Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 77

User:Nameless User's stubs

Hello all. Just a quick question on a decision made by a number of the community to delete a bunch of stubs created by User:Nameless User citing A4, i.e. "does not show notability". Now then, far be it from me to agree that we need a flood of stubs per "x is a city in y" or "a is an asteroid" or "d is a river in e", but the articles created by NU were clearly more than that. Also, in my opinion, they generally did "assert" notability, without necessarily providing verifiable evidence. I know he used to add a reference (which seems to have stopped lately), but in a number of recent A4 deletion cases, we've lost international footballers who have represented Juventus (e.g. Cesare Prandelli) and European club and international football managers (e.g. Josip Kuže). At the same time, the community voted to keep Tam, an article without any verifiable sources whatsoever, and with far less information than the stubs created by NU. As an aside, in all cases, the stubs that are created by NU plenty of inter-wiki links.

Some thoughts:

1. I am curious as to whether the community has taken this stance to stop another "a is a city in b" flood.
2. I am curious as to whether we ought to seek verifiability rather than delete clearly notable stubs under a speedy criterion.
3. I am curious why the community saved Tam but is happy to delete the many (much more comprehensive) stubs that NU created and then block him (especially after he admitted that his English is poor and that he felt he couldn't expand stubs with prose particularly well).

We perpetually bemoan the lack of editors we have, and yes, creating a flood of clearly "useless" stubs (of the "a is a city in b" for "a, b" stubs) is pointless, but NU's stubs did assert notability. He also said he didn't feel comfortable expanding them - he's now been blocked for a week. That's probably not going to attract other, foreign-language editors who need a bit of help adding some verification to their stubs. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:28, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I honestly do not have much to add except to say that I am in full agreement with your stance as presented in your last paragraph and am utterly perplexed by point three. ···Lauryn 15:35, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Same as Lauryn. Griffinofwales (talk) 15:36, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Stubs need to show some sort of notability, not just that the thing existed. For example, one of the stubs deleted read: "Josip Kuže (born 13 November, 1952) is a former Croatian football player.". That's it. (Interwiki links are not a sign of notability - in fact, Nameless User creates similar articles on English Wikipedia anyway). We are not a directory for football players. I deliberately didn't delete the stubs which at least contained a table and further prose (such as "He is the manager of...") which therefore showed notability. The example I gave says nothing, not even what team played for, if he even played professionally. No notability was shown at all.

The biggest problem for me is his method in creating the articles en masse, clearly with no care or desire to expand them. As I mentioned, we are not a directory for football players, and when someone presses the random button, they shouldn't have to see a stub on a football player every 10 or so times. People look at these articles to either a) Help their English or b) Get an overview of a topic without it being too detailed and complex. These stubs provide neither of these opportunities. Many are near (or complete) duplicates of their English Wikipedia version, so why would anyone come here to read them? Another problem is the way he floods recent changes with these so-called articles, making watching for vandalism difficult. His refusal to at least slow down and stop flooding new pages (three in a minute) is what has caused me to block him, because such unco-operativeness is not workable on this project. Majorly talk 16:09, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

And, I never complain about a lack of editors. We have plenty of editors, just those editors are (mostly) not doing article work (such as myself generally). My opinion on stubs is probably well known, but I don't really like them. If I had my own way, I'd eliminate them all and expect new creations to at least be a paragraph or so long. People look to encyclopedias to find information about a topic. What Nameless User is doing is creating a huge index of football players, and expecting other editors to come along and expand them. Well, I am 99% sure that's not going to be happening any time soon. All the while, they are inflating our article stats needlessly, filling up Special:Random and flooding recent changes making it useless to follow. Majorly talk 16:19, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree with TRM. The example above of Cesare Prandelli said which teams he played for, asserted that he was a professional soccer player which is an assertion of notability. While you might not like the way he is creating them, it is a valid way to create the article. There is no rule against creating stubs, and stubs as long as they assert notability can not be speedy deleted. You overstepped when you deleted these articles. Just like last time you deleted a bunch of his articles and were reversed. -DJSasso (talk) 16:22, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I've gone back to August 2007 and I can't see any mass deletion of footballer articles in my logs. They would be blue in the log, if they were overturned, and while there's a blue link here and there (possibly because the page was recreated legitimately at a later date) there are no large groups. Please show me which articles were deleted and reversed. Majorly talk 16:42, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

The Josip Kuže article (unless I'm wrong) had an infobox which contained a substantial amount of information which did assert notability. It stated that he had played for 11 years for Dinamo Zagreb, managed a host of teams, including two international teams, and really all it needed was a reference. I don't need the interwiki links to know this is clearly a notable person. I feel there's a certain element of the misuse of speedy deletion here.

NU clearly prepares the articles off-wiki then adds them en-masse. Has anyone attempted to suggest he adds a reference to his stubs to enhance the verifiability (and hence prove the notability to one-and-all) of these articles? Sure, we're not a directory for football players but as I said, NU's articles have a load more info than the asteroid, rivers, US city stubs we continually discuss.

Finally, NU is not a native English speaker and has said that he doesn't feel able to expand his stubs while he does feel able to create the statistical stubs. My suggestion is that if someone had taken the time to show him what sort of references we need, and to request the flood flag before adding his stubs, he wouldn't have needed a week-long block. But I expect it's too late to do anything about it now and so we're, once again, one more editor down. Tam (without reference) was voted as no consensus to delete at AFD, while top level footballer and international football manager (without reference) was speedied. Ho hum. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:25, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't take notice of things in the infobox. They should be in the prose, which would stop it being a one-line stub. As I already said, I did not delete the ones that clearly asserted notability in the prose. Possibly I am ruthless with deletion because frankly these pages are destroying this project. We are not a database of footballers, and that's all these pages contribute.

As for his creation methods, he has been asked to slow down and take more care but he clearly ignored message from myself and Barras. What he needs to add to his articles is substance. Not kbs of stuff, but at least the team which the player worked for, how long etc. Keeping that in the infobox and not in the article doesn't help people with EAL.

His articles are basically an index of basic stats on players, that don't tell anyone about the player. I think somebody with his level of experience, and time on wiki, should know that articles need referencing. Trying to compare his stubs to another unrelated article is, well, apples and oranges. He quit when all his stats pages were deleted, then came back continuing the mass creation of stubs on players instead.

Regardless, as with all my actions on here, anyone is free to reverse as long as they inform me. However, I think that mass creation makes deletion via RFD difficult because there are so many similar articles to check through, so if someone does undelete, I hope they improve the page to a more acceptable standard. Majorly talk 16:42, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

• Just my opinion: Keep all the (shit) or delete all. To keep some and delete some others doesn't help at all. The creations of NU are (sorry) very poor. He adds to every article a references section even if the article doesn't have a reference. I did lately lots of clean up work. Look at the edits I made to his creations. Most of his creations are orphaned and also with unneeded section headers. That's not accurate. I'd agree with Majorly on the thoughts of stubs. Stubs should at least give an overview about the topic (around 3 to 5 sentences). People come here to look up information that are easy to understand and not that complex as the articles on enwiki. It doesn't help at all to provide many articles with no information. It's better to have only 20,000 articles which are good ones. Quality is (at least for me) more important then quantity. Also please note that I'm not a native speaker and I think that my creations aren't very bad (even thought that I need some help from time to time). Again referring to NU stubs: all or none. -Barras ^talk 16:29, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

