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Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 98

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Inactive

I will likely continue inactivity until about the end of Jan. I work a job that moves me every so often. Currently I'm accessing Wiki from a tether on my Cell. Roaming, speeds are significantly limited. Best, Jon@talk:~$ 17:18, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Asking for move of Tentative of Italian colonization in America

The article Tentative of Italian colonization in America has the wrong name. It was made by an Italian editor, who thought that "tentative" was the English for the Italian "tentativo". Better in English would be Attempted Italian colonization in America. Perhaps for Simple English Wikipedia other words would be better, not using "Attempted" but "Tentative" is just wrong and "Attempted" would be better than that. Can the page be given a new name? JamesBWatson (talk) 13:41, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have moved it to Attempted Italian colonization of America. Will that do? Chenzw  Talk  13:47, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. That was really quick! JamesBWatson (talk) 13:50, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. :) Chenzw  Talk  13:52, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Circular categories

Hello. I found a few circular categories on stats.wikimedia.org. I fixed some but I need help for this one:

I think the answer is to delete all of them, and to remove Category:Economic geography from Category:Economies by region. Thank you, Comte0 (talk) 16:28, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Or, how about removing Category:Regional science from Category:Urban, rural, and regional economics? That doesn't seem to fit, although I may be missing something. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:39, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Given the content of the categories, simply moving Category:Economies by region up to Category:Economics would leave the rest of the chain as empty categories only containing themselves. Category:Economic geography (holding only "by region" can be deleted then and Category:Economywide country studies (holding "by region" and "by country" which is in "by region" already) can also be removed. Much of that tree provides no use at all. 70.184.171.16 (talk) 23:43, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: Almost 3500 Commons files may be deleted following SCOTUS ruling

See here for details. The article includes a link to a list of the files in question. If you have comments, discuss on the linked page. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:14, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Creating medical content in simple English

As per here a group of us are working on increasing the amount of medical content in simple English. The process involves writing high quality content in English on the main English wiki followed by simplification being done by Content Rules http://www.contentrules.com/ These articles as listed here will than be translated on to other languages. Comments and feedback welcome.--Jmh649 (talk) 08:28, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So, let's see if I understand you. The plan is to improve Simple's coverage of medical topics, and then to use those simplified articles as the basis for translations into various languages whose coverage of those topics is inadequate. Is that right? Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:40, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Pretty much, from what I gather; simple's coverage will however be improved via simplification from some checked enwiki articles. sonia♫ 10:15, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When you say that Content Rules will be simplifying it... they seem to be a company unafilliated with WP, so are they charging for this process? Or is there another way in which they are being compensated? Normandy 12:44, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that is a question Jmh659 needs to answer. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:28, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not to be a stick-in-the-mud, but I was told that all "books" had to be in user space and were not allowed in a main space of Simple English Wikipedia. Has that changed? Should someone move Book:Health_care? Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 15:54, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

They can be in user space or book space if I recall but I forget...let me go look. -DJSasso (talk) 16:04, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think taking a systematic approach to developing a group of important articles as a team like this is an excellent idea. I do just hope that the articles are actually simplified. We already have many unsimplified technical and scientific pages here. It may be a challenge for WikiProject Medicine to use simple vocabulary in simple sentences and without an overwhelming level of minute detail. I hope it works out well as I am planning something similar (but much smaller) with a group of language students starting in the spring. Gotanda (talk) 01:09, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So yes "content rules" is donating their time with no considerations of reimbursement. This is part of a humanitarian efforts to increase content in less covered languages. As the translators will not be physicians we have decided to try to simplify the content before attempting to have them translate it. I will have example in the next week or two on which feedback will be appreciated. Would also love to see Wikipedians involved with simplification as well. This initiative is especially important as Wikipedia Zero gets momentum and many non English speaks or people who speak English as a second language get internet access. --Jmh649 (talk) 06:43, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
How were the articles on the list selected? For example, I suspect that water-bourne illnesses and infections are more important to cover for Africa than old age related illnesses due to life expectancy. Alternatively, the En Wikipedia viewing statistics could be used to select a group of health-related articles. Racepacket (talk) 13:47, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There are based primarily on the list of top importance topics as seen here [1] with a few tweaks from me. Feedback is welcome at [2]. All articles will need to pass GA before translation into simple English. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:24, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

First article has been uploaded Schizophrenia

I still need to figure out the best way to fix the ref formatting. Otherwise comments welcome as is further simplification. Will give it a week or two before handing it on to TwR for translation into other languages. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:24, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments after quick look: Remove v from vcite in refs; don't link journal names; radical simplification of text needed; best to do such things offsite before uploading... Think about a precis for an intelligent twelve-year old. Will look again at weekend. Cheers Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:25, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We don't do much on medicine, but I have worked on our immunology articles such as innate immune system and adaptive immune system. Some would say they definitely are not simple, but there is a general recognition that some latitude may be given to technical subjects. One thing to look at is the set of Basic English words (see Category:Basic English). Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:51, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes the goal is to write in simple words but not use simple concepts. It is nearly impossible to provide an overview of schizophrenia using only these 800 words. The primary goal is to make the text easier to translate for non medical volunteers but would also be nice to end up with some good comprehensive easy to read articles. The company who is helping "content rules" is open to feedback on how to improve things. We are moving slow to make sure we get things right. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:29, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please see Talk:Schizophrenia and the first 98 terms/words which need to be simplified. Thanks, Gotanda (talk) 02:27, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes, the GA review forces one or two sentence paragraphs to be combined because GA reviewers hate short paragraphs. At Simple English Wikipedia, there is a premium places on one idea per paragraph. So, shorter paragraphs are better. GA discourages over-linking, but Simple English values linking the first occurence of all technical terms. In some cases, (like "occurs" and "toxic") the word is not on the 850 list, so I wikilink to wikt:. Simple English is more forgiving of repetitive sentence structure than GA reviewers. Use only active voice and avoid subordinate clauses. Avoid less common verb tenses (such as the subjunctive voice.) Thanks, Racepacket (talk)
  • This is exactly what I described in my comment above. Though I think the WikiProject Medicine is a great idea, they should work within the scope and goals of this project if they want to post content here. That means following the guidelines at Wikipedia:How_to_write_Simple_English_pages. This first attempt is not even close to simplified. Content Rules may have edited the En original, but the article in no way meets the criteria of Simple English Wikipedia. Gotanda (talk) 01:52, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sure appreciate the feedback. Will try to address the issues you mention. With respect to wording as we write for a general audience we need to use "person" not "patient" and we should try not to specify "doctor". 50-70% of practicing physicians read Wikipedia and it makes the text sound unencyclopdic in tone IMO. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:42, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Firefox Simple English Dictionary Updated

