turn 18 Sunday. Yay for me. I've been inactive a lot because I have a lot of things going on in my real life...I'm finally returning to school. I will try and get more active soon...and please review me...the link is on my user page. Have a nice day.--  † ChristianMan16  19:38, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Happy birthday :) Sebb Talk 19:39, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Welcome to adulthood! — Cheers, Truth's Out There –talk– 05:55, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Happy Birthday! Also, Truth'soutthere, you just made me realise I have dated documents at work the 31st of September. Better go fix that... :) Kennedy (talk) 08:18, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

AntiVandal Bot

Per Majorly's request I am posting here for more input on on my anitvandal bot. Basicly the bot will revert an edit if it matches a certain regex(pattern - eg '/fuck ((yo)?u|h(er|im)|them|it)/i' would match "fuck you", "fuck u", "fuck them" etc) and the user who made the edit has less than 50 edits. The bot then warns the user or if they have had all 4 warnings reports them to Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress/Bot (note: atm it cannot report IP addresses as it triggers the spam captcha, once it gets autoconfirmed status or a bot flag it will be able to report them). Also another note even if the bot is flagged it can still tell mediawiki not to flag an edit as a bot edit while still having the benefits of a bot flag (e.g. higher api reads and bypassing the spam captcha) --Chris G (talk) 12:46, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think an antivandal bot is a good idea. Cassandra pointed out the other day that we had vandalism on an article for several months. Instead of having to check every edit, a bot could be very helpful. However, I think a trial run should be done first before we launch into this. We never had anything like this before, so let's go carefully. Majorly talk 12:50, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I do not see a major problem with the bot running, but I do have some concerns on its flag (as stated on its bot request) both in need and efficiency. The note does cover the one efficiency problem at least (can't report yet). I would say leave it running and when one of the 'crats gets annoyed at it flooding (which it is not doing at this time) and is certain it is fully working we will most likely flag it. -- Creol(talk) 12:55, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You don't see to understand, the bot flag allows the bot to do high api reads and bypass the captchas, if you want the bots edits to show on recent changes the bot can tell mediawiki not to flag the edit as a bot edit. --Chris G (talk) 12:58, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Are you sure the bot can tell the MediaWiki API not to flag an edit as a bot edit? Unless there has been a change recently, it doesn't seem possible. I think what you meant is to get the bot approved but not have it flagged. Chenzw  Talk  12:59, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it can, ClueBot on enwiki runs with a bot flag yet its edits show on the rc feed. All you have to do is add &bot=0 to the end of the edit url --Chris G (talk) 13:01, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Um, can the bot be unblocked now since no one is objecting to it? --Chris G (talk) 01:45, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  Done-- Creol(talk) 02:20, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Malfunctioning

The antivanadal bot, User:Chris_G_Bot, warned User_talk:Pinky2k8 thrice about various vandalism which never happened. The bot claims to have reverted vandalism on the Oral sex page ([1]) three times and warned an innocent user about it. There is a malfunction somewhere and I've indef blocked him until it can be sorted out. --Gwib -(talk)- 05:24, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please unblock, the vandalsim did happen it was just deleted because it contains personal info, see the deletion log. --Chris G (talk) 06:28, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, Ryan probably should have kept the bot's edits deleted too to avoid confusion in the edit history. In any case, Chris appears to be correct. Giggy (talk) 11:08, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nice catch, thanks for notification. --Gwib -(talk)- 15:51, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I did delete some edits from the history since it contained personal information like what Chris G said. Thanks for the note on my talk page, Giggy. Yours, – RyanCross (talk) 00:59, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also if you see an edit that you think the bot should have reverted drop me a line and I'll see if I can create a regex for it --Chris G (talk) 11:08, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please fix grammatical error in main page

I can't see a way to fix the main page for the Simple English Wiki, but there is a grammatical error.

Here is the sentence in question: "Writing in Simple English doesn't mean that the readers want the information simple, the words are simple."