  Absolutes are a bad thing, nothing should ever be all or none. See en:WP:ALLORNOTHING for a better explanation. In my personal opinion having a one line stub is better than no information at all. Because even that one line (and infobox) has some information. We are here to get as much notable information as possible and to present it in a simple way. An example of how a one line stub is better than nothing, is that a person tends to be more likely to expand an article than to start one. -DJSasso (talk) 16:36, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

One liners are worse than redlinks: redlinks show the end-user that the article doesn't exist (and therefore is incomplete); one liners give the impression that the (and, indeed, in practice, are) articles are complete -- which is a bad place to be in. If someone is going to create three articles a minute, then clearly, not enough effort into the articles are made. — μ 16:43, Tuesday January 12 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Barras and Microchip08. They give a false impression of our project. We apparently have over 58,000 articles. How many of them are actually articles and could help someone learn about a topic properly? More than the guy's date of birth? Majorly talk 16:46, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

You mean "more than guy's date of birth, all the clubs he played for and all the clubs he managed"? Anyway, once again the community is clearly divided and we've driven away another editor who (for the third time of saying it) says he is unhappy with English prose - it's not as simple as just saying "clearly not enough effort into the articles are made". That's unfair to non-native English speakers making an effort. And Barras, you're way out of line stating the stubs are "shit". Disappointing.

Speedy deletion is, in my opinion, clearly inappropriate for these articles. In fact, I see that en.wiki has removed it's A4 criterion for speedy deletion. I know "we're not en.wiki" but interesting nevertheless. These articles all clearly showed notability, they just lacked verifiability. Would these have been speedy deleted if a reference was provided?

Proposal: if I worked with NU to help him add at least one good reference and he agreed to create articles at a slower rate, could we unblock him and continue editing without too much further drama? The Rambling Man (talk) 16:59, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I would tend to agree with Barras's negative remark, except my description would be more "lacking quality". Enwiki's A4 is not the same as ours: their equivalent is A7, which is still used. I disagree they showed clear notability otherwise I wouldn't have deleted them.

Regardless, I'm happy for you to unblock and work with NU, as long as the articles created contain more than two sentences. Otherwise, we are just flooding this project for no good reason. Unless of course you're prepared to expand each one yourself. Majorly talk 17:06, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I won't undo your or Mercy's deletions, but you simply cannot use speedy deletion to summarily delete articles which do assert notability (i.e. player and/or manager of top-division football clubs or international teams throughout the world). And once verified, they will need to go through standard deletion procedures. All I'm advising is that if someone had bothered to try to help him rather than just threaten him, or go on to call his work shit, we may be in a better position. About 90% of our articles "lack quality", but we can all work on them all together. Note his talkpage, and read what Creol told him a year ago. I quote "Notability you already got covered with Category:Footballers, but in many cases that can be taken a step further to take care of nationality as well, ie Category:English footballers." - talk about giving a non-English editor mixed messages. Anyway, job done now, the articles are on their way and the editor is gone. And I can see I'm fighting a losing battle with anyone prepared to discuss it (apart from nemesis!) so I'll stop talking now. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:15, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and anyone want to delete Council, Idaho, or is that okay? Or 920s which actually has no content about the 920s whatsoever... The Rambling Man (talk) 17:17, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

TRM, I think you should drop the sarcasm. I've said I'm happy for you to work with him, and you (and any admin) are free to undelete whichever articles you please. We disagree on what is notable, and what isn't. Perhaps I shall no longer delete stuff I think lacks notability, and RFD it instead. Problem with that is it's cumbersome and time-consuming. Majorly talk 18:09, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

It's really not sarcastic. Are you arguing that Council, Idaho or 920s are somehow notable from the information in the article while those you deleted weren't? There isn't even anything in the 920s article at all. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:11, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm not. I'd really like to delete them actually. But I shall leave them, because I clearly have a problem with deleting stuff. Majorly talk 18:15, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you do, but I do think this Wikipedia has an overall problem of how to use speedy deletion and what is an assertion of notability. How the community voted to save Tam, was, in general, happy to see the deletion of several internationally prominent footballers, but stand up for Council and 920s is utterly beyond me. No wonder editors are confused, particularly when Creol told NU a year ago he had clearly asserted notability with the categorisation of his stubs. Anyway, I'll see if I can recover the situation and get NU moulded into a more "acceptable" editor. Hopefully the criteria I've asked him to edit under are generally acceptable and articles he may create that I move to the mainspace won't be deleted for fear of us becoming a directory of football articles. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:19, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't wanted to be unkind with the word "shit"... You know how I think about these articles especially as I know that even a non native speaker can do a good article work. Also I've no problem if you monitor NU and help him with the articles. -Barras ^talk 17:09, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

• Just as a note from a non-native speaker: If I would look up information in English, I would use enwp. A stub about something/someone wouldn't help me. If I look up something, I want to find some information and not just that there is something/someone (because I simply know that there is something, otherwise I wouldn't look up this). I'm not going to look up something to write about the things I'm looking for. Just an example: A German student (English is in Germany the second language) is surely not really willing to write for a wiki when s/he just wants to find information. The only thing you can find on simple are the interwikis to en/de/fr where the articles are more helpful for someone who's looking for information. -Barras ^talk 17:09, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
• I think the block was in order. Just remind him to take some care, and make sure these people really pass the notability threshold. I am fine with one line stubs on subjects that can be expanded on, for example I created the Paul Stanley article, and it is very short as I know nothing of the man, but the article can be easily expanded by somebody with some knowledge on the subject. These footballers, I just don't see them ever becoming more than a storage zone for rosters and player stats, and I don't think that is what Wikipedia, or any encyclopedia is for. If it is possible to expand these articles to explain their topics, keep them. If expansion isn't possible, I don't see them as much use here.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 22:50, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, NU has not contacted me about my offer of mentoring, nor has he edited his userpage since the block. So that's one less editor. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:34, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

He's still blocked, and FWIW he went AWOL when his season stubs got deleted at RFD. I think giving it more time would be more appropriate. Majorly talk 00:25, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

(<-) Hello there. I don't think there are many editors here who do not know it yet, but English is not my first language. I have learnt two other languages (French and Latin) before I could have a go at English. All what I say here is not directed against Nameless User, it should apply to pretty much any stub we have. Articles here should fall into four categories: stubs, "normal articles", GA, and VGA. In this, a stub is at the lowest level. For a stub to "work", it should:

• Give a short overview of the subject.
• Assert why the subject is notable.
• Provide pointers/hooks how it can be extended.
• Have at least one (even broad) category.

Contrary to what other people think:

• IMO, a stub does not need a reference
• We should not limit the scope of what the stub is about.
• We should not delete stubs that meet the criteria given above, if this can be avoided.

If I now look at a random article Nameless User created, say Kim Grant:

• It tells me about that player, with some basic vital info
• It gives me a table with statistics of that player; the table has a reference.
• It has an infobox with other statistics.
• It has categories, other than the "BD template" ones.

When Nameless User comes on, he creates a number of these articles all in a short time. This floods the recent changes, so there he should probably ask for a flood flag. Other that this, I cannot really reproach anything to Nameless User. (Note that I am not interested in football, and therefore cannot judge the content; for a reference this is the article about Kim Grant at EnWP). --Eptalon (talk) 12:22, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Portals?

