Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 91

Blocked editor from En

In consensus with discussion on AN/I at enWP, just wanted to note that a user from enWP who is indef blocked for sockpuppetry is active here as Highspeedrailguy (talk · contribs). Another of this user's accounts is registered (Perseus8235 (talk · contribs)), but not active. PrincessofLlyr ^talk 18:31, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, I promise not to "sockpuppet" here. --Highspeedrailguy (talk) 18:35, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Princess. sonia♫ 01:29, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Question about pictures

How do I upload pictures from Commons? I want to add a picture to an article I was the main contributor on. Loudclaw (talk) 21:03, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

[[File:IMAGENAME|left or right|thumb|caption]] will work. --Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 21:15, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Once you find an appropriate illustration, copy the syntax from an existing article. Uploading to Commons is much more difficult. Macdonald-ross (talk) 21:18, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Loudclaw (talk) 06:10, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll get to it tomorrow.

Template:Listen?

Hi everyone. Isn't the {{Listen}} template a bit lengthy? I mean, in English Wikipedia, it is of appropriate size. The same code is used here, and it is kind of stretched? I don't know any coding. So, can anyone help?? Novice7 (talk · contribs) 09:52, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I just took a look at the template. There is a lot of code, but that is necessary for support the multiple options and files. The code could be compressed some, but many of us coders like things to line up. Are you worried about how long the template takes to execute?--The Three Headed Knight (talk) 16:19, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Not really. I mean, it could be like this. If I were to add it to a song article, then it would stay on top of the section. That's what I meant. Thank you. Novice7 (talk · contribs) 06:58, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Do you mean the gray box that the template generates? I looked at the template, and I think the problem is in the CSS.--108.18.151.34 (talk) 05:24, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

The template is stretched out across the page I suspect because of some code in MediaWiki:Common.css that styles this template. When I copied the source of the template here and tested it on en, it was alright. I'm going to raise this at AN since the way the template displays on pages is awful. See Kettle and Blackbird for examples. Goodvac (talk) 05:51, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. That's what I faced too. I was testing the template out on an article and it was stretched across the page. Yes, it might be a problem with the Css. Novice7 (talk · contribs) 04:18, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Very young users

Hello. There is a very important conversation going on and we need some more advice. So far we have just 5 people engaging in it, including me, and we need more opinions. The conversation can be found here. Loudclaw (talk) 01:34, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

The main scope of that conversation is actually Wikiversity so I wouldn't necessarily say that most users here would find it highly important. Kansan (talk) 01:52, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

You just made me feel awkward. I can't go on Wikiversity, and I want to help. Loudclaw (talk) 02:02, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I apologize; I'm not trying to make you feel awkward; I'm just letting people know kind of what the scope of it is. Kansan (talk) 02:12, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes but now we won't get another opinion. I really wanted it to be answered to. Loudclaw (talk) 02:25, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Well that's convenient. Loudclaw (talk) 03:10, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

And again. Weird. I just said log me in globally and now I'm logged in under IanP when I was under Ian.bjorn. Huh. Loudclaw (talk) 03:15, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
I think I will answer here, instead of a user's talk page; this means that in time the conversation will be archived properly, and remain accessible. I see different issues young users are facing at Simple Wikipedia:

• The edits here are controlled; Simple is large enough to have its team of CheckUsers and Oversighters. It does not need to rely on outside people for these functions. This can (in theory) protect an editor from revealing too much personal information and ensure such information is properly removed when it is there.
• The envirnoment in simple is only partly controlled; like in a real encyclopedia, people are free to look up whatever they want. There is no concept of censorship/guidance.
• I am not aware to what extent these people are aware that what is written here is only partly true or accurate. We do have a team of motivated editors finding vandalism. The problem is, though that some vandalism is not as obvious (or requires background knowledge), and that we also have a great number of articles. As a result, wrong information may go unnoticed over years...
• When we look at the effort that is needed to "guide" these users, the question naturally comes to mind anout the "benefits" for the community? - Our articles about mythology-related subjects are very poor, at the moment; if we motivated such an editor enough, we could probably get help with the subject (the problem being: the article is not to tell the story, but to tell information about the story...).

While I am ready to help such editors, I pointed out some of the issues I see. Should we agree on a framework to include them, and what form should that framework take? --Eptalon (talk) 09:21, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

That's right. I could motivate Draubb to write about some of the gods and goddesses, as well as their Titan counterparts. Loudclaw (talk) 21:01, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

(redacted), I'm geeky and nerdy, and really wasn't comfortable until I found Wikipedia. I think it's a good idea to assist young editors. --Highspeedrailguy (talk) 16:45, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Same here. Loudclaw (talk) 01:59, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

en:Wikipedia:Editor assistance pt:Wikipédia:Páginas para eliminar/Danilo de Brito Santos zh:Wikipedia:互助客栈/條目探討

Let's not forget our basic remit: to take topics from English WP and make them simplified for users with less comprehensive understanding of English. We are an encyclopedia: that means we put in established knowledge, backed by reliable references. Much that's talked about above is not really our business, though obviously it's good to help young users so long as it doesn't interfere with our main object. And young users are not our only target audience. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:10, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. This is unnecessary at the moment. Albacore (talk · changes) 00:34, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I actually think this is a concept that needs to be looked at. I feel that one of the possible solutions of the WMF gender gap is by attracting younger editors to get to be used to being in Wikipedia and editing it safely. A fun project might help, especially as girls are more social than boys and look for different things often in a website. There is no reason WP can't fit the needs of both genders, and I think a project that links multiple projects together (there is no simplewv) is the way forwards rather than hundreds of independent projects trying to deal with a problem that may have a wider solution; at least for some editors. Let's remember that WP as it exists today will be dead in ten years, it'll be virtual reality with avatars or something else, but static text based knowledge is dying. These kids are therefore the future of this site, rather than a problem for it. fr33kman 03:37, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

CR90 ban review

Please consider taking part in CR90's ban review fr33kman 00:11, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Simple Wiki

A concern has been growing on me lately with the Simple Wiki. When reading through some of the articles, I have realized that they aren't really that simple. Essentially, then are just stub versions of English wiki articles. I feel as if article writing has been slowy gravitating away from simple and more towards normal english. I really noticed this when I read an article about the Pax Romana, a great simple article easy for anyone to understand. I think that something should be done about this problem (a problem as I see it). If all articles are written in normal english, then that defeats the point of a simple wiki. Regards. SPQR 20:18, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Some topics are easy to simplify, some are not. What really wrecks this wiki is people bringing over pages which are over-long on enWP and dumping them on us with little or no work being done. There are many examples of this. On the other hand, a stub is a starting-point. Many goodish articles have started as stubs. Many thousands were put up in the early days of Simple, and of course many have not yet been expanded. There has been no change of policy in Simple. Perhaps there's a realisation that highly technical topics cannot be rendered entirely in simple language without destroying the content. Macdonald-ross (talk) 22:17, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Let me perhaps also say that certain "science-related" topics need language that goes with it. Explaining the topic without using the specific language can be very difficult. If you do not want to simplify yourself, though, you can use the {{complex}} tag to show articles or sections that you find difficult to understand.--Eptalon (talk) 22:23, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Call me crazy, but complex scientific concepts that cannot be described without using technical language probably shouldn't have Simple articles at all. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:54, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

You can certainly do so. For an article to exist here it does not have to be every thing that the enwiki/frwiki/dewiki article is. Language can be used to explain in science in simpler concepts. It's up to the teacher to find the way the student learns, not the student. fr33kman 00:18, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I suppose that's true, I just don't think user of Simple are likely to be looking for articles on advanced particle physics or molecular biology. However if it is possible to actually write something that can be understood by our target audience on these topics then I'm all for it. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:16, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

We can't assume what our readers will be reading. For all we know, a French/German/foreign/ect. student studying physics is doing an exchange / co-op travel placement and is required to try some English while out of the country. In that case, and others like it, we need to have advanced topics in simple language. Our goal isn't to simplify the topic, it's to simplify the language used to explain that topic.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 21:40, 17 March 2011 (UTC) hypothetical

Yes, see my post on the main page talk page on that. It's building on that post. Loudclaw/Hey, let's collaborate!/Desk/WP:Warriors 22:37, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Unban me please

Resolved. No reason to review block. Let's not waste our time. Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 18:57, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello this is Toboar. I would like to be unbanned please. It has been three months and no vandalism has happened from any IP I use lately (except the school IP that got me blocked in the first place). When I was an editor all my edits were good. I have never vandalised. Random Fat Guy (talk) 20:42, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

At least a ban review? I never vandalised and would like to help this wiki again. Random Fat Guy (talk) 21:04, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello, I would recommend you log into your original account and send an email to simple-admins-l@lists.wikimedia.org . Posting a message here with another account probably wont get you very far. Regards, wiooiw (talk) 21:09, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I've learned my lesson, as demonstrated by the block evading sockpuppet account I'm using.... FAIL. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:13, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Administrator note: Account blocked. Use the mailing list from Toboar's account. Exert 21:15, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh the irony of using a sock puppet to claim you learned your lesson not to sock puppet. That made my morning. -DJSasso (talk) 12:13, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Even more funny, I found another sock (which I blocked yesterday). -Barras (talk) 12:21, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

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I think directly unbanning is probably not the way to go; we can however start a community discussion, once that of CR90 (just above) is done. --Eptalon (talk) 12:27, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I think Barras finding another sock pretty much ends the discussion. -DJSasso (talk) 12:31, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

All I was saying: based on what we know, let the community decide (once we are done discussing CR90); Personally, I also think that recent socking is not the best start for an unban argument, but I am not the community...--Eptalon (talk) 12:35, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

This is toboar again. My email will not let me send to the wiki.