Those are two distinct thoughts and phrases. They need to be separated by a smi-colon or a dash.

If this is a page that purports to help people learning English (and is exempt from being edited by regular users) it should display proper grammar. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.142.46.146 (talk • contribs) 00:09, October 3, 2008 (UTC)

The Main Page and subpages are semi protected, so if you have a favour day old account you can change them. I have reworded the statement you pointed out. Thank you very much for pointing that out, it may have confused many readers otherwise. Giggy (talk) 04:19, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Better article process in Recent Changes

Hello all, some well-respected editors have pointed out possible flaws in the porcess we use to "tag" better-quality" articles (GAs and VGAs). If I look at the last few nominations, i notice the following:

  • Articles are generally nominated too early (in other words: the articles go through big changes from the time their are nominated to the the time they are promoted). The original idea was that the vote should more be a confirmation vote (yes, I also believe this article is good enough) than a suggestion vote (Generally, this article is of good quality, but there are three sections that should be rewritten).
  • The two-stage nomination process seems to be unclear to some. When an article is added to the list, it must meet at least half (i.e. any 5) of the respective criteria. After this, there is a time of up to two weeks to make it meet the remaining criteria. Once this is done, it can be voted on. The vote lasts for a week. There is a minimum number of 5 votes for good, and 6 for very good articles.
  • In the past, articles failed to get the minimum number of votes - probably because the community was unaware that there are articles in the queue. At some point I tried to make RAID a very good article, but it failed to get the minimum number of votes.

I have added the PVGA / PGA page to our RecentChanges header; I think we should do the following:

  • Add a column called Good Articles, with links to the criteria, the currently listed ones, and the proposals.
  • Add another column with the same info for Very Good articles.

That way if there are entries in the proposals queue the respective entry can sipmly be put in bold (This seems to work for the RfA process) Any comments? --Eptalon (talk) 10:16, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have added the respective sections, let's see if we get more input...--Eptalon (talk) 10:53, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I definitely agree for one. I put Halo 3 up and it didn't get a single vote in five days. Also people tend not to comment while it is at the proposal stage and then vote oppose when it comes to the vote, for reasons that could have easily fixed if they had been brought up at the proposal stage. Needs much more attention. FSM Noodly? 19:54, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is generally because in the voting stage, desperate nominators usually post on ST to try to rouse up votes, and that's when people notice and usually comment and vote. If all proposals were announced with equal intensity as the voting stages, maybe stuff like Jessica Alba I and SPL I wouldn't happen as badly. Oh, I guess you could throw NASA in there as well. alexandra (talk) 20:00, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Warnings

I have updated the template {{Warnings}}. At the moment, it is a tad long-winded and there are some templates included which aren't particularly important and others which should be incorporated. I'll leave it to you guys to trim out.

Warning templates
You do not have to add the PageName
  • {{subst:test1|PageName}} ~~~~ (vandalism/testing)
  • {{subst:test2|PageName}} ~~~~ (could use for nonsense)
  • {{subst:test2a|PageName}} ~~~~ (Removing content)
  • {{subst:test3|PageName}} ~~~~ (please stop)
  • {{subst:test3a|PageName}} ~~~~ (Removing content 3rd level warning)
  • {{subst:test4|PageName}} ~~~~ (last warning)
  • {{subst:test4im|PageName}} ~~~~ (only warning, for huge amounts of vandalism in a short time)
  • {{subst:test5|PageName}} ~~~~ (Blocked message)


User change (uw) templates
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Further warnings can be given by changing the 1 to 2, 3, or 4

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Gwib (talk • contribs) 13:00, 4 October 2008 {UTC) (UTC)