Hello, I'm Cremepuff222, a new user to the simple wikipedia. On the english wikipedia, where I edited for three years, portals were sorta a big thing. I wasn't aware that simple didn't have portals, until I started to create the origami portal. I realized then that there wasn't even a namespace for portals. I think that as simple becomes larger, portals will become even more necessary to organize related articles and coordinate improvements to articles related to the portal. Does anyone else support implementing portals on simple? --cremepuff222 (talk) 05:35, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

whynot I don't see a huge reason NOT to and it couple possibly do good, possible loss of editing time on main space I guess? I honestly don't think it would be that bad though. James (T|C) 05:41, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I wholly agree with James, just give it about 12 hours, people will chime in with that excuse.--  † CR₉₀  07:07, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure they'd be done well at first. However I don't think they'd be updtated regularly enough. I think making articles non-stub or even (V)GA seems more important to me. Yottie ^=talk= 09:03, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

No, no, no, no, and once more no. I've lost track of the amount of times that this has been brought up in recent times, and the answer is still no. Why? See here, here and here for starters. Three community processes with waning activity levels. We are struggling to sustain these processes as it is; creating Portals is an undeeded thing and only diverting further effort away from what we have. As Yotcmdr says the majority (and I mean, 58,000 articles) are stubs or sub-stubs and we should work on expanding the core topics to GA or VGA before we even think about adding any more reasons for people to not bother editing mainspace. There's a reason why we try and bot as many things as possible, so people don't have reasons to be distracted. The Portals will just go stale after XX days. Therefore, it's a no; "No.". Goblin 10:44, 13 January 2010 (UTC) I ♥ Fr33kman! WP:FAQ anyone?

While I am not as vehemently adamant as Goblin, I do share his sentiment that we need more good articles/notable articles, and more activity on that project. I have my fingers in both pots, as I currently have an article up for GA (Joe Biden) and also have been tinkering from some sort of American Biography portal Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Trails blazed)} 16:04, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with BG. We need less things that distract from actual article work. -DJSasso (talk) 16:28, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Portals are a good idea, which is why they'll never get implemented. ···Lauryn 17:08, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

How on earth does that come into it Kate? (Sorry, 'Lauryn' [which, btw, is technically a vio.]) We don't shoot things down because they are good ideas, we say no because they are not feasible. Read my rationale above again, then perhaps come up with an intelligent response. WP:PVGA, WP:PGA, WP:DYK and much more have all been implemented because they were good ideas, not because they were shit ones. (S'cuse the French.) I suggest you rethink your response, because it's complete and utter toot, in the words of Lord Sugar. Goblin 17:11, 13 January 2010 (UTC) I ♥ GoblinBots!

Calling my response unintelligent isn't conducive to a good collaborative environment. If you can't make a response without using personal attacks, don't respond to things I say. Thanks, ···Lauryn 17:12, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

There's a big difference between calling something "not intelligent" and something "unintelligent" - I used the former. Such statements as yours are just as unhelpful because they do not give any reasoning as to why an idea should or shouldn't be implemented. If you think it's a good idea, tell those of us that think it isn't why. We're not monsters, we're real people on the ends of the keyboards, we do listen, and our opinions can be changed. Goblin 17:15, 13 January 2010 (UTC) I ♥ Chenzw!

People, before this starts getting worse could I just ask you to not fight over this. Everyone is entitled to have an opinion, which must be respected. Fight on your TP if anywhere. Yottie ^=talk= 17:16, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

 (change conflict)  I never said anyone was a "monster". You just need to rethink your approach. I find very few of your comments helpful. You don't like me. I get that. I don't care. You can at least show the maturity to make responses to things I say that don't attack them nor me. "Could you elaborate on your position" goes a lot farther than "That response is unintelligent" and "toot" (whatever that is). Thanks, ···Lauryn 17:18, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind an explanation on your statement, because it honestly does come across as an attack on everyone here. Please expand on your reasoning. I and others would appreciate it I am sure. -DJSasso (talk) 17:42, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) Portals are a good idea in theory, but in practice they would not work. We have enough trouble keeping up with GA/VGA/DYK as it is. Our editor base is simply not big enough to take on something like this, which is why the proposal gets shot down everytime it is brought up. FSM ^Noodly? 17:21, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

FSM has said pretty much what I was trying to say. Sorry if I came across differently, I did not intend to suggest or infer that you were unintelligent, I was saying that your response did not seem well thought out, nor did it add to the conversation, thus prompting an "intelligent" (Well thought out, well informed, adding stuff to the convo) one. You're now the one throwing the PAs around (not that I was -_- ) and certainly don't show maturity with such comments as "Portals are a good idea, which is why they'll never get implemented.". Finally, I neither like nor dislike you. I've never met you, I probably never will meet you, and I don't form opinions of people over things they write on insignificant websites, because that can easily be misconstrued and misinterpreted as something else entirely. So don't ever go suggesting otherwise, because you don't know a thing about me. (If you did, you'd know I don't do the 'hate' thing, life's too short.) Goblin 17:29, 13 January 2010 (UTC) I ♥ Shappy!

• Sorry, but we don't have the man power to take care for portals. I thought that we had such a discussion not long time ago on AN. If we create portal we need to take care of them. If the user goes away, the portal would just die. Sorry, but not now. -Barras ^talk 17:47, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

• I fully, wholly support the implementation of portals. There's a can of soda on my desk that will inevitably distract me from writing content for a couple minutes. Shall we ban soda? –Juliancolton | ^Talk 19:11, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

• Portals are very bad idea. I disagree with their inclusion on English Wikipedia, and disagree with them here. On the other hand, Wikiprojects are a much better alternative and they do not require a namespace. Majorly talk 19:27, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

It's almost as if these people don't want to evolve as a community and try new things for the wiki.--  † CR₉₀  20:21, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

It's more like we would actually like to work on the reason we are here first, we still haven't managed to get a proper grasp on that, nevermind adding frilly extras. -DJSasso (talk) 20:29, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I came here for two reasons, build an encyclopedia, but mainly I'm here to have fun, otherwise I'd leave.--  † CR₉₀  20:42, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I am always willing to try new things: plenty of new things have been introduced in the 3 years I've been here (rollbacks, flood flag, good articles, very good articles, did you know, deadminship process, nuke function and so on). All were introduced because they are useful and helpful to achieve our purpose. Portals do not do that, so are not needed. This is not a case of "shooting things down", because I am often proposing changes to the project; some are implemented, some are not. Majorly talk 22:15, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

After reading through the above discussion, I too agree that we should not use portals. I mainly started creating the origami portal to organize improvements on origami-related things, but a wikiproject would be just as effective. --cremepuff222 (talk) 22:40, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Who sees these pages?

Who would actually read this wiki as a non-editor? I would think it would be hard to find. Is there a statistic thing that shows how many people view an article a day/week/month? I think you need to advertise more somehow. We have hardly any editors, and in turn I don't think we have that many readers. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 14:26, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

You'd be surprised. I used to use an article views statistics tool, that now doesn't work, and off the top of my head I remember Jupiter was getting like 800 to a 1000 hits a day, or something around that. FSM ^Noodly? 14:42, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Far away from 800. This tool works fine. -Barras ^talk 14:58, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Haha wow. I honestly remember it being a lot more than that. That's really not good is it... oh and thanks for the tool, that will be useful. FSM ^Noodly? 15:00, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

hahahaha nearly all the top viewed articles are sex related. Says something doesn't it.. FSM ^Noodly? 15:02, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Along with List of Disney movies. Yes, it does. Majorly talk 15:06, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

The view stats tool should be added to the interface like it is on enwiki. Majorly talk 15:06, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Good idea. This statistic shows us on which kind of article we should work. -Barras ^talk 15:11, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Those most viewed articles are from August 2008...a little out of date. -DJSasso (talk) 15:58, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

• I have to say, that as an avid Wikipedia reader before becoming an editor, I had no idea there was anything like simple. It is hard to find, but the numbers on the article traffic stats are actually not to bad, considering the small stature of this wiki.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 16:22, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
• If no one was reading them, there would not be any vandalism - Peterdownunder (talk) 20:47, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

• This seems to be more actual. Sex related articles are still the most visited pages among some others like history and natural science. -Barras ^talk 16:57, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

  Disney still remains. Some VGAs/GAs on the list - :D Pmlineditor ∞ 16:59, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Soft redirects.