The extension for Firefox which allows you to use a Simple English dictionary for spellchecking has been updated by User:Lwyx. Loading the dictionary into Firefox underlines all words that are complex as if they were spelling mistakes. This gives a quick view of what needs to be done to make an article easy to read. For me, this is the most valuable tool that I use. It works for the latest version of Firefox. Download here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simple-english-dictionar-10098/ --Peterdownunder (talk) 04:54, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Brazil locator map

Please look at User:Racepacket/Brasília International Airport. There is a problem with the locator map in the infobox, which I cannot solve. Help please. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 05:28, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  Done70.184.171.16 (talk) 05:30, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal for lists to be WP:GA

I propose that we should allow lists (discographies, videographies, filmographies, lists of people, lists of pets/animals, lists of cities/towns/states/countries, lists of recorded sounds/compositions, lists of TV channels/shows/episodes/characters, lists of sports/baseball teams/basketball teams/football teams/other types of sport teams, lists of awards/presentations/award type/awards by artists/group/band, lists of hobbies, lists of members, lists of automobiles/ships/other types of fast movement, lists of royalty, lists of movies/films/home videos/highest grossing films/other types of notable film lists, lists of science/the far future/planets/other type of science-related lists, lists of famous ships passengers'/slaves/World's most wanted/criminal activity per state/city/country, lists of historic landmarks/per city/per state/per country, past presidential elections/votes per city/state, lists of novels/stories/authors, lists of colleges/universities/per city/per state, timeline/hurricane seasons/recessions/presidential-related, List of municipalities/per city/per states, lists of number-one singles/songs/albums/artists/performance, lists of owners/executives, lists of World champions/records holders, and lists of historical persons) to be accepted in all Simple English Wikipedia's recognition (weather it be WP:GA or WP:VGA). Lists are no exception from articles, as they both have similarities in lead and written content in the article body. The purpose for WP:GA/WP:VGA is to recognize in article excellence, and promote them as model articles. If lists (like those raised above) are not, or should not be, accepted to recognition, then a proposal (as User:The Rambling Man pointed out) for a Wikipedia:Good lists (WP:GL) would be in question. Lets keep Simple Wikipedia an informative encyclopedia, the more good content we have the better, we should be allowing article excellence in every shape or form, and should not disgrace other so called "non-articles". If we allow lists to be created here and not promote them, then why even have them? No one will expand/fix/update them if they won't get recognized or promoted for excellence, for which they should. Best, Jonayo! Selena 4 ever 22:35, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support lists for recognition

Oppose lists for recognition

  • Oppose I think allowing lists to make featured status would dilute the opinion of what few actual articles we have that are VGA/GA. You are more than able to make lists that quality without needing the fancy little icon. As for your point that if we don't feature them no one will work on them...that is plain crap the majority of editors on this wiki and most others do so without the hope of recognition. This seems like you are looking for a way to get more "recognition" easier since you are having trouble getting articles up to snuff. -DJSasso (talk) 02:37, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Lists are not that similar to articles. To me, the VGA/GA ratings are for quality of writing. There's just not that much writing in most lists -- it's not needed. Besides, the editors here are already spread pretty thin and we don't need this additional thing to keep up with. --Auntof6 (talk) 03:49, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I don't think this would improve us. We've never had a shortage of lists, and in our situation we should not try to do everything enWP does. Macdonald-ross (talk) 04:13, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Heh. No. Goblin 08:19, 20 January 2012 (UTC) I ♥ Bsadowski1![reply]
  • Oppose Per DJSasso. Also, lists are called "non-articles" because they aren't articles. ;) ƏviŁŁyGøødcontributions 16:13, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. DJSasso and Auntof6 sum it up well. Orashmatash (talk) 16:17, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox:Airport problems

For those having problems with {{Infobox airport}} - the map section. We are likely missing the location map needed for that particular area. On the first line of where the map is should be a line "image:Location map ... " with the location map part red -> missing template. Click the red to start the template, shift over to English and grab the info (as well as possible category and iw), shift back and create the template (likely you will need to shift the category some - Category:Location map by country templates is our main cat for location templates). The template will spit out a bunch of red error text on its own page most likely but that will clear itself eventually. Just go back and refresh the airport page and the map should be fine. 70.184.171.16 (talk) 21:16, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Or you can just remove the |pushpin_map= parameters from the markup, they're not required. But it would be good to have a map in each. You can search for the ones we already have here. Osiris (talk) 05:00, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Washington National Airport