Yes it will... Your e-mail isn't blocked on that account. Exert 17:48, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

To be honest, every single time you edit this wiki you make the chance of an unblock disappear further. FWIW, I also Oppose any unblock review being discussed, and {{oppose} an unblock full stop. Goblin 18:06, 19 March 2011 (UTC) I ♥ Nifky!

I do not think there is anything to discuss. You used a sock puppet to claim that you don't sock puppet anymore! You also had your initial block reviewed by 4-5 checkusers, all of whom found to same thing. Kansan (talk) 22:28, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

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+1. To put it bluntly, pointless discussion is pointless. Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 18:56, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Cultural References

Where can I find the rules for cultural refernces? The edit below by Korny removed many references to Encyclopedia Brown (e.g. used by the character Monk in an episode) because it was only used once. Yet, there are probably a million such one-use references to various topics in TV shows, songs, movies. Is this the right way to ask a question? I'm new to this.

Revision as of 19:26, 6 January 2011 (edit) (undo)
Korny O'Near (talk | contribs) 
(→References in popular culture: Removed non-notable stuff: single lines of dialogue, non-notable play and stand-up routine)

GaryKopper (talk) 23:52, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi, GaryKopper. Welcome to the Simple English Wikipedia! With regards to your question, you're on the wrong language wiki. You edited Enyclopedia Brown on the English-language Wikipedia. Please ask the folks at their help desk. Goodvac (talk) 20:14, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Notability Questions

Hello. I'll be working on asteroid articles in the near future, and I wanted to know if we have a guideline on how far up to go (i.e up to asteroid number 500, which I think would be fair). Also, for US congressional districts (en:List of United States congressional districts), I'll assume we don't need every district? Albacore (talk · changes) 23:39, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

What I'd do is create articles on each state's delegation, and then maybe some of the very important districts (ones that have been in the news a lot) Purplebackpack89 23:46, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I think this is also a question of content. Just citing a radom example: "Melbourne is a city of Iowa in the United States.", plus stub tag, plus category. (Note: there are 827 articles in the category; most porbably look like the one cited. We do have the same for several US states). A similar article, which is probably halfway decent (and probably the "minimum" we should accept is Arles. Talking about asteroids, I would prefer having fewer, but better articles, than having them all as "three-sentence stubs". --Eptalon (talk) 22:54, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I know nothing about asteroids so cannot comment on what to include or not, however do be aware that we mass-deleted hundreds of sub-stubs in that subject field about two years ago, and the same would likely happen if they were re-created in the same way. Make sure that they're 'good' 'short' articles, and not just something that calls a spade a spade (or an asteroid, for that matter). As for districts, they're more notable and useful than (obscure) asteroids in my opinion and wouldn't mind as much personally if more are included, but the best thing is probably just to use your discretion and ask if anything's borderline! Goblin 22:59, 23 March 2011 (UTC) I ♥ Jersey!

In my opinion, any national-level representative or senator should be notable, although I might start with some of the better known ones. But that's just me. Kansan (talk) 23:07, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

AbuseFilter

Our abusefilter seems borked, because the links to the hit-counts for each filter aren't working properly. As noted on Sonia's talkpage, I've had a comparison of this with one over at enwiki and it seems the problem lies in a missing Filter ID field in Special:AbuseLog which is supposed to be supplied with a &wpSearchFilter= parameter in the URL. Should I file a bug at bugzilla? :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 08:38, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

No, it's just a right that is not available to the (all) group. I think it's abusefilter-log-detail. Commons is similar. --Bsadowski1 08:42, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I think that's the "(details | examine)" part of the filter at the end of the description (the links above are examples). But it does definitely tie in to the right, I think. Does your screen show the tags for the filter logs that only display "You/He/She/It sucks" for Filter 13? :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 08:59, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

reflists

I'm wondering why the 'reflist' is bringing up the references full size instead of small size as previously? Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:52, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

This might by one of the numerous problems with the MediaWiki update. There are also several gadgets currently broken. This might be related. -Barras (talk) 16:05, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

This discussion might also be related. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 19:29, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

This doesn't necessarily affect us. -Barras (talk) 19:32, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Content contributors-- free Credo accounts via WMF

See en:WP:Credo accounts to apply if you're interested. sonia♫ 04:34, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Recent imports

I am not very learned in this aspect, but looking at the recent imports, Most of the imports only imported one revision. Shouldn't administrators, while they are importing, import the full history? Wikipedia, or at least, the English Wikipedia, is protected under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, which means that the whole history should be imported. Please, if I have made any mistakes above, correct me. Thanks. Hydriz^Talk 12:45, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The last revision and the link to the history (which is generated automatically during the one revision import) is all that is required. It is not required to import an entire history. Sometimes it is not desired. Best, Jon@talk:~$ 17:25, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

As Jon mentions, all that is required is a single link to the original history. What this means is you don't even have to import, you can copy and paste as long as you provide a link in your edit summary to where you are copying it from. Importing just does this automatically, some people prefer to import one line, others the whole thing. It doesn't really matter which you do. -DJSasso (talk) 19:58, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Suggested change to policy

Just though that I would point this suggested change to policy that I started here.--  † CR₉₀  02:38, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello! Newbie with energy!

Hello - I am new and with lots of energy. Please look at my changes because I might write interesting articles and because I a specially interested in special needs and learning differences. I also put too many clauses in my sentences so you might want to watch e on that. I have found that I need to type out quickly the whole of what I want to write in rough form rather than get bogged down in too much editing as I go because otherwise I would lose myself in making changes. I have traits of dyslexia, dyspraxia, attention deficit, obsessional and mood disorder. I might come across in writing a bit more bubbly and carefree to how I generally feel on the inside or seem in person. That isn't meant to dishonest. Is that okay? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kathybramley (talk • contribs)

Hi there! Welcome to the Simple English Wikipedia! We welcome you to join us in improving Wikipedia, but a small note, remember to sign your posts on talk pages! Have fun! Hydriz^Talk 10:11, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Yup, thanks. It's the remembering to sign my posts that is the problem. I want to do it. Kathybramley (talk) 09:19, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Walmart-Starbucks merger

We need to get a project going and make major changes to related articles with regard to the deal that's going to be finalized tomorrow morning. Backpack ^{mano y mano} 04:15, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Huh? Walmart is merging with Starbucks? For real?? Is Walmart going to start a coffee store monopoly? I can't find any of this on Google News. Oh wait, it's a frigging joke isn't it? Happy April 1st! :) —stay (sic)! 10:00, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume I

Is Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume I needed as it stands. It seems more like a paraphrase of the book. It is far longer than the ENWP version, and I see the creator and sole editor is banned on both Simple and ENWP now. --Bärliner (talk) 12:57, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

This one is a real poser. It's got in its favour lots of refs and a simply wonderful collection of photographs, neither of which the enWP version has. The enWP version gives a more professional account of the origin of the recent publication. The worst feature of the Simple version is the lack of links, and the prose is undisciplined. One doesn't know how much of the text is lifted straight from the book. Ideally, we need a literary person to agree to edit it down and wikify it.
Well, overall, I think it might be a mistake to delete it. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:21, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Definitely think that it needs to be kept. I would be willing to thoroughly copyedit and trim, but it will probably need more work than that. Some critical reviews can probably be added, since there was quite a reaction to the publication. PrincessofLlyr ^talk 15:58, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I had proposed a thread about trimming some time back on the talk page. I agree with trimming it and keeping it, and suggest we discuss ways to do that on the talkpage Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 00:14, 3 April 2011 (UTC) 4,999

Movereq

Calgary, Alberta to just Calgary. Follows EN naming conventions about major Canadian cities Backpack ^{mano y mano} 16:04, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

 Done Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 16:07, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Is renaming possible

Is renaming a user locally (only on simple) possible to another username without removing Special:CentralAuth/USERNAME entries possible?

Yes users can be renamed locally only, but all their edits will change attribution to their new name for legal reasons. -DJSasso (talk) 15:02, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. --Highspeedrailguy (talk) 15:09, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Where to propose new project?