Hey guys. A while ago I and other users created a bunch of soft redirects like the Stirring page. On my return to simple, Jamesofur had nominated one of the articles for QD (before he was an admin) but removed the tagging. Since then coming here asking what the community thought of these pages has been on my agenda, I've just not got around to doing it, so here it is. You can find most of them at Special:Shortpages. It would also be a good idea to check these redirects and make sure that none of them link to SEWB as it is closing.Thanks,--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 21:26, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not well-informed enough to have an opinion. But I thank you for helping people understand the difference between an encyclopedia and a dictionary! - PhilipR (talk) 03:51, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Autoreview

Hi, everybody. I want to propose the addition of the autoreviewer group in SimpleWP. The patrol backlog is pretty huge and I believe that if a number of trusted users are granted AP, that'll reduce the log significantly. Currently, while a majority of our content editors are admins, there are several who aren't. Rather than admins going to patrol the pages of these editors, I believe that if the had autoreview, their new pages would've been patrolled and reduced the backlog. Regards, Pmlineditor ∞ 17:15, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

This has come up every month I think for the last 6 months. Last time I believe the thoughts were that we should just remove the patrol option period as its not needed on a wiki this size. There is no need to patrol pages on this wiki because our RC moves so slowly that you can guarantee that every page has been looked over many times. -DJSasso (talk) 18:20, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but I've to disagree with you, Djsasso. I did around the start of the year the new page patrolling. It really helps if you see which pages are ok and at which you have to look at. I pressed the button when I knew that the changes of the user are ok without reading the articles to have more time for the other pages. Most admins don't care about the Special:NewPages and there are from time to time really bad things that needs to be fixed or should be deleted. We don't get all the odd things while watching RCs, nor are we 24/7 online. To remove this would be very unhelpful as the few admins who take care of it would have more work to figure out at what they should look and what they can ignore. I think this bit would be helpful for some users even if not all/ only a few people would get/have this tool. -Barras ^talk 18:42, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Special:NewPages is not Patrol. They are separate features, removing patrol does not remove the ability to look at the new pages. I use newpages all the time, its the pushing the patrol button that I don't think we actually need. There is almost nothing that I ever find sitting in new page list that should have been caught earlier. In fact I can't think of a single time I have, and I look at it every day. Basically I think people who sit going through the patrol log clicking patrol on articles are wasting their time which could be better used on the very many other places that I would think have a higher priority. -DJSasso (talk) 21:45, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Is patrol a feature that only admins have access to? I've used patrol on other MW-based blogs and have a sense of its intent and usage, but I don't see anywhere to invoke it here. - PhilipR (talk) 02:49, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Admins have autopatrol. I've yet to see the enwiki [Mark page as patrolled] yet, though. As far as I can tell, the revision of a page that I edit is autopatrolled because that's bundled with sysop. Lauryn Ashby (d) 02:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

To see that link you have to actually go to the articles through the new pages link I believe. It doesn't show if you just go to RC. -DJSasso (talk) 02:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, okay, that makes sense. Thank you. Lauryn Ashby (d) 02:54, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Template cascading for the Recent Changes

Considering the amount of abuse that it had recently, do you think we should enable cascading for the Recent Changes? Memory Stick (talk) 00:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Examples? I do not know have any recent cases. Griffinofwales (talk) 00:09, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/WatchPoet. The point is rather moot however as I've semi'd everything that's transcluded onto WP:RC. Lauryn Ashby (d) 00:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I also made sure that those templates were semi'd. I thought something new had come up though (last 2 or 3 days). Griffinofwales (talk) 00:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Nothing since Pickboth had his run a few weeks ago. Interesting that Memory Stick brings this up now, tho.. Lauryn Ashby (d) 00:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I just dealt with it on the Strategic Planning Wikimedia, happen to be a friend of the vandal. Noticed the name when I saw a "You Have New Message" on the libary when I was doing a project. Memory Stick (talk) 00:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Never really was bright, copied templates from some other wiki and edited them. Memory Stick (talk) 00:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

By any chance is there a guide I can use to get used to editing here? Memory Stick (talk) 00:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Try this. Griffinofwales (talk) 00:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Sourcing

While looking over lots of your pages I see that they are devoid of any sources. Do they need to be in simple English or can they be in general English? thanks --Guerillero (talk) 02:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

While we prefer simple English, I usually go with general English as it is much easier to find sources. Griffinofwales (talk) 02:45, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. poke my talk page if I am doing something wrong. cheers --Guerillero (talk) 02:51, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

You can use references in all languages you can find one. Of course, references in "our" local language here is prefered. Most of our sourced articles just have regular English sources. So it is fine to just use "normal" sources. -Barras ^talk 09:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Bot request

Also i was thinking that shouldnt we start/create a bot that list all articles over 2000bytes and 10.000 bytes in an attempt to improve the article length and quality i have seen similar things on other wikipedias(sutch as Sweidhs wikipedia) and that often makes editors to try to atleast write articles over 2000 bytes. Lets say an article named (New articles over 2000 bytes) where the bot automaticly places new articles over 2000 bytes in one section and then 10.000 bytes in one. Also editors can themselves place their new articles on the list. And on Swedish wikipedia every week one perosn that has created most articles over 2000 and 10.000 bytes get a sort of award like we can get today(but that isnt necessary here i guess).because we do have a problem with stubs and very short articles as of today. It could work, consider it.--Sinbad (talk) 18:17, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

What's the name of the bot from the Swedish Wikipedia? It would help to know the name so that I could go view its work to see if this could be feasible. Cheers, Lauryn Ashby (d) 18:40, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Its under Wikipedia:Veckans nyskrivna artiklar, on swedish wikipedia. its basically is This weeks new articles. Where all articles over 2kb are listed. Also all increased articles like if someone has written an article for 123 bytes and then someone else writes and makes it a 2000bytes article or more..they are also listed. you can see for yourself.--Sinbad (talk) 18:48, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Link to page: sv:Wikipedia:Veckans nyskrivna artiklar. When looking at that page's history, it appears he's talking about sv:Användare:Fluffbot. EhJJ^TALK 23:40, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea. Writing a bot to do this wouldn't be very difficult, but might use a lot of Wikipedia bandwidth without providing any benefit to the articles being scanned. Perhaps it might be better to create a list from a database dump? EhJJ^TALK 23:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, we have Special:LongPages; which lists pages by raw size. A bot would be able to create a more intelligent list. (i.e. by text size excluding interwikis/templates, group articles together, etc.) EhJJ^TALK 03:09, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes so fi someone with this knowledge could fix this it would be great. thanks.--Sinbad (talk) 15:41, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion

Hi, i have just seen that their is no way of knowing that the Barack Obama article for example has been up for GA status two times. On English wikipedia they add a"tag" on the articles talk page where it says that this article has been up for Good Article status or Featured article (VGA status here)discussion etc etc.. Couldnt we fix something similar to Simple Wikipedia?--Sinbad (talk) 18:17, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

The "Tag" should be place on the talk page after the GA or VGA discussions are closed and say what the result was, and which date,year etc etc it was. I think that would be great, and would also result in less nominations by different people for the same article during a short amount of time which isnt unusal today.--Sinbad (talk) 18:25, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I tend to agree and have imported {{FailedGA}} for that purpose. In my opinion, there's no reason not to do this and it makes things a lot easier with the GA process. Cheers, Lauryn Ashby (d) 18:38, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes Lauryn thats great, thanks:). is their possibility for a tag with Promoted article for those who succeeds in their GA status requests? sort of PassGA. Perhaps we should add that the the proposed GA and proposed VGA pages that each article should also have {{FailedGA}} placed on its talk page if failed and some other tag is it passes. so that closing admins are aware of the new rules.--Sinbad (talk) 18:43, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

There's already a template for GAs that pass ({{good-large}}). But I agree that something should probably be put on the review page to inform everyone of this template's existence. Lauryn Ashby (d) 18:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe you as an very experienced editor could fix that later?--Sinbad (talk) 18:49, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

On both the pages (GA and VGA) as part of the manual for how to do the request fully.Something like FailedVGA and tl|verygood-large--Sinbad (talk) 19:17, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Failed GA seems like a good idea. I'd like a Failed VGA template too. Pmlineditor ∞ 08:29, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it would encourage people to edit the article to a standard so that it will pass GA/VGA. Nifky^{^} 08:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah we basically need a template for failed and passed VGA status to.--Sinbad (talk) 15:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I created {{FailedVGA}} in the same spirt as {{FailedGA}}. Articles that pass VGA already have a template for their pages, so another one shouldn't be needed. Cheers, Lauryn Ashby (d) 19:38, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhpas we should alos has as an rule that the closing admin also puts the closed discussion on the talk page of the article so that people can see how the discussion went and what was brought up as good and bad. and that should go to both approved articles and those who didnt pass.--Sinbad (talk) 20:40, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Help!

I forgot how to request for deletion, how do I do it? ??? I think I did it wrong.... Maybe I should just delete and cover up the request... Help! Miss Tilney (talk) 12:45, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

This is probably what you're looking for, underneath the subheading discussed deletion. Lauryn Ashby (d) 16:23, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Quick Deletion Criteria: G5

Hey guys. A few of us discussed this criteria over IRC on Tuesday night, and most of us were in favor of bringing it back. The discussion started when User:Na'vi 2 created the Atlantic Records article. It was then confirmed that Na'vi 2 was User:Na'vi and User:Pickbothmanlol. User:Christianrocker90 then tagged that article for QD per the G5 rationale, and User:Griffinofwales correctly declined that qd as we do not use G5 on simple. We took a look back at the archives, at found that it was removed after a a discussion that lasted 13 minutes. I would propose that we bring this criteria back. With or current problem with Pickmanbothlol and the accounts he is creating, I think G5 would be useful. I think, that deleting all content a banned user like Pickmanbothlol creates would help keep users like him away. I know I am growing weary of his edits. Thoughts?--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 18:03, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

It would also cause us to lose decent edits we can get from such edtors. Deleting stuff right off the bat is what most people that do this stuff are looking for, looking to provoke an action. I have no problem speedying stuff that is clearly disruptive, and those instances already fall under other speedy criteria. But I 100% do not agree with deleting edits that are ok edits. -DJSasso (talk) 18:49, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

And I sort of agree with you. The point that was brought up last night is, that by leaving their edits live we are sending a mixed message. "Yes, we appreciate your edits, but you're banned, don't come back". By deleting their edits we are saying "Bye, you aren't welcome here." The latter sends a stronger message, and if we do that the person may be less willing to return.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 18:56, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Why delete banned editors' articles when they are suitable. A waste of time. Yottie ^=talk= 19:07, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we are sending a mixed message at all. We are saying edit constructively and we have no problem with it. If people who are banned come back and edit constructively under a new name and none of us knew, we probably wouldn't care, in fact I think a good majority of us would encourage it. -DJSasso (talk) 19:09, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what the phrasing here was, but on enwiki, G5 says "Pages created by banned users in violation of their ban having no substantial edits by others." - in other words, user ABC is banned from editing in a specific area of the Wikipedia (for example, politics), and then they create an article in that area. If they are allowed to edit in the area, then why ban them? If this user had created an article about cats, then G5 wouldn't apply - but if they created an article about the US Republican Party, then it would. The whole point of G5 (on enwiki at least) is to enforce bans - otherwise you might as well not have a ban. The bans are not phrased as "ABC may not edit any articles concerning politics, unless they write something good".

In case it's not obvious, I think G5 should be brought back. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 19:55, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

As a further thought: have I misunderstood blocks and bans here? On enwiki, a block means that an editor cannot edit anything (apart from their talk page) for a specified amount of time (24 hrs, 48 hrs, a week, a month, etc); a ban means that they cannot edit specific article(s) or in specific subject area(s). If someone is sockpuppeting to get around a block, then an article created by that user would not (on enwiki) fall under G5. It only falls under G5 if they are banned from specific articles/areas, and then go on to edit in those areas. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 19:59, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

No you are right, if someone is block or banned they are not supposed to edit at all. However blocks/bans are not supposed to be punitive, they are supposed to be preventative. If someone comes back as a new user and is doing nothing but editing constructively then the block or ban served its purpose and reformed the user. But if we just go and delete all the good work they did then we are telling them no matter what you do we will delete it so you might as well go on vandalizing. -DJSasso (talk) 20:16, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

(<-) I think that as a community, we should care about content, not about who created the content. Should we delete perfectly fine articles, based on the knowledge that a banned user created them? - Probably not. We can delete the article in question, arguing perhaps that it is unsuitable, based on some criteria of suitability; Even so, this should be done in a regular deletion, not a quick deletion. This is a meritocracy, do good things, and you will be rewarded. For this reason, I think a QD criterion content created by banned user has no place here.--Eptalon (talk) 20:11, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. The fascination enwiki has with deleting people who are banned, in an attempt to erase their existence is beyond my level of comprehension. If they were banned for creating copyvios, POV pushing or something related to disruption to articles, then by all means, delete the articles (Like the Pakistan IP, which is de facto banned). But in other cases, deleting perfectly good articles just because an unperson created it is purely spite. It's like someone who is barred from a club, but ends up getting back in and tidying and cleaning it up. Since it is impossible to ban people from Wikipedia technically, there is little use for such a criteria. I would support bringing it back for editors who were banned for article issues, but it makes things complicated. Majorly talk 20:26, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Even for that IP-editor you mention, I do not think that if they create a perfectly fine article, we should delete that article, because it was them who created it. --Eptalon (talk) 20:40, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