Washington National Airport needs to be moved (over redirect) to the proper name of the airport Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The name was changed over a decade ago.. 70.184.171.16 (talk) 10:14, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done, per en (assuming its the common name). Osiris (talk) 10:20, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I would bet good money that it is not the most used name. I think we should not be so quick to move a name from a simple, well-used name to a longer more complex name. Often these renamings are public relations exercises which the public understandably ignores. And so should we. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:59, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I was a bit hesitant, we can easily change it back. From looking at Google, I get 1.35 million hits for "reagan washington national airport"; 2.22 million for "reagan national airport"; and 0.71 million for "washington national airport" (with "reagan" disqualifying)... I get the same ranks from Google news. So... "Reagan National Airport"? Osiris (talk) 14:16, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I was the author who created "Washington National Airport" with a redirect "Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport" a few day ago. "National Airport" is the most common name. I believe that having "Washington National Airport" as the primary name is the way to avoid the most user confusion. (It idenifies the city context.) Could someone please switch it back? Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 14:29, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 (change conflict) × 2 In my opinion it doesn't make sense to create an article under a name which was changed over 10 years ago. And I disagree that Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is a complex title. All it is is the name of a former US president, the name of somewhere in the US, and "national airport". I also disagree that it will cause confusion; as the IP said it was changed over a decade ago, I'm sure most people will now know that its name has changed. If people search for Washington National Airport then they will be redirected to the proper title. Orashmatash (talk) 14:33, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As discussed in the article, when Congress ordered the name change, the legislation expressly stated that no money was appropriated to be spent on new signs or other expenses associated with the name change. This is not typical of name changes which are usually done by the government entity in charge of the facility. Racepacket (talk) 14:44, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Again, they will be redirected to the proper title so I still don't see the point. Orashmatash (talk) 14:45, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Based on the Google search, I would go for 'Reagan National Airport' or Washington National Airport. Obviously, all versions are linked and the page says what is the 'official' name. We are in no way obliged to use 'official names' if that means the name is longer and more complex. We have been over all this before, and it is the reason we have chosen some popular names over their more accurate binomial nomenclature for biological organisms. One has to look at these things case-by-case. I would point out that the equivalent airport in Chicago is always known as 'O'Hare' or O'Hare Airport'. Currently it's under 'O'Hare International Airport', but even that is only three words long, so we can live with it. I suggest Osiris makes the decision after re-reading comments here. Macdonald-ross (talk) 05:03, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"National Airport" is the common name but lacks a geographic context, so I went with "Washington National Airport" which is the last three words of the new name selected by Congress. (It was not worth spending the money in court to challenge Congress' power to pick a name, so the unlike other laws dealing with National Airport, the neighbors did not challenge ithe Cosntitutionality of the name change.) I would hope that some admin would close this discussion by returning Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to a redirect and moving the article back to its original title, Washington National Airport. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 06:44, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
By common name, I have never flown into, out of, picked up or dropped off at Washington National, Reagan National, etc.. Its just National - no Airport, thats unneeded and never used. Common name is useless for the place as it is too vague. By the sames, it just O'Hare, Midway, LAX and Dulles and God forbid flying into Pitt or Phily. Most cities, the common name for the airport is "the airport", they don't even have names that people use. Most common names rarely even used the term airport but its likely in every title. Airports are often a case of proper names as common names are colloquial - No one says Los Angeles International Airport - Its name is LAX but thats a bad title. And oddly, this one didn't even bother to use the name of the airport in the intro.. its was only in infobox. 70.184.171.16 (talk) 07:09, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My experience is similar. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:02, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As we're catering to a global audience, we shouldn't be naming articles from a local perspective. "Reagan National Airport" seems to dominate in a web search, so is there anything wrong with naming it that? Osiris (talk) 07:33, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No objections from me. Orashmatash is travelling (talk) 08:32, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
On this last point, Osiris's reasoning is not correct. Because airports are at a particular place, it's inevitable they get names based on their locality. I have no objection to Reagan International Airport as a name, but in general we would expect airports to bear their city's name. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:58, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's not what "from a local perspective" means. I mean that we shouldn't be naming locations based on what the locals call it. Osiris (talk) 11:11, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thanks. I understand what you meant. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:02, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Jumping in here as an outsider, I would actually say that Reagan International Airport is the worst possible title for the following reasons; it is not the person's complete name, outside of the USA he is more commonly known as Ronald Reagan; it is not the official name; it misses out the location, an outsider would know where Washington National Airport or Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is, and would not if it were solely [Ronald] Reagan National Airport. My opinion on the best title is Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. It is only five words, and is not difficult to understand. Per Orashmatash; it consists of "[Person's Name] [Location] National Airport" Normandy 11:10, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It may only be five words, but it is 11 or 12 syllables and wouldn'd be used in a magazine or newspaper headline. Reagan is not well known -- if at all -- to younger people in other countries. 'Washington International Airport' still looks good to me. 15:02, 23 January 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Macdonald-ross (talk • contribs)
Need I again mention that a redirect could solve this? That is one of the functions of a redirect; the person looks up the most common title and they are directed to the page with the full, correct title. If the name was changed just last year or something, then I'd have no problem with calling it 'Washington International Airport', but ten years is a long time. Orashmatash (talk) 16:13, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
(e/c)The number of syllables makes no difference as to how simple it is. Each individual word is simple and only consists of only 3 syllables anyway. The full title of the article will not confuse anyone. I'm sure of it. Normandy 16:14, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think we all know about redirects, but that is not the issue. The issue here is about the effect of a title on a reader. First, the number of syllables is a measure of how frequent words are, and hence how readable. Second, long complex titles have the effect of putting readers off, which is exactly why they are not used in mags and papers in print or on the web. Anyway, if there's no consensus, we'll leave the page as it is. End of story! Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:13, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I still vote for "Washington National Airport" - it is simple, it is accepted by local users, it is the name that has been used for most of the life of the airport. I already created a redirect from "Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport". So I am just asking that we restore the status quo ante from a couple of days ago, since there is no consensus for the move from Washington National Airport to Ronald Reagan National Airport performed by Osiris in the belief that it would be non-controversial. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 23:45, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would leave it at the name en uses. There is no reason here that we should be any different. And yes I know there are people who like to try to be different from them at every possible opportunity...but really there is no good reason in this case to be any different. And unless there is a good reason to differ we generally have followed their titling in the past so I really think its at the place it should be. -DJSasso (talk) 00:53, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport

This is an even more excessively titled airport: Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (17 syllables). Not only is it far too long and multi-syllabic, but the man's name is virtually unknown outside the U.S. I would suggest, on the basis of our claimed goal of simplicity, that the title should be reduced to Baltimore/Washington International Airport (13 syllables). Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:02, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good. "BWI Airport" seems to be the most common, and expanding the acronym is probably best. It's also used in the blurb for the official website.[3] Osiris (talk) 15:12, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So this one I did move, as it seemed a more straightforward case. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:40, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. BAW = Big Airport Name Discussion Weekend? Racepacket (talk) 23:47, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I would note our simplicity goal does not really extend to titles. A name is a name is a name. If we tried to be simple with article names we would end up with alot of acronyms and short forms which are simplier but not accurate. -DJSasso (talk) 00:55, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I flatly disagree with every one of these statements. Simplicity is a general goal, and affects everything we do. Macdonald-ross (talk) 05:01, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Not at the cost of accuracy. If we choose a simple name that is inaccurate (or outright wrong) we are doing a disservice to our readers. You can't simplify a name, to simplify a name is to change a fact. Which is far different from using simplier language in an article. Now if there is a common name which is simplier yes by all means lets use that...but then we already have a common name policy that states that. However you have to show that it is the common name. If its not then we still should be using the official name. -DJSasso (talk) 15:18, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Arguing on the point of syllables, its the Washington, Baltimore, and International part that is creating most of the syllables (11 of the 17 in the proper name of the subject). Thurgood Marshall is only 4 syllables where International is more than that alone. If syllables are the issue, the big ones need to go not the 2 syllable words. Rarely is it a good idea to argue a case based on keeping the parts that your case is strongest against (Polysybbalic words) and throwing away the parts you are trying to use to support the case. And just for giggles - the term "Washington" is ambiguous. Without knowing the context involved it doesn't point to the City (that actually has a different name from this colloquial form) or the state (where this name is the correct form). To avoid ambiguity, titles using "Washington" probably should specify which one they are about. (The Baltimore helps that in this case, but not in many others) 70.184.171.16 (talk) 05:19, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
When I first flew there, it was called "Friendship Field." It was renamed "BWI" to encourage more people from the Washington area to use it. Later it was renamed in Thurgood Marshall's honor. But unlike National, this renaming was done by the people who run the airport, and they were willing to spend money on changing all of the signs. Racepacket (talk) 07:22, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

VGA on Main Page needs attention

Since Jessica Alba was on the Main Page today, I did a quick check. Two refs were 404.

I found a new ref for 42. 14, The Independent article lead was scraped by wn.com, but I didn't find the full article on The Independent search. Anyone else able to fix this up? Seems a good idea to just maintain VGAs as they come around in the rotation rather than wait for them to get to out of date. Thanks, Gotanda (talk) 01:26, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And, again

Tropical Storm Barry (2007) is on the front page and I thought I'd have a look again. Bad news. Many of the links are now 404. Many current news stories were cited, but time has passed and news sites have moved on. I followed User:Orashmatash's lead (Thanks, O!) and tagged a bunch of them {{dead link}}. I went down the right column and thought I'd pause before going down the left column. Finding new refs may take more time than I really have right now, but I figure it is better to at least point out the problems than to let them linger until we have another flood of article demotion discussions. Thanks, Gotanda (talk) 05:46, 24 January 2012 (UTC) Update: I finished checking the rest of the refs and there are now 17 dead links out of 36 references. Gotanda (talk) 04:46, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And, the Victoria line

Not too bad, just three, but the Victoria line needs some ref fixing up too. I tagged the three. Much as I love trains, I know nothing about British rail systems. Anyone here have the knowledge or research handy to fix these up? Thanks, Gotanda (talk) 08:19, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed two of them. Goodvac (talk) 09:23, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Cool, thank you for keeping our (few) VGAs in great shape. Gotanda (talk) 04:01, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Jupiter this time, but in pretty good shape

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, two dead/incorrect links on Jupiter (numbers 3 and 19). Also, less important, but refs 35 and 47 are duplicates. I know there must be an easy way to fix that. Any ref experts able to show me the syntax? Thanks, Gotanda (talk) 04:06, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not really a "reference expert", but to get the same reference you can put: <ref name="foo">Insert reference here</ref>. -Orashmatash (talk) 15:51, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed both issues. Goodvac (talk) 19:12, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Big Airport Weekend - January 20-23

We are about to start our weekend collaboration to improve airport coverage on Simple English Wikipedia. You can improve an existing article or pick a new airport article to write. Pick a nearby airport that you know or pick one from this list. A few tasks and guidelines:

  1. Add {{Infobox airport}} to all airport articles
  2. To improve existing articles and stubs in the Category:Airports including subcategories.
  3. To add new articles on airports. (Any airport with regular commercial service or where a historic event happened is notable enough for an article.)
  4. Airports can be civilian, military, and anywhere in the world.
  5. Add BAW (for Big Airport Weekend) to the edit summaries to help keep track of the changes.
  6. Please use the {{inuse}} template to avoid edit conflicts with other BAW participants.