I didn't realize {{Warnings}} existed. This template is now out of date (and probably needs to be deleted) as I've been rationalizing our user talk page warnings. The updated table, which is transcluded on to the documentation subpages of warning templates, is {{User talk page warnings}}. — Cheers, Truth's Out There –talk– 18:27, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hiya, Mmm, what happened to {{vandalism1}}? Did I miss a discussion somewhere? I tried to use it just now and it didn't work. I had to use {{test1}} which I think assumes a bit too much good faith for the edit I reverted? fr33kman t - c 04:02, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I usually start with test2. alexandra (talk) 06:52, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Was there ever a template called {{vandalism1}}? I thought it's always been called {{uw-vandalism1}} ("uw" stands for "user warning"). For consistency, the "test" series of templates are now called {{uw-test1}}, {{uw-test2}}, and so on. — Cheers, Truth's Out There –talk– 08:16, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was given this location by RyanCross and thought I had used it in the past, I could be mistaken, however fr33kman t - c 19:59, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed article demotion or WP:PAD

Hey guys. Popped over there this morning to find two article which have been listed since July (I think), both which I think I can help salvage. Anyway, midway through it all I couldn't easily see which standard of article I was trying to save so I've created two, more specific templates with colours that differ from the standard {{pgood}} and {{pvgood}} templates to make it clearer. I hope it's considered an improvement as I found the existing system a little too confusing - not good for Simple English Wikipedia.

We currently have to articles which need help - Nickel Creek could be demoted from VGA and Lenzburg from GA. Any help there would be greatly appreciated, especially from German speakers for Lenzburg... The Rambling Man (talk) 19:20, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think that very broadly speaking the issues have been addressed? - If that is the case, re-plug the respective tag, and move the requests to the archive? - The criteria talk about listing them two weeks, not several months. --Eptalon (talk) 19:39, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Eptalon. No, I'd rather someone else (preferably the nominators?) come along and re-assess. I think Nickel Creek is much-improved but Lenzburg needs a Deutsch speaker to improve it... It was pure chance that I happened upon WP:PAD this morning. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:43, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I translated by hand as much as I could of the geography section from en:. I'll try and work on it later and see if a friend in Austria will take a look for us also. fr33kman t - c 20:58, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yesterday I took care of two, keeping one and demoting the other. It just needs to be updated, as does other things here. -- American Eagle (talk) 19:44, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed it does, but making the process simpler, more interactive and less ambiguous should be encouraged. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:46, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am a native German speaker. Can you use the talk page for Lenzburg to indicate what sections/ topics you need more of? - I'll then try a rough translation that can be fine-tuned. --Eptalon (talk) 21:25, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Uw-test1

Example:
  Thank you for trying things out on Wikipedia, as you did with "Wikipedia:Simple Talk". Your test worked, and it has now been deleted. Please use the sandbox if you want to do any more test changes, and see the welcome page if you want to learn about helping Simple English Wikipedia. Thank you.

I propose a change to, "Your test worked, and it will be deleted" The page is not always gone when you warn someone with this template. What do you think? Kennedy (talk) 09:47, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What about "it has been or will [soon] be deleted"? — Cheers, Truth's Out There –talk– 10:37, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, a combination of both would be fine with me too... Kennedy (talk) 10:40, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Risk disclaimer

I also had a go at simplyfying out risk disclaimer. See here - Any comments? Kennedy (talk) 10:12, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

different version? --Eptalon (talk) 10:47, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Aye yours is fine too. Either one is okay, as long as Wikipedia:Risk disclaimer is changed to a simpler version soon. Kennedy (talk) 10:57, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I propose to fix up the version I linked to till we are happy with it, and then copying it over the current one. The other disclaimers most likely also need a review. --Eptalon (talk) 16:15, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Content disclamer, Medical disclamer, Law disclaimer, General disclaimer (all in my userspace). Please fix to your liking. --Eptalon (talk) 16:37, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Special:ShortPages

I note it was last updated 30 September 08, how would one go about updating its contents? Kennedy (talk) 18:12, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I sometimes have panic attacks