Where do you propose new Wikimedia projects? I know it's somewhere on meta, but I'm not sure exactly where. Thanks, Highspeedrailguy (talk) 20:10, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

m:Proposals for new projects — μ 20:11, Sunday March 27 2011 (UTC)

I looked at it a few days ago. I was put off because the sections in the proposal for are obviously making sure that this is a serious proposal with some development already done and others in support. I'm thinking about a Makaton translation of wikpedia or simple or a translator. I haven't got any backing or relationship with the makaton charity or know anyone else interested yet. What was your proposal? Kathybramley (talk) 08:50, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

City stubs...

Hello all,

I know we have discussed this already several times, but I still want to bring this item back to discussion: Currently we have several (probably hundreds, if not thousands) of city stubs that are too short to explain why a city is notable. I would be interested in finding a solution, which might be to extend these, or delete them. The problem I see is that it is a lot of work, because even if we have a one or two line stub, the city/settlement might be notable. My proposition to solve this: Articles about a settlement which only have geographic or census info should be deletable (rfd, qd in the case of "short" articles). Ideas? --Eptalon (talk) 09:48, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Eptalon you really need to stop bringing this up, everytime it comes to consensus that there is no problem and that they shouldn't be deleted. If you want to expand them then expand them, otherwise put your time in better uses instead of dredging this up over and over again. -DJSasso (talk) 17:19, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

There are 427 articles in Category:Cities in Kentucky, there are 147 in Category:Cities in Alabama. A check of six pages at random from these revealed one sentence stubs. (X is a city in Y) I am therefore led to believe that out of the 574 articles cited most are one line stubs. If I do the calculation for 50 US states, this means we have about 14350 articles about US cities, most of which are one line stubs. This is roughly one fifth of all our articles. One in five users who clicks on "Show any page" will get an one-line stub with a high probability (provided that the "random" function is truly random, which it probably isn't). What if instead of a one line stub of a city few people here care about, we get 3-5 cities per state, with a decent (2-3 paragraph) article? --Eptalon (talk) 10:53, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I have said this n+1 times, but I'll say it again, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and it is supposed to provide information. I suggest keeping the ones that are not one-line stubs, and nuking the rest. "X is a city/province/river in Y" isn't really useful, and I would be happy to let them stay if they were expanded. IMO, Eptalon has an interesting idea. Since one-line stubs have been mentioned, I'll point to the thousands of footballer stubs here as well (most of them are "X is a former footballer from Y. He had no international appearances"), which should also be deleted imo. But either way, I am not really expecting any real change as we will spend more time debating than actually doing things... Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 11:25, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I'll say what I've said again...I've made a list of 500 or so American cities and 100 or so Canadian cities (not all of which actually have articles) that are of some importance. Keep them (they are important enough that they should be allowed to grow) and keep anything that has a paragraph or two of text, and delete the rest Purplebackpack89 16:12, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

And I might as well repeat what I have always said. All towns are notable, we don't delete notable things at wikipedia. No matter the size, stubs are better than a blank page, and especially better than a deleted page. A stub is more likely to be expanded than a new page is to be created. And when someone sees the page has been deleted before they are even less likely to create the page for fear that it will just be deleted again. Deleting these articles is counter to everything the wiki stands for and is an extremely bad thing to do. If you don't like that they are stubs then expand them, if you don't want to expand them then don't go to them. Its really not that hard. -DJSasso (talk) 16:18, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed with DJSasso - nothing needs doing here, just leave it alone and move on. No issue, imo. Goblin 16:47, 2 April 2011 (UTC) I ♥ Pmlineditor!

I also see that such deletion has started, under the grounds of "non-controversial or routine cleanup". This discussion is proof that it is not non-controversial, so I would recommend holding off. Kansan ^(talk) 20:52, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
I reversed my deletion for the one-line city (in Kentucky, I think); I classed it as "non-controversial/routine cleanup"; the article was created in 2009, I think, and except for interwikis hasn't been touched since. Since it is only one sentence, I could also have classed under "doesn't show notability" (as in: the article does not state the reason why it is notable) --Eptalon (talk) 21:06, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

A line such as "x is a city in y" does not show how the subject is notable. There is normally no reason to keep those articles. No matter if those are may be notable, they simply do not show notability. I regularly deleted pages that actually might have been notable but didn't show why they are notable. Those one-line stubs do not serve any purpose. The only useful things at all there are the interwikis to en, fr, de and so on. If we keep this kind of things, we can just make a redirect to enwiki. This is the only use those articles have. I don't doubt that the towns aren't notable, I only want to say that they should show notability. I'd even delete Albert Einstein if it were a one-line stub like "Einstein was a German physician". Such a thing (even thought that everyone knows that Einstein is notable) does not show notability. There are hundreds of others who are also physicians. I'd simply delete such a page. -Barras (talk) 21:12, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

But they do show notability, the minute they say "is a city" they are claiming notability which is all that is needed to avoid speedy deletion. The difference between your example of Einstein and these cities is that all cities are notable so the minute they say they are a city they are showing their notability. But not all german physicists are notable, so yes your einstein article should be deleted if it only said that. -DJSasso (talk) 22:16, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm still working on a list for the French communes. However, I haven't had much time lately. Yottie ^=talk= 21:47, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Barras: Saying ""x is a city in y" does not show how the subject is notable." is implying, at least to me, that we have a notability guideline for towns/cities/metropolitan areas/hamlets/villages/boroughs/municipalities/communes. What would classify a town/city... as notable, just existing? If that's the case, deleting these pages would be (is) a waste of time. Albacore (talk · changes) 22:17, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, populated places are considered defacto notable. This is why its such a giant waste of time that this keeps getting brought up. The minute the subject says its a city/town etc, its claiming notability by being one. So I don't know why people keep bringing it up over and over. -DJSasso (talk) 22:20, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

If I take up the reasoning, once there is a "populated place, with a name" (I am avoiding city here, since that may be defined differently) that place is notable. - We should probably come up with a better classification, else any named place is notable. In my book notability also has a historical component ("Just another hamlet they started in the middle of nowhere around a cattle farm" is certainly not notable). Hence the idea that the article itself has to show why its notable, which one-sentence stubs rarely can. --Eptalon (talk) 22:40, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Remember notability just means being written about, has nothing to do with historical things other than has the town been written about. And every town will have been written about in various maps, atlases, government documents etc. This is why en has declared all populated places with a name to be notable. We shouldn't be differentiating from en on a topic like notability. -DJSasso (talk) 13:11, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Isn't this essentially the same issue as the recent discussion about deleting Communes of France? To be honest, I'd like to see all such one sentence location stubs (along with the endless one sentence footballer stubs) deleted. I just tried hitting "Show any page" 10 times and got the trifecta of a one sentence city in Iowa, a one sentence commune in France, and a one sentence footballer. It makes the wiki look trivial and there is little to no chance that these will be improved in the near future based on the number of active editors. And, the number of active editors is, IMHO, unlikely to increase if the wiki looks bad. But what I or others would like and what the policies say are two different questions. This will keep coming up because the policies seem to allow something that many people don't like.

The first two sentences of criteria 4 seem to be be leading to a rationale for deletion. (See eptalon's initial request "stubs that are too short to explain why a city is notable") Criteria 4 says, "Is about people, groups, companies or websites that are not notable. An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not say why it is important." Especially that second sentence because these city stubs do not say why the the subjects of the articles are notable. However, that criteria does not include places.

According to notability, "Notability requires only the existence of suitable reliable sources, not their immediate citation. Wikipedia articles are not a final draft, and an article's subject can be notable if such sources exist, even if they have not been named yet." We just need to reasonably know that sources exist. These towns and communes have sources to cite someday and therefore are notable. The same could be said about many of the "real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content" but an exception was made in the deletion criteria.