Barnstars will be liberally rewarded for your airport efforts. Please join us to have fun and to improve SEWP. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 05:11, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, I'll try to help out. I started way too early :D Normandy 09:08, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, I've started today, forgetting today is Thursday, not Friday... Can we include these edits too? :) Normandy 10:04, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It must be the 20th somewhere, Tonga maybe, so lets go and we will be leaving on a jet plane...--Peterdownunder (talk) 10:40, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
...or, for those smaller airports, a small single-engine plane. :) --Auntof6 (talk) 11:33, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Or, a helicopter :P Normandy 11:34, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

All contributions are welcome, even early ones. Racepacket (talk) 12:57, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Results? Figures? :) Normandy 09:38, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Big Airport Weekend was a big success. I have reviewed about 5,000 edits made during the relevant time period and found the following edits related to our project:

Horeki: 169 (extensive coverage of airports in Japan and helped around the world)
Peterdownunder: 56
70.184.171.16: 56 (helped with airports as well as fixing location position maps)
Macdonald-ross: 50
Racepacket: 36
Normandy: 16 (including one DYK nomination)
Auntof6: 13 (master of the airport subcategories)
Orashmatash: 7
DJDunsie: 7
Osiris:7
Yottie: 5
Hazard-SJ: 4
Shakinglord: 4
Gotanda: 3
Barras: 2
Katarighe: 2
KingRaven44: 1
TOTAL = 388 edits

If I have missed any editors or any edits, please correct the above statement. Most people wrote about airports near them, but several people also wrote about airports on other continents. Thanks to everyone for their fine work. Racepacket (talk) 05:13, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Writing articles about medicines and drugs

Could I please implore those of you who write articles about medicines, like Aspirin and so on, to be careful about what you put in them, and make sure it is correct. I've just cleaned up the Aspirin article, because it had several mistakes in it which made it inaccurate, including details about "Rectal" aspirin, something which doesn't even exist according to the British National Formulary. Might I suggest you base articles on these drugs from material on the English Wikipedia, since it's more likely to be correct. Thanks :) BarkingFish (talk) 16:16, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we understand the point you make. I traced the piece of vandalism you mention to a school site (212.219.191.189) which made the change about two years ago. It was not picked up by admins at the time, and we have not had (until recently) anyone particularly expert in pharmaceutical topics. A more frequent problem is that accurate material from enWP is put in, but in rather complex language. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:23, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK, Macdonald-ross; I understand the points you raise, and the fact that this particular change was vandalism. I am happy to help fix and clean up medical and medicine related articles, since I am a qualified Paramedic. I will be starting to expand the Aspirin article tonight, and will settle into some of the other topics and articles as soon as possible. BarkingFish (talk) 20:38, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is important to source medical-related articles. Also, there have been cases of spam on both Simple English and En Wikipedia by advocates of "herbal remedies." Racepacket (talk) 19:48, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Problems with Persondata

The persondata template is currently misfiring due to a change earlier today to the Common.CSS file on the site. The css class for the imformation should be set to not display but that section was accidentally removed in the changes made. Hopefully this will be taken care of soon and all the template usages well not need to be purged from the articles (554/5 of them at last count). 70.184.171.16 (talk) 04:19, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ah thanks for catching that. You really need to create another account ;) Osiris (talk) 04:24, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Actually it was because I forgot to update the persondata template which has been done. lol it is a bit silly to edit as an IP when everyone knows who you are... but to each their own. -DJSasso (talk) 21:55, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

New Articles

Hello. I am escapepea and I got the article on Science Museum (London) from the English Wikipedia and put it on here. I did simplify it. I am not sure that I did enough simplifying. Can someone else look at it? Escapepea (talk) 13:08, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, sure. I'll have a look through it now. Osiris (talk) 13:10, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've had a small go, but there are others on here much better at it that I. Osiris (talk) 13:34, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Writing medical articles in simple English

Are there people here wishing to become involves with the managing of translating articles from English to simple English as described here? [4] If so please sign up and I will add you to the email discussions.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:51, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I find it strange that you would have a sign-up list for participants on En Wikipedia. If you don't want to have the Simple English signup list here, perhaps having one sign-up list on Meta would make more sense. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 19:51, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! Where do I sign up? Do I have to list my userid on that page, or can I just join a mailing list? Agree with racepacket that a page about translating between languages should not be hosted on en wikipedia, but rather on meta. This may encourage involvement from medical professionals whose native language is not English as well.

I've just been working on the simple english dengue fever article, and I think I need more guidance on how to translate medical articles into simple english. ie, how much technical terminology is okay? perhaps some people can collaborate on a medical-simple vocab list? is it important to cover the whole article, or can the more arcane details be skipped? For example, I'm not sure it makes sense to translate viral reproduction into simple english.

Great project! Sunfishy (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Template capitalization

I am getting tripped up by the inconsistent capitalization of Template titles. As I understand the rules, the words after "Infobox" are not capitalized unless they are a proper name or acronym. For example, "Infobox airport", "Infobox airline" and "Infobox disease". Does anyone disagree with my reading of the rules? Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 15:33, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That is the way that is generally preferred. But that wasn't always the way it was on en or here, so anything copied over from en before en started standardizing is still fully capitalized. Feel free to move them or just create a redirect....either way is probably fine. The capitalization is just a preference thing really. I don't know of an actual policy that spells it out for templates. -DJSasso (talk) 15:36, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In English the only nouns (which most/all things are) which should be capitalised are proper nouns, so I do think that the second parts of infoboxes should not be capitalised. -Orashmatash (talk) 21:53, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Something is very wrong. Some links are showed up in red, others are listed on the left with the language prefixes instead of the language names. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 00:17, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Its probably a WMF issue...this happened once before I think. -DJSasso (talk) 00:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Future big weekend topics

I have posted a proposal here and would welcome comments or alternative proposals. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 01:41, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Location or geography was a common factor in the Capital Cities Weekend (CCW) and the Big Airport Weekend (BAW).

Also, I noticed the twin concepts of general public use and something which might be of personal interest to contributors.