Is it possible to control panic attacks with out the use of medication? I have had these attacks from age 13yrs to present. Im 26yrs of age will this affect my future health? In simple english will I stroke out early if the attacks continue up in years? Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.66.216.194 (talk • contribs)

Sorry, Wikipedia cannot give you medical advice. Go see a doctor. Kennedy (talk) 10:10, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As Kennedy says, we are not qualified to help you; Diseases of the nerves are sometimes caused by something called a trigger. As an example, lack of sleep can cause seizures in certain people; sometimes these people can avoid seizures by getting enough sleep. But again, we don't know your situation, and we are also not qualified to give medical advice - go see the doctor of your choice. --Eptalon (talk) 10:21, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm retiring

I'm retiring since No one really cares. I started editing regularly here to improve the wrestling articles here and most importantly to me rub it in enWP's face that I could change..I have spent a year here and nothings changed...everyone still HATES me on enWP. I've really done nothing more than waste my time here. I've had fun at times but comments like this on enWP's WP:ANI subsection HornetMan16 is what convinced me that that community will never full support my unbanning...it makes me cry looking at those comments. I was looking forward to possibly getting a 18th birthday present of unbannishment but instead I got spat in my face. I figure I better retire here while I'm ahead. Plus I gpt GED school coming up and need my head fully in that. I'm sorry it came to this. Good bye.    --  † ChristianMan16  17:39, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No need to retire from this wiki at all. But if that's your choice, so be it. It's a shame. Good luck with your future choices. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:13, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Take this from someone else who feels like they're hated on enWP... Just stay here and edit. You shouldn't be using simplewp contributions to stick it to enWP. Come back when your ready, you don't need to retire. Synergy 18:19, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I give up...everything I do on wikipedia is used against me.[2] I'm unretiring.--  † ChristianMan16  19:02, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Unretiring? Okay, good. I added a comment here on you. -- American Eagle (talk) 19:17, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As a note, I'm more active on en.wp than I am here, but I don't hate you, nor do I know a single thing about your banning. ⇒SWATJester Son of the Defender 14:32, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism that isn't vandalism

A lot of people seem to find it amusing to vandalize an article, and then remove whatever they wrote a minute after. I see this quite often, but I never really know whether to ignore it or give the user a warning. Technically they are vandalizing the article, even though they are removing it. I don't want to be a RC nazi, but it gets a bit irritating. What does everyone else think? --Isis♠(talk) 20:50, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think you slap with a warning....Technically vandalizing an article and it is unconstructive.--  † ChristianMan16  21:26, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
When I RC patrol, I tend to not warn everyone. I dislike warning one-off vandals and will slam down a test2 if they vandalize after I've reverted their edit. For someone who self-reverted, clearly just really testing, but i'd slam a test2 down if they tried that again. alexandra (talk) 22:20, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's sound advice fr33kman t - c 22:52, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You know, we have {{uw-selfrevert}}, a warning specifically made for users who vandalize, then revert/remove their edit. And I also agree with Cassandra's point. – RyanCross (talk) 06:38, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was LOOKING for that...grr...it wssn't on the {{Warnings}} template. alexandra (talk) 06:39, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Now it is. I originally found the warning template a while ago at WikiProject User Warnings. – RyanCross (talk) 06:45, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strickly speaking, by policy, you vandalize you get warned. Self reverted or not does not matter. Personally, I rarely warn one-off vandals. Most are rarely worth my time to send a warning and most aren't likely to follow it anyway. If they keep vandalizing, then its an issue and pointy sticks may be required, but a drive by single pop is easier to just revert and forget and the outcome tends to be the same. If the vandalism is obviously abusive, use your discression. If its repetitive, blast away. Unless I feel there is a good chance they are going to continue and I will have to take further action to deal with the situation, my time is better spent doing other things than warning each one-off vandal on a dynamic IP of what they already know is wrong. If its petty, ignore.. Each person decides for themselves which category each vandalism falls under and should decide how to deal with the matter. If any selfreverted vandalism annoys you, follow up and warn them. Not an issue. Do what you feel is the right thing to do. If it all falls under petty nuisance school/poo vandalism which you find beneath the need to comment on, fine as well. We have multiple premade warnings available should you chose to warn (too many by my call - 1. don't be a dumbass 2. Quit being a dumbass 3. serious.. stop being a dumbass or else. 4. bye-bye dumbass - good enough for me..) Have faith in your choice and do what you feel is best for the project. That should always be first and foremost. -- Creol(talk) 08:22, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
WP:IAR :) Chenzw  Talk  08:32, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's one rule that can't be used on, Chenzw. Good points, Creol.--  † ChristianMan16  05:01, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User:Jonas D. Rand/Transparency