This issue will come up again and again unless it is made crystal clear in the policies, and the policies lead to a result that most people are happy with. So, is it possible to change the policies? If we add place names to criteria for deletion, then we are all set to delete. If we don't, then I think we are stuck with these under notability. One possibility would be to revise the criteria for deletion as as follows, "4. Is about people, groups, companies or websites that are not notable. An article about a place, real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not say why it is important. If not everyone agrees that the subject is not notable or there has been a previous RfD, the article may not be quickly deleted, and should be discussed at RfD instead." Or, even go all the way and say "Any article that does not say why it is important." but that would be a very, very big change. However, without some change in the policy, I think we are stuck with these one-liner stubs that make SeWP look trivial and make the statistics (ratio of GAs VGAs to article etc.) look very bad. Personally, I'd like to see these gone, but the policies don't seem to support that. (Sorry I went on so long.) Gotanda (talk) 23:10, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes of course this would also include similar stubs about French places. If the article we have here does not show that the place is notable, it should be deleted. --Eptalon (talk) 09:04, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh thing to also mention, for those that think its ok to speedy, don't forget these have all been to Rfd and kept, which means they are no longer eligible for speedy deletion. -DJSasso (talk) 14:11, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

That's a completely different aspect, that probably needs to be discussed separately; in any case, most of the articles have been there for two years, a few weeks will probably not make a difference, no matter what the outcome of this discussion is. --Eptalon (talk) 21:12, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Geographic coordinates

Template:Coor title dm doesn't work. For instance, click Cape Breton Island, then click the coordinates in the upper right corner. You will get 404 Page Not Found. Same result for any other page using that template, which can be found here. Art LaPella (talk) 00:57, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

The problem was at Template:Coor dm.  Fixed. Goodvac (talk) 01:54, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Article cleanup

Anyone who is real good at this... there is a challenge... Nickelodeon Games and Sports for Kids Best, Jon@talk:~$ 02:35, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikimania 2011 - Haifa, Israel

Hi everyone,

As some of you may (or may not!) know, this year's 'Wikimania Conference' is being held in Haifa in Israel, between the 4th and the 7th August 2011. There are also hacking days a couple of days before hand. I won't bore you with all the details as they're all available over on the Wikimania 2011 Wiki, http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org.

The main point of this thread is, basically, to find out if anyone else from the wiki is planning on attending. I found out today that I have become one of the lucky few to be offered a full scholarship to the event and, whilst I would love to go on what will probably be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I am a bit wary for a number of reasons - particularly the "not knowing" anyone part. So... anyone else thinking about it?

Secondly, if I do attend it is my intention to try and get the news about SEWP out there to the wider Wikimedia community, and see if we can get some more users to come and give us a hand. I have a couple of ideas - one of which involves potentially holding a talk about the project and it's aims - if accepted - but wondered if anyone else had any suggestions or ways that we could get the word out there, or even better would be willing to either help me prepare something or present something if you're attending yourself.

I have until April 15th to respond, and April 30th to submit a presentation proposal.

Sorry for the potential OT-ness, just interested if anyone else is going and trying to get the word about SEWP out there some more.

Regards,

Goblin 04:10, 24 March 2011 (UTC) I ♥ Gordonrox24!

I applied for a scholarship but haven't heard anything, so it looks like I won't be going. I am curious as to the nature of the presentation you'll be giving, though. Kansan (talk) 04:21, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Many congratulations on winning the award. Small portable devices are vital for conferences (whether of paper or silicon!). Prepare you own advert for SE on your device, so you can message others without loss of time. And think about a poster. Once you get there you'll be pretty busy, so pre-trip planning is needed. You probably know all this! Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:55, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the well wishes guys! I've now accepted the place and am actually quite excited about it, though it's still some time off and I have A levels to worry about before then! My plan for a possible presentation was, basically, to try and explain what SEWP is, why it exists and then some applications it is used in or can be used in - class projects and such like. It's still only an idea and I've got until April 30th to draw up... if anyone has any ideas or wanted to help create something I'd be very interested to hear from you! Will have my laptop and iPhone with me throughout the conference which will hopefully tick the box of a small portable device! Will see what I can do about a poster/advert of some sort too, again tips welcome! Definitely be busy once there, will try and plan before which is why I mentioned it here! Might start a page in my userspace on a sort of plan thing, if anyone is interested in helping push SEWP out during the conference (As in... help me prepare to do it if you're not there, or actually do it if you are...). Cheers, Goblin 20:19, 26 March 2011 (UTC) I ♥ Belinda!

Sounds interesting - good wishes! I have had the idea abut using groups I go to, and school classes too (I am a 33yo parent who still feel like a schoolgirl and thinks about careers in education). Spreading the word about simple english wikipedia could be really useful. I think facebook could be really useful too - by dropping messages into special interest groups, especially ones in English with international membership/readership. I also think Special Needs groups - parents, carers, services and those with special needs themselves, especially the overlap between those sets, is a likely source of help with a lot to give SEWP. I wonder how many people are on here with my difficulties and interests? (see below - I should mention I have a six year old with problems due to brain damage in a special school and adult friends with down syndrome, autism and other disabilities). What is special needs provision like in Isreal? ( last time I was here I forgot to sign my comment).Kathybramley (talk) 08:44, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I am very tempted to go but it seems unlikely due to money and childcare/family. I would be happy to help put together a presentation over e-mail or through this page. I guess you should keep it simple! Use the main pages and descriptions of what Simple English wikipedia is about from the pages and add examples. You could try to contact people from the different groups of users SE wikipedia is for. I mean those who speak English as a second language or a simpler English variety as a mother tongue; special needs groups; children and their teachers; combinations of these. If they were willing to say how they use simple english wikipedia and review it in a balanced way - the good, the bad, the hopes and fears for it - you could quote them. People like to know what they do is doing good and they need to know how and that it can be stimulating and worthwhile in itself. I think you can show all those things in a quick simple presentation on this wiki.Kathybramley (talk) 08:44, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

'A-levels' didn't swing the bell loudly enough! Sorry for thinking you were *from* Israel, Goblin. Kathybramley (talk) 09:03, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Is there point in this?

Hi - just wondering about the following. I created Capricornus (constellation), Leo (constellation) and Celestial sphere today, but found that I was changing very little from the en: wp version of the file because I found that the English used was simple enough. But as I'm new & I'm not sure. Can someone reply/comment on this? Another question is how to copy a template from en: wiki (template:NavConstellation) to here. (& FYI I'm not very knowledgeable on astronomy, relying on what's on wiki for the article here) Thanks. Deadstar (talk) 13:42, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

{{Constellations}} is imported now, doesn't appear to be one on en called quite what you listed but I assume this is the one you meant.. -DJSasso (talk) 14:27, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Djasso, that's the one I meant - The link on the page was to "NavConstel" which indeed redirected to Template:Constellations. I mashed it up... Deadstar (talk) 07:40, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Edit filter proposal

I am proposing a new edit filter:

1. <50 edits, matches /gay/
2. <50 edits, matches /balls/
3. <50 edits, matches /penis/
4. <50 edits, matches /sex/

and...

l+L?[i1][c3]+kcK[mn]y(b6[Aa][lL1]|[lL1]+[Ss5])
("lick my balls" is popping up in a lot of articles)

--SEPTActaMTA8235 (talk) 14:18, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

There are plenty of legitimate uses for these words. I have seen new users come in and legitimately make edits about human anatomy that would use some of these words. Since most recent changes are quickly patrolled, I think it would be better not to do things like this that discourage people from editing (because few things scare off new users like running into edit filters for no reason). Kansan ^(talk) 14:27, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Then the only one I feel is necessary is l+L?[i1][c3]+kcK[mn]y(b6[Aa][lL1]|[lL1]+[Ss5]). --SEPTActaMTA8235 (talk) 14:31, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

PAD

I completely forgot about the the requirement to make a thread in ST when I nominated the article, but I'll note now that I have proposed the article on Avril Lavigne be demoted from GA status per my concerns on its talk page. Regards, Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 12:33, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

There's no requirement to create a thread on WP:ST at all when suggesting the demotion of an article. Some users have simply taken it upon themselves recently to use it as a pointer, due to the relatively dead nature of the community processes at the moment (see my thread below.). Furthermore, these topics also rarely, if ever, provoke any discussion about the article in question, making them somewhat useless. Goblin 13:01, 7 April 2011 (UTC) I ♥ Juliancolton!

Community Processes Nudge

Hi guys, just here to give the semi-regular nudge for input into the various community processes! I'm pleased to report that DYK is currently running at a high for quite some time in terms of tickover and number of hooks, so thanks to everyone getting involved there - nice to be able to have enough nominated hooks to give us a bit of breather space in terms of keeping things updated! However, the same cannot be said for our PVGA, PGA and WP:PAD processes, unfortunately. The former two have been somewhat quiet for several months now, and it would be nice to have some articles brought to them for promotion! Many of the articles that do arrive also end up closing due to a lack of community input. We currently have one article at WP:PGA that needs your comments on whether it should be promoted or not, and one article at WP:PAD, that needs your comments about whether it should be demoted or not. Please do weigh in your thoughts and let's get these kick started!

As an aside, I've done some digging and much of the activity has dropped since the full protection of the Wikipedia:RecentChanges template and the removal of the numbers of articles and the emboldening of 'active' discussions on that page - there's already a small discussion about this a couple of sections above; please weigh in!

Thanks, Goblin 12:58, 7 April 2011 (UTC) I ♥ GoblinBots!

Biza12

hi i just join today — This unsigned comment was added by Biza12 (talk • changes) on 16:11, 7 March 2011.