IMO, future weekend projects should incorporate these general categories. Potential "hooks" might include:

  • Museums, art galleries, libraries?
  • Forests, Parks, gardens?
  • Bridges, roads, dams, harbors?
In these kinds of contexts, a range of individual preferences are likely to emerge. This encourages participation. --Horeki (talk) 19:32, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
These are all excellent ideas that apply to geographical locations around the world. Please participate in the discussion at: Wikipedia talk:Big Weekend. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 21:56, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have nothing more to add. After CCW and BAW, the follow-up omitted two questions:
A. What worked?
B. Why?
Such questions are part of a strategy which is deductive and cumulative and open-ended. --Horeki (talk) 00:10, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think the weekends have worked because they are not specific to a certain region, meaning everybody can contribute to articles about their local area. DJDunsie (talk) 07:04, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps WW2 aircraft weekend (mentioned below)? That fits the non-regional description, and editors can contribute to their local area or nationality! BTW I particpated in Big airport weekend by making two articles, Meigs Field and Davenport Municipal Airport. Shakinglord (talk) 18:21, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I am sorry I missed Shakinglord in the count. Please hold this discussion on Wikipedia talk:Big Weekend. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 07:50, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimania 2012

The deadline for scholarship applications for this conference is fast approaching; I strongly recommend that our active users apply for scholarships if they are able to make time that weekend to attend. It looks like it'll be a fantastic event, and it'd be great if our project was represented there. Info here. sonia♫ 19:27, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This time being held in Washington D.C., a very interesting city to visit. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:14, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Portals

Would love to have simple portals around, if this passes, I am one of the editors encouraged to works on portals, since I have worked on portals in enwiki, would love to see it here. Opinions? --Extra 999 (Contact me + contribs) 09:31, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We already decided not to go for that idea. Shortage of active editors is the reason. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:12, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Instead, can you organize specific fields of knowledge by leaving helpful text on the category pages instead or by adding a navigation template for the topic? Racepacket (talk) 02:17, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No harm trying that (Racepacket's suggestion) out. Sounds like a good idea, in my opinion. Chenzw  Talk  02:24, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WW2 aircraft spree

I'm starting a small article creating campaign for aircraft of the Second World War, military and otherwise. Before I started i wanted some concensus of the article titles, if they should have the company name, number and codename, as in English Wikipedia (e.g Mitsubishi A6M Zero) or just the number and codename (e.g. A6M Zero). Feel free to join in the article creating spree! Shakinglord (talk) 15:50, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep them the same as en.wiki as it avoids confustion. But make sure you put some detail into the articles, don't just create a lot of single sentence stubs as we have had trouble with editors who have gone on sprees of creating hundreds of articles with only single sentences. -DJSasso (talk) 15:55, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I used to be on the new pages patrol. I hated those one sentence articles! Shakinglord (talk) 18:18, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

AWB run needed

Currently the majority (if not all) of the articles in the subcats of Category:Canadian ice hockey players by province or territory are also listed in Category:Canadian ice hockey players. As the "by province/territory" is a subcat of the main category Canadian Ice hockey players, no article in the subcats should also be included in the main cat. (ie. If the person is an ice hockey player from Ottawa, he is already listed as a Canadian ice hockey player - by a subcat - and doesn't need to be listed a second time - in the main cat.) As there are 260+ articles in the sub cats, this removal of the text "[[category:Canadian ice hockey player]]" from each of the pages is a bit daunting by hand but relatively simple for AWB. It would not clear all of them as there is likely to be some with a sort key added, but as there are 338 people listed in the main cat and only 260+ already moved to subcats, I can handle a quick sweep of the main cat to separate the players by province/territory afterwards which would still be needed and I would catch the stragglers.

tl:dr - AWB run needed on all subcategories of Category:Canadian ice hockey players by province or territory to remove the text "[[category:Canadian ice hockey player]]". 70.184.171.16 (talk) 07:33, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So shall I start a run? AWB can handle that rather quickly. Chenzw  Talk  07:48, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
After the sorting, there are 91 articles which have not been placed into the sub cats yet. Chenzw  Talk  09:00, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I should be able to get to the rest Sat or Sun overnight (depending on how work goes). 91 is a lot better than 240 + 91 :) 70.184.171.16 (talk) 09:34, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Could you actually not do it yet. There is a reason they are split like that and I will be doing something with it in a bit. They should actually be two separate sets of categories. Unfortunately the one cat was originally created with the word players in it and it should not have been. I was about to start doing the fixing today when I saw alot of the the work you guys did. For those wondering, the Ice hockey players from category is a people from subcategory. You can only be from the place you were born whereas the other is a sporting nationality category. (ie you can be from Ontario, but be an American ice hockey player) The categories were about to be changed today from saying players to people like on en to make this distinction more clear. -DJSasso (talk) 13:51, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind I do see now that they have all pretty much been done already, I'll just fix them the slower way now. :) -DJSasso (talk) 13:53, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There they have been fixed now, having them as a subcategory of the players category implied that anyone in the sub category also fit into the parent category which wasn't true and why they should have been split. I realized the mistake awhile ago but hadn't gotten to fixing it on my todo list until I saw someone remove a category last night that shouldn't have been so I planed to do it today and when I got here I saw this. -DJSasso (talk) 14:59, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This situation is a bit widespread in that certain people categories will give false positives in some cases but are generally correct. Often people are "from" a certain location without that being a nationality but that cat falls back to a nationality. This happens when someone is notable for being from there (ie. sports players notable for playing for a certain team but they were born in another city/state/country can get traced back through the cat tree to a group they don't belong to). Short of creating subcats such as "Ice hockey players from Ottawa who are not Canadians" or "Icelandic ice hockey players who played in Vancouver" this is always likely to be an issue. And then we get to the issue of having to wait until we get 3-4 non US Yankee players before the ones we have can be put in a category under the Yankees. and then <my head exploded>.... The question is how much of an issue it brings up. Most people rarely notice the tree at all and just look for a commonality of "this article" to other similar ones so I'm not certain the odd corner cases like these are even noticed by most people. 70.184.171.16 (talk) 08:09, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Moved from WP:AN. CRRaysHead90 | We Believe! 08:48, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! Can you replace File:Wiki.png with a new one? Thank you. --Ikh Sukhbaatar (talk) 02:14, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It has been discussed in the past and has not had consensus. -DJSasso (talk) 02:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I support the update. CRRaysHead90 | We Believe! 05:03, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That will have to be discussed on WP:ST as it is a side-wide thing and not administrator-specific. Chenzw  Talk  05:59, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Reluctant (oppose) - I actually prefer the older logo, and would prefer that it stay this way unless the WMF requires that the logo be changed on all wikis. Chenzw  Talk  09:03, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'd prefer to keep the old logo. It might not be the newest one but most members of the community are happy with it. -Orashmatash (talk) 11:06, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  Oppose – I like the old logo better. DJDunsie (talk) 11:13, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  Oppose Racepacket (talk) 12:58, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The old logo is missing letters than the new one. So I   Support the new one. --Ikh Sukhbaatar (talk) 13:05, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Charles Spurgeon