We should never delete a "perfectly fine" article, but the Pakistan IP was banned for bad articles. It would definitely defeat the purpose of the ban if they were allowed to continue to create biased, unsourced, non-neutral stubs en masse. Majorly talk 21:04, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Looking at WP:BAN, Simple doesn't actually do bans, only blocks. As such, there perhaps is not a need for G5 - if you ever actually use bans (i.e. editor ABC cannot edit such-and-such subjets) then it might be worthwhile bringing it back. What you guys seem to be talking about is someone evading a block, which is a totally different subject. If someone registers with a different user name and then edits constructively, the odds are that no one would even know that they were a former blocked user. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 21:11, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I still feel the same way about this when we removed it. It'll end up as process wonkery if we have to just recreate a good article, just because a banned or blocked user created something useful. Why waste time deleting and recreating when we can just leave it as is? Synergy 00:21, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Not that I'm taking sides, but under the logic I've seen, which is "If it's worth speedy deleting then it's sure to fall under a different QD rationale", we should get rid of all but G2, G3 and G6. I'm sure this is not the case.--  † CR₉₀  00:40, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with whomever (Majorly, I think) said that deleting articles for no other reason than a user evading a block created them is inane. If the only problem with the article is that a block-evading user/IP/whatnot created it, that shouldn't be used as a reason to delete it. Lauryn Ashby (d) 00:58, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I can understand both sides of the argument. Frankly, I feel that editing Wikipedia is very much like driving a car; it is a privilege and not a right. It is permitted only during the good behaviour of the editor. When a court bans a drunk driver (our wiki-vandal, if you'll permit) from driving a vehicle they do not allow that driver to drive as long as they are not drunk (not vandalising), they will be arrested even if they are sober and driving their granny to the doctors. The same goes for a person with a curfew. The courts don't allow that person to be out at night (when they could be breaking into houses) as long as they are picking up a take-out meals for their kids. Both the driving ban and the curfew are their to protect innocent society. They are not intended to punish, nor is prison actually. These things are like a ban or a block here in wiki-land. We impose bans and blocks to protect the wiki, not to punish the user. Naturally, there will be an element of punishment that happens due to the fact that the person can not also do good things along with their bad things. This is life! I'm not saying what to do either for or against G5, but I do think that there is merit to both sides of the argument. fr33kman 01:08, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

There is definitly some overlap (G1 is usually G2 or 3 for example) G7,9,10,11,12 give specific reasons that I think are important to be separated and are different (just saying genaric housekeeping or vandalism. would piss alot of people off if they saw that as the reason their article was deleted or think it was a mistake). The point of this however is that if an article is being deleted it should NEVER be being deleted JUST because pickbothmanlol, bambifan101 or whomever therefore if it is deleted it should meet other requirements. That statement is of course up for debate :) but I don't think it is unreasonable. Personally I would tend to agree with Majorly et. al. The idea of deleting everything they touch has never really helped en keep banned users away. Should we keep reverting or deleting 500k byte lists that bambifan pours into articles? Yes, because those are not helpful.

On the Simple ban thing, Simple does do bans it just tends to do sitewide bands instead of topic bans. En does both. I would also tend to disagree with the user of G5 on En, the main wide spread use I've found of it is to delete or revert sitewide content from banned users regardless of its worth. Most of the admins who do so if you ask them will fully admit that they do that and they do it because they want to leave the "you aren't welcome here" message. I understand the feeling, I just disagree. James (T C) 01:02, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Database download

Hi. We've been using a verison of simplified English for our AI research, which concerns learning by reading. (see Integrating Natural Language, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, and Analogical Processing to Learn by Reading). The articles in the Simple English Wikipedia look like a nice fit for what we do. Do you have a database download, like the regular Wikipedia, that we could use? Thanks.

There are two ways to download the database: If you just want the HTML pages, go to static.wikipedia.org/downloads - the latest version is from June 2008 though! (static.wikipedia.org/downloads/2008-06/simple/ - about 76Mb compressed) or you can download all pages with histories at download.wikimedia.org/simplewiki/ - the latest version is 25th January 2010, so this is more likely to be the one you want! You'll probably want download.wikimedia.org/simplewiki/20100125/simplewiki-20100125-pages-articles.xml.bz2 as that contains the latest version of all the pages about 49Mb compressed, but there are lots of other possibilities, including one which has *everything* (history, user pages, etc) taking up to about 377MB. Hope this helps -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 08:27, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

History of the United States

It's my next project. I'm adding lots of content now, and references in a week or two. I'm going to ask for a review soon. My main concern is that it's not clocking simple enough, though I think that proper nouns are throwing it off (please simplify if you can). Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 05:32, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Template for "kept" or "no concensus" Rfd's articles

Would it be useful to have a template which could be added to an article's talk page if the result of an RfD is either "keep" or "no concensus"? I was thinking of something like this (which I have adapted from the oldafd/oldafdfull templates which can be found on many Wikipedias):

• {{oldrfd|page=page-name|result=result}}, which gives:

and

• {{oldrfdfull|date=date-of-nomination|page=page-name|result=result}}, which gives:

For both of them, if they are missing, date defaults to "in the past", page defaults to the article page of the talk page which the template is on, and result defaults to keep.

If you think this would be useful, I am happy to move them to Template: space (as Template:oldrfd and Template:oldrfdfull). I think it is useful to see if a current article has been put up for deletion in the past when considering whether it should be put up for deletion now.

Regards, -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 22:12, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it would be a good idea, since it's worked well in the past. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 22:31, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Would it be useful to provide a link to the RfD discussion? --cremepuff222 (talk) 22:49, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I could get it to do that - it's always in the format Wikipedia:Requests for deletion/Requests/(year)/(article) I presume? It shouldn't be too difficult to link to the discussion (I'd get it to default to the current year if the date/year isn't provided). If enough people want it, I'm happy to do it! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 22:54, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd say it would be beneficial to have this. Of course we'd have to add it to all the past RfDs also. Synergy 23:38, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

That'd take a bit longer... there are 120 in the "unsuccessful" category, plus the ones in the archives! But it can certainly be done. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 23:45, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh I know it can. We had a small team of editors do it for en. So its definitely possible. I'll help tag the talk pages if we can agree on the template. Synergy 23:47, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll work on the templates tomorrow, to include a link to the RfD discussion. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 23:57, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

┌────────────────┘
I have worked on the templates. The oldrfd one is for when (for whatever reason) we don't have the date and/or location of the discussion (as shown above). The oldrfd now has an additional field (year) to help with the linking to the discussion:

{{oldrfdfull|date=28 January 2010|year=2010|result=keep|page=7 Seconds}} gives:

If no date is given:

If no year is given:

if no page is given:

I have also created one for allowing us to link to the archived discussions:

{{oldrfdfull-log|date=17 August 2007|log=6|result=redirect to [[List of Formula One World Drivers' Champions]]|page=List of all F1 World Champions}} gives:

I have been bold and moved it to Template space! Now all we have to do is get them on the various talk pages....