Second timestamp for archiving... Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 12:52, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Signature bot question

Is there a bot here that automatically signs post? If not, why not make one? --Highspeedrailguy (talk) 16:21, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Is there any real need for it? — μ 16:22, Sunday April 3 2011 (UTC)

BTW, I got renamed. It's helpful to know WHO posted it so you can put {{talkback}} on their talk. --SEPTActaMTA8235 (talk) 18:58, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

We know you did. It's completely unneeded otherwise we would have one. I believe you (Or someone else) brought this up before and got the same reason. {{unsigned}} is normally added to such comments, and you can always check the page history to see who wrote what. It's also not a great idea to use the {{tb}} template outside of user talk. Goblin 19:01, 3 April 2011 (UTC) I ♥ Gordonrox24!

Not needed really. If you want to find out who made a specific comment, feel free to check the history of the page. This is much easier done manually that spending time developing a bot to do this. Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 12:54, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Checkuser/Jamesofur

Resolved. Checkuser rights granted on Meta

Howdy everyone!

I've seen some of you on IRC over the past couple months but for many of you I've been markedly absent. For those that are new I used to be a Checkuser and Bureaucrat and set them aside when I was hired by the Wikimedia Foundation for the annual fundraiser and suddenly started logging in as User:Jalexander a lot more (I was the guy who made those beautiful banners!). Since then I have signed a new contract with the foundation as a Community Fellow but after talking with my boss and our lawyers we think that it would be ok for me to hold advanced permissions again on my volunteer accounts. Obviously there are a couple things involved with that:

• If I get the tools back obviously anything work related would still be done with my staff rights. I would also attempt to try and find another Checkuser if the person I believed I was likely to have to deal with the user in question in my work capacity. There are a couple of people who this would apply to at the moment though they do not generally come to Simple, clearly I won't always know if this is the case and that's fine.
• When I originally asked for my tool removal it was going to be temporary but given the time off I don't think it's a good idea for me to ask for them back without a general consensus from you guys that it is the right move. Please don't hesitate to say "no sorry you aren't around enough" or "go through a normal RfR again" if that's what you think :)

In general I'm thinking of only asking for Checkuser back. If people think I should ask for Bureaucrat back I'm happy to do so but am working under the assumption that the need for an extra, relatively inactive one, is less. A couple of the Checkusers have said they could use the help and given how my work is I'm at the computer all the time and generally available on IRC/Instant Messenger/Email/Wiki and making sure I stay in the simple channels is easy enough (you guys are far less annoying then the English channels ;) ). I probably can not say that I will be as active as I was for now though I will likely be a bit more active in a month or so after my move is complete and I'm not working as odd hours. I will however make sure I'm always available and will continue to read up on what is happening on wiki (and maybe even comment!). James (T C) 22:32, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

• I have no problem with having your tools restored. It was an uncontroversial resignation, and you've still been around, so I don't see any harm (Especially if CUs think another CU could be helpful).--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 22:41, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
• I have no problem with you getting them back. Though I would want to see you at least a little more active. ie you haven't been around since November and 50 edits take you back to July. But I do know that is due to work and not lack of interest. -DJSasso (talk) 22:59, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

  Aye definitely, I'm going to start hanging in the cvn channel on IRC again which will likely end up naturally increasing that at least some (Hard to ignore something if you see it). James (T C) 23:07, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

• No problem? What do you mean no problem? :P We would be more than honored to have you back, James! Thank you so much for paying your interest to this small site. :) I certainly think you deserve the tools. ♥ingly, Bella ^{tête-à-tête} 00:33, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
• Welcome back James :) Once welcomed (and not banned) always welcomed. :P -- DQ (t)(e) 00:50, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
• No problems here, welcome back :). Grunny (talk) 03:06, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
•  Comment: Whilst I personally have no issues with the regranting of checkuser, speaking as a steward I'm not sure the flag can be regranted in this fashion: I believe a new RfCU is needed. Crat can just be given back of course. fr33kman 03:30, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

  Aye, I'm not sure whether it does or not to be honest. My understanding of the policies would be that as long as the community is ok with it then the old "set of 25+ supports" should be ok. Obviously if either the community or the stewards think they need a new one that's all good though :) James (T C) 05:19, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

  As long as there is a little agreement to restore cu, there is no problem here. This case already happened a few times and people simply got their access restored with link to the old election. Also people know why he resigned, it was because of his work for the WMF... Should not be a problem to restore. -Barras (talk) 06:17, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

• No problem for either role, as far as I'm concerned. Macdonald-ross (talk) 05:57, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
• Yes, please. :-) -Barras (talk) 06:17, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
• Going off the precedent Barras states, I have no problem with restoring it. Kansan ^(talk) 06:27, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
• It'd be great to have another active CU back :) sonia♫ 08:42, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Supposing everyone is fine with the idea, do we need to run an RfCU just for the formality? - Or do we treat this as "user temporarily laid down permission"? --Eptalon (talk) 11:44, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

 (change conflict)  As I already pointed out above, there is no need for a RfCU. There are enough reference cases elsewhere. -Barras (talk) 11:50, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

• Support getting all tools back, and there's no need for an RfCU quite clearly per what Barras has said. Do please read... Goblin 11:48, 5 April 2011 (UTC) I ♥ Pmlineditor!
• Sure, I've no problems with James getting CU and crat back. :) Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 12:33, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support return of all tools. Welcome back.--The Three Headed Knight (talk) 14:16, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose - the guy's a traitor and a red sox fan. ;)--  † CR₉₀  03:54, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

  There's a time and a place for this sort of thing... it clearly isn't here. Goblin 10:10, 6 April 2011 (UTC) I ♥ Belinda!

• Support? Of course. --Peterdownunder (talk) 11:28, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Checkuser right has been re-granted via meta upon my request. James is now our newest checkuser. Welcome back! -Barras (talk) 09:56, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Kasirbot

Kasirbot is showing even when I click "Hide bots" on Special:RecentChanges. Why? Can this be fixed? Thanks, 18:48, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

It's still showing because it's not actually flagged as a bot locally.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 19:32, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Same problem /w DEagleBot. --SEPTActaMTA8235 (talk) 18:41, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

User

Can we change our user name display? Omkar (talk) 13:51, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

If by 'user name display' you mean changing the name associated with the account itself (with all your previous edits reassigned to the new name) then you may do that on this page. If you're referring to the signature used with your posts, on other hand, you can follow this guide. -- Mentifisto 14:10, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Own subpages that can be deleted

Can an admin delete some of my own subpages? (See this list) I need this pages no longer. Thanks --Labant (talk) 20:35, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

 Done--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 21:10, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you --Labant (talk) 21:13, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Little FYI...the best way to get rid of unwanted subpages is to tag them {{qd|U1}} Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 21:46, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I think QD'ing them all is a little unreasonable, there were so many of them. An admin's talk page or AN would have been better than here, but I think just listing them off saved some time.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 21:57, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

PGAs/PVGAs

We used to have the number of PGAs, PVGAs, and DYKs on the recent changes page (like we do now for the number of proposed deletions). While the community has decided not to do it for DYKs, I really think we should display the number of PGAs and PVGAs to remind people they exist, as the last few ones that have been proposed have gotten little to no attention. Thoughts? Kansan (talk) 21:51, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I think all the numbers should be returned, if an admin can ensure that they stay up to date, which is they key factor here. Though, personally, I don't see why the subpages need to be unprotected; {{totw}} is a case in point. I could even fire the bot back up again if it was de-protected. Goblin 21:54, 30 March 2011 (UTC) I ♥ PeterSymonds!

I would be in support of moving the Article Improvement template to semi-protection as mentioned above (since having the totw template semi-protected has led to no problems), personally. Kansan (talk) 21:58, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

No-one has opposed this in a week, any chance we can just be bold and unprotect it? Goblin 11:20, 6 April 2011 (UTC) I ♥ Bsadowski1!

Just a bump to keep this here before it disappears to hopefully get it done or further input... Goblin 20:00, 12 April 2011 (UTC) I ♥ GoblinBots!

• Which pages need unprot? Jon@talk:~$ 20:21, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia:RecentChanges/Article Improvement. Kansan ^(talk) 20:31, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

 Done in this rev. Jon@talk:~$ 20:37, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Cheers. Goblin 08:44, 13 April 2011 (UTC) I ♥ Microchip08!