I have created a transparency proposal. Other proposals and comments are appreciated. — Jonas (talk · proposal) 02:38, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My goodness, I disagree with about 98% of that. I think you watched too much of the debate. Wow -- American Eagle (talk) 03:59, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I watched none of the debate, if you mean the presidental debate, or vice-presidential debate. Remember, everyone here is not from the U.S. OK, irrelevant. — Jonas (talk · proposal) 04:01, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, that may be cool if you weren't from the U.S, but you clearly list on your user page that you're from Las Vegas, so AE's question is relevant. alexandra (talk) 05:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
IMO, Public Logging is fine, however the rest of it seems to be build on the fear of a cabal that doesn't exist(seriously no one talks in that channel and if they do talk its normally just a hello or a quick exchange of words). Also I think this policy should only apply to #wikipedia-simple the rest of the irc channels are out of our jurisdiction --Chris G (talk) 06:01, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly Disagree with logging of IRC chat. I also disagree that major decisions are made on IRC rather than on-wiki. We need community consensus, not just those who happen to turn up on IRC at the time. I don't believe it is happening now though. Kennedy (talk) 08:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Disagree with public logging - It sounds scary, where everything you say will be published. IRC is meant to be a "retreat" (feel free to replace with another word), not a battleground. I think only private logging should be done (at most). Chenzw  Talk  08:15, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindenting) Hello there, I basically disagree with what's said here. Most of what occurs on IRC is irrelevant. It therefore also does not need to be logged publicly somewhere. If any editor keeps personal logs, that is different. So far, I have not seen any decision that was taken on IRC. Given that most of our editors live in different timezones, IRC is impractical at best (that is to say: It is far easier to post a proposal on-wiki and wait for comments). The most you get from IRC will be a few editors talking about improving an article together (this does not need logging), though most of the time IRC is really irrelevant chit-chat (unrelated to what this Wikipedia is trying to achieve).--Eptalon (talk) 09:06, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I don't think that logging is needed, or even desired, but I'd still not want any decisions being made off-wiki (by any means really). fr33kman t - c 12:51, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I never said that decisions are made on IRC. I said that since no-one is on IRC for an infinite period of time, no-one has any knowledge of what's happening on IRC at any time other than the people involved in the discussion at that time. So we don't know what's being said, it is just private and secret. Although most of what is discussed on IRC at the times I was there is not major, it has every possibility of being, at any point in time. Chenzw, I understand the privacy conundrum, and the "Big Brother" issue, but not your comparison to a battleground. I think that it is best that some standard for accountability is set and that people follow it. There should not be anything discussed on IRC that is confidential. There should be no revelation of personal information that would not be discussed on-wiki. In a nutshell, it is a preventative proposal.

Chenzw describes it as a "retreat". I said that socializing should be okay, but otherwise, Wikipedia rules should apply there. If the only thing on IRC is "irrelevant chit-chat", as Eptalon describes it, then I would permit it. It's no big deal to chit-chat irrelevantly.