Charles Spurgeon is at Wikipedia:Proposed article demotion. Albacore (talk · changes) 02:24, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Checking how simple text is

Could someone remind me what the websites/tools are for checking whether something qualifies as Simple English, or measuring the grade level of text? Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:14, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The trouble with some of the indicies is that they are based, in part, on the number of syllables in each word. Some articles require the use of technical terms. Even if the terms are properly explained, they raise the complexity score. So, for example, an article on "Antidisestablismentarianism" is doom to get a low score no matter how simple the overall text. Racepacket (talk) 12:29, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Information on the Firefox Simple English Dictionary posted recently by Peterdownunder. Osiris (talk) 23:50, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Issues with categories

There seems to be a problem with template-generated categorisation, where the pages aren't showing up on the category pages.

I've noticed this issue for a while, but wasn't sure whether it was just caching or the job queue. Hoping there's someone who can give me an explanation or a solution. Osiris (talk) 00:26, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well for the first one I am going to assume its caching, unless you refreshed the cache of the page you probably wouldn't have seen it. For the other two the template that puts those two categories into the backlog category only does it when there is more than a certain number of pages in the respective categories. As both are empty they are not in the backlog category. -DJSasso (talk) 12:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Now that I notice you wrote this a few days ago when it was probably filled with articles I am going to say it was probably caching but I am not sure. -DJSasso (talk) 12:33, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps we need a cache-clear button on the backlog. Shakinglord (talk) 16:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I just recommend people enable the "Live Clock" gadget in your preferences. It puts a clock in your upper right hand corner of the screen which when clicked clears the cache of a page. -DJSasso (talk) 16:35, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Cleared the cache a number of times. I think I even edited the page and it still wouldn't appear. It obviously wasn't only me not seeing it in there, as it wasn't deleted until Creol did something to it (3 days after I tagged it). As for the other ones, when I posted this thread (6 Feb) both of those categories were full of something (RFP had Bluegoblin7's RFA and the QD cat was full of Racepacket's articles). Having said that, whatever Creol has done has gotten everything working fine now. Osiris (talk) 06:04, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It was odd.. It wasn't in the category before I started playing. I cleared the cat on the template (it isn't really needed as {{qd}} applies it by default) and it popped up in the category. Undoing my edit didn't make it un-appear though and it stayed through a couple other tests. It does seem to be a system maintenance issue and the system finally noticed it on my playing with the template... The monthly cats are notorious for it already, but they can usually be forced into recognizing the cat qd on a blind save (edit->save, no change needed) 70.184.171.16 (talk) 07:04, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In that case I am thinking it probably fell out of the job queue the first time and Creols edit put it back in to be fixed. -DJSasso (talk) 15:04, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This keeps coming back. I do think it's probably a job queue issue. The limits on transclusions of {{admin backlog}} won't work, nor will the auto-tagging of {{monthly clean-up category}}—see for example this empty one. I guess it's not a huge deal, just a bit annoying. Osiris (talk) 07:37, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Monthly auto-delete has seems to always have been an issue. Its a matter of either waiting for the next maintenance run/slot in queue to pick up the template state change or forcing it to reset and be included (Change page->save page, no changed done). This is likely the same with backlog - just because the template on the page can see it's location's status has changed does not mean the system has noticed it yet. 70.184.171.16 (talk) 09:06, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Medical articles in Simple English, part II