Locking a Template

How can we lock a template? Omkar (talk) 11:45, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

What exactly do you mean? --SEPTActaMTA8235 (talk) 11:50, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I guess you mean "protect" it? Admins can apply different levels of protection to templates, articles etc. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:08, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

So, can we protect it if we are not an administrator? Omkar 15:11, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

No. -DJSasso (talk) 16:11, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

• Protecting pages is usually done to prevent ongoing abuse/vandalism. Jon@talk:~$ 16:57, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Plebiscite: also known as a referendum

Hello - I came across this page Plebiscite. It seems strange to me - this term Plebiscite is very unfamiliar to me. It should surely not be the article title with 'Referendum' redirecting there; unless there is international usage of the term I've completely missed out on? Anyone help? Or willing and able to do the move? Not sure how to report these things 'appropriately'. Also seems like there is a lot of weirdly worded stuff on here and I am not sure how to flag it or if I'll seem stupid or rude or something. 22:28, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Should definitely be moved to Referendum on grounds of frequency of use on news media, etc. (Needs an admin to do it). Content is basically sound; style varies a bit from place to place. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:12, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps I am a bit picky here, but IMO the two are not the same, and should not be treated in the same article. --Eptalon (talk) 09:30, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

You aren't the only one, the two are different topics atleast where I am from. -DJSasso (talk) 15:35, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it's clear that usage varies between countries, and because of that it might be unwise to have two articles. Whose versions would one choose? What unifies them is the concept of 'consulting the people on an important decision'. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:07, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

My understanding was that a plebescite is simply another word for a vote, usually a national election, while a referendum is a vote that revisits an issue that has already been voted on once, such as the recall of a politician or the repeal of a law. At least that's how referendum is used in the States... Beeblebrox (talk) 19:16, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Plebiscite in Canada for sure (and I think I have seen it used this way in the states on the news) is a vote for local matters on a small scale. Like a city would hold a plebiscite on changing a bylaw that all the citizens in the city can vote on. And to a lesser extent to a provincial level. The equivalent in the states I think is all the "Props" that are held at election time for various proposals. Whereas in Canada (This one I haven't heard ever used for something in the states) a Referendum is usually for something major like a Constitutional change or in the most recent and most popular case the Province of Quebec trying to have one to see if the people wanted to separate from Canada. -DJSasso (talk) 22:25, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Well then, I think we're into an article which lists usage in individual countries. 'Plebiscite' does not exist in the UK as a constitutional measure, and 'referendum' did not until the 1960s with the referendum for joining the European Union. I see on enWP we write that "The Belfast Agreement was endorsed by the voters of Northern Ireland in a referendum", which illustrates that the term can be used for post-hoc endorsements (in the UK).
I don't think either plebiscites or referenda have a place in the US constitution, but propositions are local issues voted on at state level. (I know there'll be a ton of corrections if I'm wrong) Opinion polls take the place of plebiscites in many countries, and are, of course, non-governmental but influential. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:06, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Commons:Simple English

To my surprise, this portal is apparently fairly well used. It'd be good if regulars who also frequent commons watchlisted it so it's monitored :) sonia♫ 07:35, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if the species:Main Page (Simple English) too? There seems to be a portal for Simple English on the multilingual projects. Hydriz^Talk 07:37, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Most likely because its linked from our main page I believe. So people going to commons from here end up there. -DJSasso (talk) 13:56, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Weird categories

I'm not sure why, but some articles like Sofia and Skopje are in Categories like Category:Articles with unsourced statements since January 2,009 as opposed to the proper categories of Category:Articles with unsourced statements since January 2009, despite the template showing the correct date, e.g., {{Fact|date=January 2009}} . Any ideas why this is, or a fix for it? -Avicennasis @ 09:51, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

This is a problem that stems from the fact that the outer template (Infobox Settlement) formats the numbers, which also applies to the parameters of the inner template (Fact). I have reported a bug against the software. So far, the workaround would be to not use fact inside another template that formats its arguments. --Eptalon (talk) 13:15, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

More French town/commune articles than United States town/city articles

Recently, I've been clicking "Special:Random" and about 5 out of 30 articles are French towns/communes, while only 3 out of 30 are United States geography articles. Just something I found out, not sure if this helps, SEPTActaMTA8235 13:39, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm planning on making articles for redlinked cities in Florida, if that helps. Noted 7 ^{(t ♡ c)} 13:53, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

That is going to be the case with every single topic on a small wiki. Some topics will be covered more because there were people more interested in doing articles for those ones. It is an inevitable outcome of any wiki. Nothing to see here. -DJSasso (talk) 14:28, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

By the way, I've created User:SEPTActaMTA8235/Project 6 which includes cities worthy of articles. --SEPTActaMTA8235 15:01, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

All cities are worthy of inclusion. -DJSasso (talk) 16:22, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I meant they all have populations of 100,000+ people. --SEPTActaMTA8235 16:40, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Don't forget Albany, New York. Only 98,000, but the capitol of New York.--The Three Headed Knight (talk) 18:10, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

(reset) These discussions are getting pretty tiresome now, can we please just all read the ones that took place (literally) a week before the new one was posted? Goblin 18:27, 15 April 2011 (UTC) I ♥ Pmlineditor!

Most recent version of this back-and-forth, but with a concrete proposal to amend deletion policy is here: [1] Gotanda (talk) 00:48, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps three IMO very important points:

• Notability of a city/place does not depend on its size. Bigger cites are more likely to be notable, but may well be a collection of houses where 100.000 people live, as is often the case with US cities; the city of Verdun, which does not even have an article here, has 20.000 people today. Besides the Battle of Verdun everyone knows, the place has a history going back to Roman times at least.
• We cannot judge notability based the article we have here; the article here may be a one line stub (example Orange, Vaucluse has history going back at least to Roman times.)
• Not every named place is notable.

Other than this, see the discussion of about a week ago (Where all stated their positions, but which led to little else). The fact that this comes up so shortly afterwards points to us needing a policy/guideline of sorts. I prefer working on content...--Eptalon (talk) 10:53, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

And like Malvern, Pennsylvania, the site of a major battle in the Revolutionary War, etc. --SEPTActaMTA8235 11:36, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

No it doesn't point to that Eptalon, it points to a user who keeps stirring up stuff. All named populated locations are notable. There is no room for debate here. If the city/town/village exists and people live there its notable to the people of the area. Hands down. People keep confusing notability with history or being famous. Neither of which is notability. Notability just means that the thing is noted. Anyone who lives in that location clearly notes its there. Atlases, government documents, books, travel guides all note that populated places are there. -DJSasso (talk) 14:41, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
A week ago, or so ,we couldn't agree. I see this hasn't changed, so there's little use discussing it again.--Eptalon (talk) 16:31, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

As I said elsewhere, the question here is not notability. Places are notable, that is not an issue. The issue is that the wiki has a very large number of one sentence stubs, most of which have little to no chance of developing into actual articles any time in the next several years, if ever. Some people, not all, don't like that. I suggested a compromise. We already have an exception in the policies: "An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not say why it is important. If not everyone agrees that the subject is not notable or there has been a previous RfD, the article may not be quickly deleted, and should be discussed at RfD instead." I suggested adding place to that list of exceptions. That would allow deletion only where there is consensus, and no more. Seemed like a pretty reasonable compromise to me that would probably allow most of the stubs to linger on, but would allow the people who really want to eliminate some of them to get rid of the least useful ones. It does not say anything about notability, but just expands the exception slightly. (And just as an aside, I need a history lesson here. Why was bot creation of articles in this way allowed in the first place? Thanks!) Gotanda (talk) 23:31, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Considering every RfD en-masse of place-related articles has always failed this is a completely pointless thread, end of. None are eligible for QD for that reason anyway (so modifying the criteria would be pointless) and none will ever pass an RfD, going on previous experience, so why, why, why does this keep coming up? If you're not happy, just ignore them or, even better, fix them yourself instead of creating this colossal waste of time for the rest of us. (Not aimed at anyone in particular, I hasten to add.) As for the bot creation - some of the communes were, but most weren't. Most of the creation stems from a now retired user who felt it necessary to include anything and everything - such as Rivers and Asteroids, which were deleted, rightly - and others followed suit due to his apparent high-standing at the time. It'll all be in the Simple Talk archives somewhere, but I'm afraid I can't remember much more than that as it was in my early days when it was taking or had took place - there's very few still around who will remember, actually. Goblin 23:50, 16 April 2011 (UTC) I ♥ GoblinBots!

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Well, if every city is notable, and all these are one-line stubs, just expand them when you see them. --SEPTActaMTA8235 14:14, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Exactly, every time its come up for deletion its failed. Clearly the community doesn't actually have a problem with them being one line stubs. Only a couple people do. As BG7 says. Expand them or ignore them. Either way lets stop talking about it and wasting everyones time. -DJSasso (talk) 20:14, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

This has been a problem for me. I got the importer right so I could add to our content on Alaska. However, I have repeatedly come across places in Alaska that have one of these pointless sub-stubs that just say "X is a city in Alaska" so there's already something there and I can't import. So, I'm forced to do the "poor man's import" and just copy/paste instead, noting the source in the edit summary. We should be able to quick delete these if there is an article that can be imported and simplified. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:15, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Saturn (planet) still a VGA?