Just for those who do not have English as their mother language, or those who do not understand "preventative" in the context that I used it in, I do not mean blocking editors who one thinks is in a conspiracy to make WP reflect their personal points-of-view. I mean making sure that they don't by eliminating the privacy of an avenue that they can plot such a thing. — Jonas (talk · proposal) 20:27, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What's the problem you're trying to solve? Giggy (talk) 07:17, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia rules cannot by definition apply outside of Wikipedia. IRC is a service provided by freenode. Our rules here have no authority there. ⇒SWATJester Son of the Defender 14:24, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Writers?

Hello there, I just created (or rather: copied and simpilfied) an article on George Sand. Sand was a very important writer for 19th century France, possibly she was one of the first feminists (though that flag was probably slapped on her after her death). I just noted that we lack articles on Gustave Flaubert and others from the same period. Given that many people here are from the US, it would perhaps be good to get a list of writer-articles that should be created; possibly in collaboration with the respective other wikipedias. I couldn't name any improtant 19th century writers from Spain (or from the spanish-speaking territories in the Americas), for example. Any comments? --Eptalon (talk) 09:22, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

TOTW?

Can someone please proofread and ipmrove our current translation of the week? - Thanks--Eptalon (talk) 14:09, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm on it. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:07, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed a typo and changed the word "Breast" to "Chest" as I think it makes better sense this way... Kennedy (talk) 15:13, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done. I fixed a bunch of typos, reworded a few bits and pieces, made a number of wikt and other links. Removed the complex tag since I think it's okay now. Oh, and moved it to Ancient Greek boxing (decapitalised boxing)... Hope it works for everyone. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:30, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindenting) Fix red-links, propose as GA? ;)--Eptalon (talk) 15:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You must tell us your secret TRM. I read that full thing, and found a single typo. You seem to pick up spelling mistakes very well. Are you part-robot? Kennedy (talk) 15:40, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm more machine than man now..... Yeah, GA potential - needs more references for me, red links aren't such a major hurdle at GA... The Rambling Man (talk) 16:20, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Should red links, such as that, be removed from articles? LIAM / LIAM mailbox 15:52, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A red link points to an article that isn't there. This can have several reasons:
  • We don't have an article on that particular subject (yet)
  • We do have an article, but it is somewhere else (try a keyword search, before creating a new article). Often a redirect will help.
And no, please do not create the article red link. :) --Eptalon (talk) 15:57, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Over at English Wikipedia, Good Article and Featured Article reviewers do not like to see red links, which is why I generally don't add them to articles unless I'm about to create new articles with the red links. However, from the discussion in the section immediately above, it seems that red links are not a problem for Good Articles here at Simple English Wikipedia. — Cheers, Truth's Out There –talk– 05:26, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Today's random statistics!

Random SEWP statistics
Hits of the word retiring 110
Hits of the word wikibreak 110
Number of people {{retired}} 4
Most often edited article United States
Amount metaspaces outnumber mainspace 63,000
The Answer 42
Smallest article size 36 bytes
Users on wikibreak 16
Oldest active editor Eptalon
Most visited page in August 08 (excluding Wikipedia) List of Disney characters
Number of leaves 69,105
Most active IRC editor Tholly
Most active gender on SEWP (judging by IRC) Male  
Stats as per 9 Oct 08 @ 5:00 UK time
Enjoy. BTW, I'm interested in how many people get the leaves statistic without looking it up. Microchip • talk 18:23, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't look it up. Instead, here's a clue for those wanting to know: >_ Microchip • talk 18:39, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Gwib now knows the answer   -- stats updated. Microchip • talk 18:44, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed new policy/guideline