Regards, -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 21:14, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

• If the article has been redirected since the discussion, if you use the parameter "oldname=yes", then this will be shown. For example:

{{oldrfdfull|date=27 January 2010|year=2010|result=redirect to [[The Sims 3]]|page=Sims 3|oldname=y}} gives

{{oldrfdfull-log|date=17 August 2007|log=6|result=redirect to [[List of Formula One World Drivers' Champions]]|page=List of all F1 World Champions|oldname=y}} gives

Please read the documentation at Template:oldrfdfull/doc and Template:oldrfdfull-log/doc, it's all explained there! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 21:36, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

another question

I accidently created an account because I was on one of my socks on the English Wikipedia but when I came here it automatically created the account for me. Does this count as socking here? I didn't mean to. I use my old accounts on the English Wikipedia to watch articles since that's the only thing I can do with them. Amberbamberboo (talk) 04:21, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Tag the account with {{User Alternate Acct}} and no one will have a problem with it. Lauryn Ashby (d) 04:23, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I didn't use that account yet. Do I still have to tag the account? Amberbamberboo (talk) 04:23, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I have tagged it anyway. Thanks for your advice. Amberbamberboo (talk) 04:31, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Having more than one account is no problem, as long as you don't vote (in RFP) with both accounts. If you prefer to use this account here, and the other at other wikipedias, that's also not a problem. As said: Socking only becomes a problem once people start voting with their "alternate" accounts. --Eptalon (talk) 07:11, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

C45 steel article

I am not a chemist - so I can't do anything about it - but the above article doesn't look like it would mean anything to most readers! I know enough to see that it is about the properties of a kind of steel, but I can't tidy it up or simplify it. I was tempted to RfD it, but I'm not sure what to give as a reason - "looks too complicated" seems a bit harsh! It isn't nonsense ot vandalism, so it can't be QDd. Anyone willing to look at it, or give advice? -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 07:55, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Twas a copyright violation, now gone. Thanks for the heads-up. :) Lauryn Ashby (d) 09:28, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks - I didn't have the time to check it, as I had to go out! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 11:57, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

question

Can you create any article for the Simple English Wikipedia that is on the English Wikipedia? Amberbamberboo (talk) 02:17, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

In theory, yes. We prefer articles that help students out here, but we do accept almost all subjects the English Wikipedia accepts. Articles must be made using simplified English. Now, what does that mean? .... Well, it means that articles here must be such that a person who is not very confident in their English skills should be able to read and learn from an article that we hold here. Please read both the help pages and the page located here to learn how to copy stuff from enWP. Let the regular editors here know if you need help or have questions! Thanks! :) fr33kman 02:24, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Amberbamberboo (talk) 04:22, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I highly suggest you read WP:NOT first, though. This bullet is of special interest here:

Simple English Wikipedia is not another English Wikipedia. The regular English Wikipedia is a large gathering of knowledge about many subjects. The pages there are for people who read English very well. Simple English is not the right place to put the same articles again. Instead, we write about the most common subjects so that people from every language can read the pages easily.

That means that not every article from English Wikipedia belongs here. We have our own standards, too. Either way (talk) 14:52, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I used my IP address?

I accidently used my IP address. I forgot to sign in. Do I have to tag the IP address as mine too? Flayof (talk) 06:15, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

 (change conflict)  No, and if you would like it removed from public view, let me know. Lauryn Ashby (d) 06:18, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Oops, I just did like that a just a few minutes before you too, because I had marked "remember me for 30 days" a few days ago. Do I have to do like that too, I wonder? Sorry, I did it by mistake... Miss Tilney (talk) 06:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

 (change conflict)  *No, because your IP may change when it isn't expected (e.g. dynamic), and it can be shared with some other person on your ISP network later on. Just resign your comment with your signature, and it's not needed to tag the IP address to your username. Nifky^{^} 06:19, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Can you move that edit into my contribution? Flayof (talk) 06:22, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

No. MediaWiki software doesn't allow the merging of contributions from one IP or account to another. Lauryn Ashby (d) 06:22, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

 (change conflict) It's impossible to do that, sorry. --Bsadowski1^{(Talk|Changes)} 06:26, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

 (change conflict) Technically it only can when renaming users. Not IPs. Nifky^{^} 06:27, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, thankyou anyway for helping Nifky?. :) Miss Tilney (talk) 06:29, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Well I put my IP address on my user page in case if they accuse me of socking. Flayof (talk) 06:48, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

That's not sock-puppeting if you use an IP to edit a page by accident. It is when you're a blocked troll using an IP to ban evade or create new accounts for that. Nifky^{^} 06:56, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

"Goodbye" Simple English Wikiquote!

Wow... this project is really going to be removed. That's a tough pill so swallow. Thanks to all you who made this a fun and active project, and thanks for the recent reverts to my userpage (SuaveArt has been blocked twice on ENWP for the same type of thing). I hope you'll join me in saying, Goodbye to the Simple English Wikiquote! . American Eagle (talk) 19:56, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Hey AE! Long time no see. I didn't even know they were thinking about closing Wikiquote... I only knew about WikiBooks.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 20:09, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah simple english wikiquote was considered to be a legal hazard because simplifying quotes can be seen as putting words in someones mouth. Wikipedia got in trouble for something similar at english wikipedia in the past. -DJSasso (talk) 13:24, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Goodbye Simple English Wikiquote. :( Yottie ^=talk= 13:24, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Haha, I meant to post that to SEWQ's simple talk (hence the "this project" wording). It appears the project is still up, but it's just a matter of time. Nice to see y'all again. :) American Eagle (talk) 04:57, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Update: Tagging old RfD discussions

I have added the {{oldrfdfull-log}} tags to the talk pages of all the articles in Log 1. I'll work on the other archives over the next week or so. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 01:33, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Chess

Hi all! I made a new Wikiproject about chess. If you are interested or know how to play chess, please join. Visit this page if your interested. Ian ♠♣♦♥ McCarty 12:50, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Is our time almost up?

Taking into fact that Simple Wikibooks and Wikiquote are about to be closed down, do you think this is a sign that what ever is left of the Simple Branch will soon follow to their deaths if we can not fix the major issues that currently plague us? Hyper Anthony (talk) 00:33, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't think so. Wikibooks & Wikiquote were closed for inactivity & that they were obsolete. SimpleWP doesn't meet either criteria. Griffinofwales (talk) 00:34, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

No, those two closed for very different reasons. In fact it mostly happened because editors here voted for it to happen. For example the legal issues that existed for simple.wikiquote don't exist for simple.wiki. And wikibooks just had no real purpose since simple wikibooks can be written on en.wikibooks. We have a compeletely different mission from en.wiki so I don't see this one closing anytime soon. -DJSasso (talk) 00:36, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I strongly doubt that Simple Wikipedia will be closed or even nominated for closure in the near future. We have a regular group of active editors and admins, and have accumulated more than 58,000 articles. Both wikis were shut down due to inactivity and for the same reasons DJSasso has mentioned above. However other "simple" language projects are no longer allowed per a language rule at meta, with the exception of us and Simple Wikitionary. —§ stay (sic)! 01:20, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Policy modification

Hi there all. I am quite tired of seeing people make pages that aren't named the same as they are on the English Wikipedia, and I think that we should adopt a new policy that states that pages should be named the same way that they are on the English Wikipedia, for consistency's sake, and for interwiki correctness. I think that we could implement this by adding a note on the page creation screen that says something along the lines of: WAIT! Please make sure that this is the way the page is named on the English Wikipedia or some such note. Anyways, it just bothers me when pages aren't named appropriately. Thanks, Razorflame 20:07, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Why? Simple Wikipedia should be simple, even if that means simplifying the title. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 20:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not talking about certain pages...just the ones that are already simple. Razorflame 20:12, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• I think this is already a standard to name all pages here per enwiki. I moved lots of pages with the reason "per enwiki". I dunno if we need a rule for it. -Barras ^talk 20:23, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• I agree & disagree. Although I think in most cases, we should follow enWP, there are exceptions. For example, if there are 3 John Browns on enWP, and each is named differently (John Brown (footballer), John Brown (politician) etc.), but not one exists here, I put John Brown (politician) at John Brown until the other John Browns are created, and then John Brown can be turned into a dab page. I think the status quo is best, most people know what to do. Griffinofwales (talk) 21:17, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