Again, I don't want to go nomination-crazy here, but this article has MOS-fails, red links, dead links, a plethora of spammy "other websites", a template with more red links than blue, is this the very best we can offer from Simple en-wiki? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:27, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I would favour a list of things to do on the talk page as a first step. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:26, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, then I'll see what I can do. Those first things (red links, dead links, spammy links, red links in the template) are the stand-out issues. More will follow. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:32, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Collapsable lower template boxes

This is about the templated boxes at the bottom of pages eg. 'Presidents of the Royal Society' or 'Nobel Prize in...'. I notice in enWP they are set in collapsed state, opened by a button. For some reason we don't seem to do this. Why not? I think it should be standard. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:55, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Because there is a bug somewhere amoungst our code. To make those boxes collapse is surprisingly complicated. We have been trying for years to figure out where the issue is. But its a case of this code relies on this code relies on this code relies on this code relies on this style sheet. So somewhere amongst all the templates and style sheets and media wiki pages etc that it touches is a small error that noone has been able to solve. Only true way to fix it without alot of effort is to start the whole wiki over again...well not really but thats what it seems like. -DJSasso (talk) 11:29, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Are you talking about Navboxes, such as the ones at the end of Force India? I just changed Template:Nobel Prize in Physics to collapsed state, and it is working. Check out Albert Einstein.--The Three Headed Knight (talk) 03:54, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Checked it out, and it's not working. Macdonald-ross (talk) 05:46, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Must be in the skins. It works for me with Vector and MonoBook. --The Three Headed Knight (talk) 06:05, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Done a survey. Works for me with Monobook; Simple; My book; Chick. Does not work with Vector (!); Modern; Nostalgia; Cologne blue. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:50, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I've now changed all the other Nobel Prize Navboxes to 'collapsed' so they appear closed on page as the default, assuming your skin permits it... That should be our standard, as it is in enWP. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:04, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Wanted files

Is there any way the process that creates/updates Special:WantedFiles be updated? It appears that it searches the pages, and only looks within Simple Wikipedia for files. It never checks Commons to see if the file is there. The result are thousands of file links that are not really missing. It is very cumbersome to scan through the list looking for truly missing files.--The Three Headed Knight (talk) 04:04, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Not that I am aware of, that page is only meant for files that are missing from the specific wiki you are lookin on. It's built into the mediawiki software. We are a unique wiki in that we only use commons images, so that page doesn't really have any use here. -DJSasso (talk) 17:42, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Deletion review

Has fallen into a state of decay. Could an administrator close the discussion from Jan, and maybe some editors/admins/folk comment on the recent one please. Thank you, Jon@talk:~$ 18:40, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

AWB request

Can someone change every instance of "External links" to "Other websites" using AWB? Thanks. --SEPTActaMTA8235 (talk) 20:33, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Most of them are. If you spot the odd one just change it. Either way its not that big a deal. -DJSasso (talk) 01:52, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

*cough* --SEPTActaMTA8235 (talk) 11:41, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

And? Again...still not a big deal. External links isn't all that complex, other websites is just less complex. If it bothers you change it when you see it. -DJSasso (talk) 12:15, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Can someone add my name to Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage as I have more than 750 edits to article space (en.wiki guideline for AWB is any user with more than 500 edits to article space). Thanks. --SEPTActaMTA8235 (talk) 14:46, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

If someone hasn't granted it to you that probably means the admins don't feel you are ready for it. Just because you have that many edits doesn't mean you automatically get it. We much more strongly restrict AWB use than on en because this wiki doesn't like its recent changes getting flooded. Generally we only give it out when you have a specific task in mind that you need to do. Editing your comment over and over to keep bumping your request on peoples watchlist is only going to make it less likely you get it. -DJSasso (talk) 13:15, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

 Not done I'm going to go ahead and decline the request. These can be changed manually. If there are more than say, thirty instances, and the task is limited to that, I will provisionally bot flag your account for this task. Best, Jon@talk:~$ 18:47, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Not that I have an opinion one way or the other on this matter - I went over the last database dump, and found 311 pages containing the text ==External links==. The list can be found at User:Avicennasis/sandbox. If someone wants to process that (and has consensus to do so en masse), feel free to edit that list as needed. -Avicennasis @ 07:00, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I went ahead and did this as it seemed to be a valid request. (and I was bored) 307 edits made. Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 13:13, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Editor Survey

I keep clicking "X" but it doesn't close. --SEPTActaMTA8235 11:17, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Fixed now. --SEPTActaMTA8235 11:35, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:RecentChanges/Community

Per my (and Goblin's) comment on Wikipedia talk:RecentChanges/Community, can someone unprotect Wikipedia talk:RecentChanges/Community? Thanks. --SEPTActaMTA8235 19:16, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. still a GA?

Having noticed we now seem to be nominating articles for demotion based, in part, on their lack of substance compared with their en.wiki counterpart, I bring you Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. which is just about the same length in total as just the lead on en.wiki. I suggest this article is incomplete, but don't want to nominate too many GAs for demotion at once. Please find time amongst you all to address the fact that this article is in need of serious additions. There's also a dead link to be resolved. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:30, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Of course, failing to do so will result in me nominating it for demotion, just in case you were wondering. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:07, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify, you don't mean that such GAs should be the same length approximately as their en counterparts, right? As a much smaller wiki with so much ground to cover, at least, I think it would be most pragmatic to thoroughly cover topics without necessarily having to go to the extreme length that results from a much larger pool of editors over a period of years. Of course, they need to thoroughly cover the subject, and it seems, as of now, the Kitzmiller article does not do that. Perhaps the standards for promotion were more lax before I came here in 2010. Kansan (talk) 21:17, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

No, I never thought we should emulate the length of en-wiki, particularly with our own GAs, but I found Avril Lavigne being nominated for demotion with comparisons to information lacking with comparison to en-wiki. Having a quick scan over some of the early GAs, there are many which therefore now should be nominated for demotion on similar grounds. This article barely covers what the lead of the en.wiki article does. Standards for GA were always low here, but attainable. Having said that, the GA/VGA process here has pretty much run out of interest, and it would appear that mostly it's easier to demote articles than it is to save them. So, we now have three GAs up for demotion, this will be the fourth in due course, and I will run through all the older GAs and VGAs in due course to nominate those which no longer match the expectations of the community. If anyone wants to help recover the situation, that would be excellent. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:23, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

As an aside, I always mean to get around to nominating more articles for GA, but I feel that as there is so much this wiki doesn't cover, my time would be better spent creating more decent articles and getting those on core topics up to passable status instead of spending all my time on one individual GA. Kansan (talk) 21:28, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Since you brought up Avril, the problem with Lavigne wasn't that it was SHORT, but that it was incomplete, out-of-date, and inaccurate. I don't see those kind of problems with Kitzmiller Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 22:00, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Re Kitzmiller and our main Intelligent design page: the first paragraph of the enWP Intelligent design makes it clear (with refs) that 'intelligent cause' is a figleaf term for 'God'. It seems a bit coy for us to use 'smarter force' and have the reader discover it links to 'God'! But in general it's not a bad page, whereas (as Purple says) Avril Lavigne is pretty dreadful all round. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:03, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Sticking to topic, this page is incomplete. Many comments I've seen in other GA criticisms point at the enwiki page and would say stuff like "where's the section about the background?", "where's the section on the litigants?", "where's the detail of the trial?", "where's the detail of the decision?", etc. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:14, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, then it's clear you should nominate it. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:20, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

And actually, you yourself (McD-R) claimed that the Lavigne article "lacked substance", something I think which can be easily levelled at the Kitzmiller article... The Rambling Man (talk) 06:31, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Now nominated for demotion as lacking substance per en.wiki's comprehensive article. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:06, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

proposed move

I have proposed a move here. chris†ianrocker90 11:11, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Nevermind, carried out by Yottie (talk · contribs). chris†ianrocker90 11:24, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

What is this...

...wow, so many of you all are still here. >_> Hey y'all. Keep up the good work. ;) American Eagle (talk) 08:14, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Wow, it's been almost a full year since you last edited. I hope you become active someday again. :) --Bsadowski1 08:22, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

American Eagle!!! *hugs* We miss you. :P Thanks for dropping by! And yes, we will try our best here. Join us sometime when you feel like it, too! ♥ingly, Bella ^{tête-à-tête} 08:24, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Good to see you're still alive ;) Yottie ^=talk= 11:02, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I personally miss ya, AE, come back to us soon! chris†ianrocker90 11:12, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

And we have some newcomers!</bragging> --SEPTActaMTA8235 19:56, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikification drive?

There's a Wikification drive on the English Wikipedia. Why not make one here? After all, there are a large cat and subcat tree full of unwikified articles? --—SEPTActaMTA8235— (t — c — l) 11:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Because it has not and will not work. End of. Goblin 15:21, 25 April 2011 (UTC) I ♥ Bsadowski1!