I have written a short yet effective new policy/guideline, IMO. Please expand on it and Hopefully is will become official. It's located at Wikipedia:Family.--  † ChristianMan16  19:42, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Any attempts to tinker with the collaborative dynamic between us Wikipedias would be more destructive than constructive. The policies of civility, no personal attacks, and such already promote a helpful and warm environment; I don't believe we don't need anything else. Least of all I do not view the time I spend here as family time nor do I think the relationship is a family one, and would feel awkard if this was made policy. alexandra (talk) 19:45, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that...but I wrote this cause a lot of people here know my health problem and worry about me. A lot of people wished me happy birthday. We are such a small community that that's what I see us as and After what I saw about four editors (maybe more) commented about me on WP:ANI#HornetMan16 I really felt like a had a second family here...Thus the proposed policy.--  † ChristianMan16  19:49, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Given that wikipedia is filled with editors from all walks of life we will always have a difference of opinions. That being said, I don't believe we need something of this nature and I agree with Cass. It also sounds mildly like a mob mentality (or just the Mob) I wouldn't like to see. Synergy 19:52, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please try to improve on it...it may be of some use.--  † ChristianMan16  19:54, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry. I just don't think this is what wikipedia, or simplewp is all about. Synergy 19:56, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well that's your opinion.--  † ChristianMan16  19:57, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and here is more of my opinion. You should really put this into your userspace before it gets deleted. Synergy 20:10, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
 
Here's my thoughts. Microchip • talk 20:38, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wow. It got deleted. What did it say? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:01, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's now at User:ChristianMan16/sandbox/WP:Family...I'm now closing this discussion since everyone is against it...I guess I really don't have a second family here.--  † ChristianMan16  21:03, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's not true, but prehaps the idea of a 'family' is too much for some users? I personally think of us as a team, or prehaps a group of friends. We'll probably all stick up for each other; but Wikipedia is first and foremost an encyclopedia -- the community is close because we share the same common goal; not by design. Microchip • talk 21:25, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
TRM: User:ChristianMan16/sandbox/WP:Family Microchip • talk (late sign) 21:28, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It works ok as an essay, but not as a policy. You can't enforce people to act like a family, and sometimes we don't. It's not clear and precise enough for policy, and since it won't apply to everyone (certainly, there are people here who I don't act like family with, I don't think anyone's going to block me for that) it doesn't work as a policy either. ⇒SWATJester Son of the Defender 14:19, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm back!

Hello all and I can't even begin to tell you all how glad I am to see all of you active editors on this site :). Hello to all of the editors on this site that I have had the most contact with in the past; you know who you are. I have been gone for the past 2 or so months because of what happened as a result of my last RfA, and now that I have moved on from that finally, I can come back and edit here every so often. I will not be editing as much as I have in the past, but you will see me on here every now and again, reverting vandalism and nonsense changes, QDing stuff that needs to be QDed, and generally chatting it up with other users. Hope you all are doing great and see you around this site! Cheers, Razorflame 16:41, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome back dude. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:44, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Don't know you, yet; but Welcome Back! fr33kman t - c 17:04, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Welcome back, Razor!--  † ChristianMan16  17:14, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to everyone who welcomed me back and thanks to everyone who noticed that I am back. I still have designs on that sysop flag, however, I am keeping my end of the bargain (if you don't remember, I promised TBC that I would not try again for at least 9 months into the future (2 months ago)) and will not request adminship for at least 7 more months, if not longer. I hope to see many of the active editors on this site continue to edit on this site and I hope to see you then. Cheers, Razorflame 17:44, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikibreak

I'm taking a wikibreak after what happened on enWP...I'm a little angered so I'm taking time off to clear my head....talk to y'all then.--  † ChristianMan16  02:51, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I hope you realise that continually making statements similar to this is what makes the English Wikipedia community disinclined to unban you. To continue with them shows a distinct lack of Clue levels, which is what is stopping you (amongst other things) from being unbanned. Daniel (talk) 05:07, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I find this a sign of Maturity to walk away and calm down, Daniel. PLus I have to get ready to return to school.--  † ChristianMan16  06:15, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not everything has to be announced on the Simple talk page...for instance, American Eagle has gone on wikibreak, but you wouldn't know it unless you visited his user page. alexandra (talk) 06:18, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I know it didn't have to be, but I wanted to.--  † ChristianMan16  06:19, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]


End of My Wikibreak

I'm back! I shouldn't be around very frequently, but definitely more than before. I had a major examination. Did anything major happen since September that I need to know; changes in rules, maybe? Thanks! Minor or Prime 09:24, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not much happened. Most of the major discussions can be found by just looking here, at Simple talk and the recent archives. We also have three new administrators: Tholly, Kennedy, and myself. – RyanCross (talk) 20:39, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Picture

I have an original picture of Carnegie Hall (spelling?)