  I know that it should not be used on all pages, but I think it would be used for the majority of them, but like Barras said, maybe this should just be one of those "unwritten" rules...Razorflame 22:17, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• I can imagine the false errors. Hyper Anthony (talk) 22:20, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• What do people think about pages like the Serdar Taşçı article? The title is without the accents at the EN, but has them on the German Wikipedia. What do you think should be done in cases like this?--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 15:41, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

  I prefer the article to live at the accented version; and have redirects for the unaccented version. Please note that there are many languages with diacritics, or accented characters, even though English does not have any. Just because this is is an English Language Wikipedia does not mean that we need to have all the names in unaccented versions here. In Spanish, diacritics are vital for intonation; there is to my knowledge no way of transcribing the French accents (é,è,ô, amongst others).--Eptalon (talk) 19:35, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

As to the naming in general, EnWP often pick article names badly; I think a policy that forces us to do the naming the same way as they do would hinder us more than it would help. --Eptalon (talk) 19:38, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree. As a Wikipedia for people learning English, I think we should keep as many similarities to other languages as possible. For example, if somebody is German and their name has German characters, keep the German Characters so a German person can recognize the person the article is talking about. Hope that makes sense.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 21:17, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Medical articles

Hi all! I've created a user subpage where people can list medical articles they think are in need of work. Please feel free to add to it. It is located at User:Fr33kman/Medical articles needing work. Thx! fr33kman 22:06, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Good idea. I have a bunch of psych-related articles that need fixing, posted to my user page a while back. I plan to work on during my psych rotation (starting next week). See User:EhJJ#Problems with disease-related articles. EhJJ^TALK 10:05, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Question

How come when I signed myself in the newspaper and ordered Simple Wiki News it never comes to my user talk? That's a bit fishy to my taste... But could you explain to me? :) Miss Tilney (talk) 10:30, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Since no issue of Simple News has been made in the past month. Pmlineditor ∞ 10:33, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Thankyou, Pmlineditor! You are always so experienced and kind in explaining these sort of things. It's a relief that you're an admin. :) Miss Tilney (talk) 03:54, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

US 'cities'

Hello all,

I know that the US defines city a little differently from how they are defined in Europe. This leaves us with many 'cities' we have articles about, which aren't really notable. We have many articles about US cities with less than 10.000 people. If the same place was in Germany or in France, it would be unlikely to have an article, unless it was historically important. It would therefore be a good thing that based on some census data, we identified the top ten to top twenty population centers for each state. These are the 'cities' probably worth writing about. To these, add perhaps 3-5 "other" places in the state that are worth keeping, because they are historically important. This exercise will permit to reduce the hundreds of articles 'X is a city in Y' to perhaps 25 such articles per state. We can then delete all the other 'X is a city in Y' articles. What do you think, good idea? --Eptalon (talk) 08:50, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I do think it is a good idea to have a rule of thumb in such cases. 'X is a place in Y' is on the way to becoming a real pest. In Britain (& perhaps the rest of Europe?) you were a city if you had a cathedral, if not, not. This left many towns over 100,000 out of reckoning. Now there is a system whereby towns apply, enquiries are held, and the goverment makes the final decision. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:10, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I come from an unincorporated CDP (census designated place). That CDP has about 16000 people since it covers 600 square miles (or more). IMO it is notable, however I don't think we (as active editors) should spend time on this article over Tampa, Florida. Although the notability standards are different in europe (as everything here in the US belongs to a CDP, city, town etc.), I think that the CDPs etc. are notable. I agree they are horrible articles, and they should be given a very low priority. If we created a task force tasked with finishing 2 of these high priority (as described by Eptalon) a week (low I know, but I don't know who will volunteer), we could slowly work up. No more for now, Griffinofwales (talk) 12:26, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

No I don't agree with deleting the ones below your arbitrary limit. You keep bringing this up every month. No we can't pick and choose articles we like and think are useful, every city, town, village will have been written about at some point. They are all notable. You really need to stop bringing this up over and over. Its getting to the point of being pointy. -DJSasso (talk) 14:36, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

• We don't need to delete articles, we need to work to fix them. I can understand that some cities are more noteworthy than others, but they are all notable on an individual basis. Lets not delete articles just to delete them.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 15:05, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

  Re:DJSasso: X is a city in Y can probably be quick deleted (A1: Page has little or no meaning, A4: Page does not show notability). The problem here isn't that there are 300-odd entries in the Cities in Kentucky category; the problem is that we need to find out which of them are worth extending. Look at Appenzell Ausserrhoden. The article lists the twenty municipalities. If I asked you just like that, you likely would not know which of them are worth an article Trogen is a city in Appenzell Ausserrhoden, and which aren't. - There are only 20, let's create them all, you might say. To this I can only point out that for the canton of Zürich there are 171, and for Berne there are 388. However, only 14 of the 388 have more than 10.000 people. Of course you don't see all of that in an 'X is a city in Y' article, hence my post. With 25 articles, we could largely cover for the 'top 20 population centers', plus 3-5 historical sites, in the case of Berne. (And no, I am not going to write them, i am not particularly interested in Swiss Geography). --Eptalon (talk) 15:31, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

  Actually none of them can be speedied because they have all been kept at rfd already, meaning speedy is no longer an option for any of them. But even still it does have meaning, it lists what the subject is and where it is so it meets A1. It also shows notability because it explains that it is a city and all cities have inheirent notability so it passes A4. Yes we should slow down on creating these little cities but we should absolutely not delete them. -DJSasso (talk) 17:58, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Some time back I came up with a vital cities list here...it's not as regimented as Eptalon...some states have 3, others. Here's my proposal:

1. Any city on that list is speedily kept regardless of length
2. A city/town with population of 15,000 or less that is a one-or-two liner can be speedily deleted, but not salted

Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 08:00, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• The list doesn't look too bad, good work Purplebackpack. It probably allows to focus our energies on the "more important" cities. Just a question: does this also include "historically important" places, regardless of population? - As to Appenzell Ausserrhoden: Herisau (also capital, 15k), Teufen (5.8k), Speicher, Heiden (each about 4k), Gais (2.8); Trogen (1.5k, old capital, until 19th century), and at the lower end Wald (875) and Reute (682).--Eptalon (talk) 10:20, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

It includes a number of cities of historical and cultural significance (Jamestown, Virginia, Tombstone, Arizona, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina...). Further enumerated at your talk page. Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 19:35, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Every city, town, and village in the United States is notable because places on geography have inherent notability, regardless of how many people live there. While I do agree that we should be focusing on the ones with more people, we will eventually need them all, so I don't see what the big problem is is people just start making them the way that they should be made here according to their interests. Razorflame 20:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The aim of simWP is to have good articles on selected topics, not necessarily articles on everything. One-sentence or one-sentence+inforbox just doesn't do anything for anybody Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 01:25, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

No that is incorrect, the aim of simple.wiki is to be a simple english version of wikipedia. There is nothing in our aim that suggests only selected topics. And when it did have wording that implied such it was determined that it didn't mean only selected topics. -DJSasso (talk) 03:29, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Since you added and then removed a reply, that sentence on WP:NOT is exactly what I was referring to as often being mistakenly interpreted to mean we only do the common subjects. Which through community discussion has been determined to not be the case, since we have already completed all the common topics. -DJSasso (talk) 05:08, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Hence my retraction. Though if it REALLY isn't the case, eventually it probably should be dropped, but for a later time Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 06:48, 14 February 2010 (UTC)