We need to spend more time on the content of articles, less on code/style stuff in my opinion. Kansan (talk) 15:24, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Yup. -DJSasso (talk) 15:24, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Best articles

Hello SEWP. As you probably know, I've been a frequent contributor back in the day, visiting back now I can see that some of our older GAs and VGAs are in need of help. So, I've nominated a couple of them at WP:PAD, and I sincerely urge the community to help fix the issues to ensure they remain at the pinnacle of our article quality. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:50, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that the project needs to focus on improving articles as well; there is no use in use having a 3-sentence article on every settlement, band, album, or movie. Instead, people should commit themselves to improving articles that are there. IIRC we have like 10 articles nominated above, it would be great if we could save about half of them from losing their status. But I guess, to some extent, that is wishful thinking. --Eptalon (talk) 12:03, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Currently six articles nominated, let's save three? --Eptalon (talk) 12:04, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Saving six is what we should be aiming to do. Otherwise, those pages will probably be forgotten forever. Yottie ^=talk= 12:06, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

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Once this is done, we should strive towards a goal of promoting two articles to GAs and one to VGA per month. As to the current candidates, I think two of them are probably so much work we had better focus our attention... --Eptalon (talk) 12:31, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

QD template broken

For some reason, when I add a URL into the QD template it doesn't show at all. Can someone fix this? --—SEPTActaMTA8235— (t — c — l) 18:45, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean? chris†ianrocker90 05:06, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

It seems to work with short URLs (like http://www.google.com), but not with longer URLs. Perhaps there's a character limit in the QD box? Either way (talk) 11:26, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Maybe, I have to add the copyvio link separately when it's G12, it never appears. Not even "G12 (copyvio)" which I manually typed. A thought, can someone add a "comment" parameter which shows when you type the QD? Like {{QD|G12|comment=The location of the copyvio is at http://www.google.com/ ...}} --—SEPTActaMTA8235— (t — c — l) 11:40, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Category tree

On Special:CategoryTree, the link Click here results in Category Main_page not found. It seems the link target should be Contents.--The Three Headed Knight (talk) 12:28, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Question about GA/VGA criteria

Does this apply here? If it does, then some people have been too strict on what citations are needed in a GA or VGA...essentially applying an IHAVENTHEARDOFIT standard (i.e. I haven't heard of it, so it has to be cited). I personally feel that there are certain common/non-controversial things that don't need to be cited; and that requiring overcitation (which is one of the dangers pointed out in that guideline) is slowing down the GA/VGA process and making too much work for the community 02:37, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Basically anything that can be questioned needs to be cited. That is true on both en and simple. It is a very basic principle that if its something that is possibly questioned it needs a cite. As for does that page apply here. It's an essay so neither policy or a guideline on en. As such it is also not a policy or guideline here. -DJSasso (talk) 02:38, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Maybe some specific examples would help. If there is some controversy, it's generally best to err on the side of citing, unless it's something really uncontroversial or obvious like "Paris is in France". Beyond that, I hesitate to comment without knowing the specific types of statements a citation is requested for. Kansan (talk) 02:41, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Take a look on the proposed GA board for examples. He is having a dispute with Rambling Man. -DJSasso (talk) 02:46, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

 (change conflict) One of the things I was asked to cite was "The French and Indian War lasted from 1754 to 1763, and the English won" That's not a statistic, and non-controversial; merely something another editor had not heard of. We don't have to require citations just because one editor has not heard of it. Not even for GA or VGA. The result is overcitation. The article I've been working on meets the GA requirements as written, it is not right to ask to exceed them to pass GA. DJ, calling it a "dispute with RM" is an oversimplification...I call the rules as written, he doesn't Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 02:54, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I agree with the others on this one. Sometimes people come up with differing "interpretations" of when a war starts (or even who won - two leading American conservative commentators recently had a disagreement on air over who won the Vietnam War), and it's important for us to go with what the general academic consensus says, and cite it. Kansan (talk) 03:08, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Looks like I've lost this argument, so I'll concede. I will add more refs when needed, probably mostly from Foner, Blum, or a similar text book (actually just grabbed one somebody was about to throw out!). Anyway, let's finish this review and get this article in shape. It's probably the best shot we got at a GA atm Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 03:12, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Let's perhaps take a concrete example. There was a revolution in France, in the year 1789. (commonly called, "The French Revolution") It started in 1789, and was followed by a period known as "The Reign of Terror" ("La Grande Terreur"). Depending on how you look at the events, you can take the years 1795 or 1799 as the "end". For this reason alone it is important to cite a source, because even experts may disagree...--Eptalon (talk) 09:56, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

"I call the rules as written, he doesn't" - hardly. I asked for citations for facts that can be questioned. That's commonly accepted. Why wouldn't you cite things that could be questioned? Is it down to laziness? Frankly, and this happened last time I tried to review this article, there's no gratitude whatsoever extended to me taking hours and hours of my own time to ensure we produce a damned good article. All you want to do is criticise my reviews. The time taken criticising would be better spent fixing the issues I find. I'm really no longer in the mood to pursue this PGA, I honestly want articles here to be good, accurate, verifiable, well-written etc, but clearly that's of little relevance to some. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:52, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Hours? Just hours? If you want to complain about how you spent hours, I could point out that I've spent days working on this. Hundreds of citations, thousands of words of text. And I never get a thank you, just "Purplebackpack, do this", "Purplebackpack do that", "Purplebackpack, this thing could be fixed really easily and would take like two seconds, but I'm going to make you do it instead of doing it myself". Seriously, your very rigorous way of calling the GA criteria (which honestly doesn't really follow the criteria as written) has come very close to driving me off this Wikipedia. Accusing me of laziness is blatently wrong. It's in anyone in the community's best interests to fix any small problems with this article, not just say, "Purplebackpack, you do it!". Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 00:52, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Purple I don't think you have ever quite understood what it takes to have a VGA. It takes weeks to months to write a proper GA/VGA. It isn't a simple thing to do, you are writing to the standard of academic journals and the like. The whole purpose of the GA/VGA process is for the nominator to do the leg work. The other people are just there to point out issues. It is up to you and only you if you nominate an article to make sure its up to the quality required. Now of course others can choose to help you if they want to, but you shouldn't expect it as that is not how the process works. So really its either a misunderstanding on how serious the VGA process is, or it is laziness. I don't know which. But he isn't incorrect when he holds you to the standard you dislike. The high standards and very huge amount of work involved is why most people don't work towards VGAs and instead spend their time getting more individual articles up to a decent standard instead of a VGA standard. It takes a special kind of person to want to put the amount of effort in to create a VGA. Maybe thats not you. -DJSasso (talk) 01:06, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

It could very easily be argued that a GA is more rigorous than an academic journal. As written, a GA is maybe as rigorous; as it's called, it's far more rigorous. An academic journal has maybe half the citations per page of text that a GA does, while taking easily-proven historical facts known throughout the community for granted; most of the things cited in this article would be taken for granted (for example, the most basic of assertions I made in my senior history thesis would be clamored for a citation here). That's not even accounting for all the BS there is in academia. I'd be surprised if a journal article could pass GA. And the who does all the work is debateable, remember that policies such as WP:SOFIXIT would suggest people who find problems, — This unsigned comment was added by Purplebackpack89 (talk • changes).

SOFIXIT is a guideline not a policy. Two different things. Secondly there is a difference between sofixit if there is an error and someone nominating an article and saying its the best possible article there is and then someone doing some copy editing for you. By nominating the article you are stating your desire to make the article to the VGA standard and that you accept that you will have to do all the fixing to get it there. The people doing the copyediting etc are helping you to be nice, they may not have an interest in the topic or any knowledge of it. You can't require someone to do the work you have promised to do by nominating the article. If you think we are hard here you should see en. Rambling Man is probably one of the more easy going editors on en when it comes to this stuff over there. His being rigourous makes the wiki better, it makes our best articles as good as they possibly can be and avoids having to demote them because they were passed by drive by editors like we are currently having to do with many articles. -DJSasso (talk) 12:39, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

When did sofixit become policy?! I have no interest in the history of the US so I'm leaving it to experts to fix the problems. Once again you seem utterly incapable of showing any level of gratitude for the effort reviewers put into this process. If you don't like "your" work being criticised, I suggest you don't submit it to these scrutinising processes. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:41, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

• I think it is really important that any article we put up as a Good Article or a Very Good Article has to be the best we have. And it is a lot of work. Actually more than a lot. TRM is very, very, rigorous in his comments and I know how frustrating it can be to feel as if you have written the perfect article and TRM adds lots more things that need fixing. But thanks to his level of detail, articles do get better. And each time I have worked though the process I learn something that makes my next edits better. One day I might get it all correct before submitting! I am really appreciative of the time editors put in to creating the best articles. Let us get to work and do our best. --Peterdownunder (talk) 11:17, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Twinkle glitch

Er, why did that happen? --—SEPTActaMTA8235— (t — c — l) 18:09, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Probably because you tripple clicked. -DJSasso (talk) 19:06, 28 April 2011 (UTC)