I would like to know if it is worth anything.

It is approximately 16x16 in size.

If it's free, go ahead and upload the image to commons:Main Page. – RyanCross (talk) 20:37, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

administrators: How to get there

I'm thinking of becoming an administrator, but there is one problem: How do I become one? Please answere ASAP and answer on my talkpage. NYC43 (talk) 22:39, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You have to first be an experienced and trusted editor to our community. You have to meet our criteria for adminship also. You can request at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. When you think you're ready, and if you think you could use the tools to help the community further, then go ahead and request for adminship. But please don't request now. You're obviously new to Simple English Wikipedia. I suggest at least 3 months of active editing. Thanks, – RyanCross (talk) 23:13, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Repeating what had already been said on his talk page? Banned for repetition. --Gwib -(talk)- 23:15, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, hah, I didn't see that. Well, he can look here also. – RyanCross (talk) 23:24, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Heh. "Banned for repetition". You should have put "C-c-c-combo breaker" as his block reason... J.delanoy talkchanges 01:51, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would also suggest not sockpuppeting as a successful technique. --Isis♠(talk) 01:58, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wanted to created a new web page in wiki

I wanted ro create a new web page in wiki like: "http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Main_Page" Can anybody tell me where to start from?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vivekbhat9 (talk • contribs) 17:52, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to make a page like that, I would suggest creating and account and creating a user subpage (like User:Your name/Your subpage). You shouldn't make a page like that in the namespace (article space), though, because it is not an article. To be honest and somewhat blunt, I don't think a page like that is really needed at all...but if you must, use a user subpage. Thanks, --Isis♠(talk) 18:33, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If I understand you (Vivekbhat9) correctly, you want to know how to start your own wiki, not how to contribute to Simple English Wikipedia. You'll need to install some wiki software on your computer, and probably on a computer server that is on all the time as well. See "en:Personal wiki" for more information. — Cheers, Truth's Out There –talk– 17:44, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The software Wikipedia uses can be found here. Microchip • talk 18:52, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Jimi Hendrix at WP:PAD

I've nominated Jimi Hendrix for very good article demotion. In my eyes it's not even GA standard right now. If anyone would be interested in salvaging it, please contribute. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:50, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template:pvgademotion

This template contains the phrase "it can be voted on." I think this should be changed to "it can be discussed." instead as per Wikipedia is not a vote. Comments? fr33kman t - c 19:07, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  Done, what do people think? - tholly --Talk-- 19:12, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The word "vote" is endemic to this Wikipedia... see Wikipedia:Criteria for administratorship, WP:PGA and WP:PVGA for instance. Please be careful that if you're going to change one then you change them all. This probably is a case which requires discussion rather than just changing one instance of the use of "vote"... The Rambling Man (talk) 19:18, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think that there are things that can be votes and a great deal more that can't be. As far as I am concerned RFAs can be votes, it's kinda like electing a sheriff for a town and I think that people should be able to support or oppose with no further comment required, that is a vote. If an RFA was to close as successful with 2   Support's who've made outstanding arguments for that nominee, and with 10 opposes that said nothing whatsoever other than   Oppose, then the community would be up in arms and they'd be right because it should be a vote (editors might not want to say why they oppose, could be hurtful). When it comes to process or content, however, argument should win, not numbers. fr33kman t - c 21:02, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, forgot to say that I do think this needs community discussion :-) fr33kman t - c 21:03, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, that was quick! Walk the dog, come back and it's done. fr33kman t - c 21:02, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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