I have just formatted and inserted the Strep throat article on behalf of the enwiki WikiProject Medicine translation task force. Any feedback that could be provided will be appreciated. sonia♫ 06:56, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My initial check was a simple readablity level scan of it. Given that it's a technical (medical) text, the numbers are expected to be a tad higher than normal. Unfortunately, with a 10.2 average (9.2 - 12.1 range) this is more than a tad high. The 57.4 reading ease level is not too bad, but could use some work. I'm off to beat it with a simple stick and see how much damage I can do to those scores. 19.15 words per sentence shouldnt be hard to improve on. There is also a lack of linking on non-SE terms to be dealt with. 70.184.171.16 (talk) 07:27, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I made a few edits, sorry for the conflict, but I'll leave you to edit it now. Thanks for helping out! Dcoetzee (talk) 07:38, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This seems like a worthwhile goal. I have a couple days off work - let me know what I can do to help. Kansan (talk) 07:41, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The beating with the simple stick seems to have had a bit of an effect - 8.2 readability average now (with three 7th's in there) and 68 ease score. Only lost 4 words per sentence (which I'm dissappointed about..) but still something. Lots of big words that cannot be worked around here so its a bit over the 7th grade limit. 70.184.171.16 (talk) 08:36, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have to say I'm not a great fan of this page as it stands, though I see it's got a GA on enWP. IMO it's not even close to that standard. Our version goes on too long, and in too much detail. As a result some things which are absolutely fundamental get left far too late. You need to say right early on why tests are done. The reasons are 1. The physician usually can't see what causes it just by looking, and 2. In fact, the symptoms are most often caused by viruses, not bacteria. Also, the intro should say clearly that most cases clear up in a few days with no treatment at all. It takes 24/48 hours to do a 'throat culture' (I've never seen the results come back in less than two days!).
The issue of uncontrolled prescribing of antibiotics leading to multiple resistance is extremely important. A generation of young doctors is learning why anitbiotics should not be prescribed unless clearly necessary, yet some medical articles like this blithely talk in language of a generation ago. What I'm saying is that simplification is not the only issue when one is in a technical area like this; and (once again) it is often unwise to import whole articles from enWP. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:45, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
IMHO, the issue with excessive prescription of antibiotics and the effects of this problem is not just not not extremely important, its immaterial here. While it certainly is an issue in general, that issue is something that needs to be covered under antibiotics, not strep throat. Including a "warning label" on every article that mentions antibiotics is hardly needed. This would be akin to adding a bit to any article that mentions a gun that says "Guns kill xx.xxx million people each year. Extreme care should be used when handling a gun." - Useful information, but it should be in the Gun article, not every article that links to Gun. At best, "Antibiotics can be used to treat Strep throat, but [[Antibiotics#Dangers|this is not always a good idea]]." could be used but even this is not really relevant to what Strep throat is and only of limited use to how it can be treated. (as you point out, the doctor should already know this and should take it into consideration with all due warnings to the patient on saving the antibiotics and using some later. 70.184.171.16 (talk) 01:35, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
With respect, you are missing the point. The page ventures into treatment, rather than just a description of the condition. Once it does that, its account of treatment is open to question. On its account of treatment, I just don't think it represents modern thinking in a sufficiently balanced way. Others may think differently; the issue should be adjudicated by reference to recent reliable sources.
I did not advocate any general rule about antibiotics, but if anyone thinks I exaggerated, consider the implications of this: TB (tuberculosis) has appeared in parts of India which is totally resistant to all known antibiotics.
It is a separate issue, but I think medical articles on this wiki should be careful on the question of treatment. Our general rule is 'we're not a 'how-to-do-it wiki'. It may be we should relax that restriction where, as with medicine, the readership would have a genuine interest in treatment. Still, as I say, we've not actually discussed that point. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:49, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The treatment section is supported by 7 different review articles most of which where published in the last 3-5 years. Per the guideline for referencing medical material these are the highest quality sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:MEDRS While some people advocate not treating otitis media, sinusitis, and acute bronchitis with antibiotics no one within the medical community advocates not treating strep throat with antibiotics. If I have misinterpreted the concern in question please rephrase it for me.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:04, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK, that and the discussion on the talk page satisfies me, especially the point made by Doc J. on the talk page, that this bacterium has not yet developed resistance to penicillin. This interesting and important fact could go into the article, I think. Also, where the article uses the general term 'antibiotics', perhaps it should really say 'penicillin' or 'penicillin V'. Might be worth Doc J. checking our stub on rheumatic fever. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:26, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
While Pen V is the first line treatment, many people say they are allergic and some truly are thus occasionally we use second line medications such as erythromycin sometimes. I will dig up a ref and add this though as I agree with Mac that it is an important point.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:20, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

MediaWiki 1.19

(Apologies if this message isn't in your language.) The Wikimedia Foundation is planning to upgrade MediaWiki (the software powering this wiki) to its latest version this month. You can help to test it before it is enabled, to avoid disruption and breakage. More information is available in the full announcement. Thank you for your understanding.

Guillaume Paumier, via the Global message delivery system (wrong page? You can fix it.). 15:18, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

New big weekend proposal

Hello, all. I've proposed a new big weekend here. Feel free to input your suggestions there. Shakinglord (talk) 16:16, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Medical articles in Simple English, part III

As part of a translation project as outlined here we will be generating 80 or so simplified medical articles. I know that some here do not find them simple enough but would like to remind people that this is a starting point. And based on the guidance from the main page of simple Wikipedia that "Simple does not mean short. Writing in Simple English means that simple words are used. It does not mean readers want basic information." If there is support to put these articles in the main space than we will do so. Else I can place them all as sub articles of my talk page. If this is not allowed I am than happy to move them to my own wiki or the main English wiki. Happy to hear comments. If consensus is that people do not wish this content here all I ask is that people hold off deleting it until I have a chance to move it to my own wiki.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:33, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that the articles you are about to create are highly technical. Even if you sipmlify them to a level where they are probably understandable to our readers, please make sure to also create the articles linked, where they do not exist. I have made the experience that there are many subjects where you happen to only have one editor knolwedgeable enough to create the article. Yes, I know, the medical world generally agrees on the meaning of "tonsils" or "pus", yet there seem to be few editors motivated enough to create those articles; so when you create the "interesting articles", please make sure to also leave us with understandable stubs on the annex ones we can understand, to expand later. --Eptalon (talk) 21:09, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If we are needing definitions we could just link to Wiktionary... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:13, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On the s-block

I copied the table from en:s-block to s-block. What's wrong? --Kc kennylau (talk) 13:00, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Punjabi Articles

I've noticed an awful lot of articles being created by IP users / no-edit new users about Punjabi regions and people, which tend to be written in poor English and are on subjects that seem not very notable (but do seem to be real). Examples - Qadar Yar, most of the changes by Tegjveer singh, Yahya Mirza Eskandari, etc.

Since I'm not an expert on the subject, I was wondering if someone could look into them and see if they're actually notable / good for Wikipedia. Thanks. (: [+piccolo] 01:59, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes we have a known Pakistan vandal. This is probably them at it again. -DJSasso (talk) 03:38, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In total, there are perhaps 2-3 editors creating articles about Pakistan, Bangladesh or India. They mostly used IPs so far. One of them probably created an account. Rather than directly deleting the articles, I propose we run them through a "sanity check" (and perhaps a regular RFD), if they look that they could be notable. When I patrolled some of the articles, they looked half-way reasonable as to subject matter (I am not talking about language here, as it can be improved)--Eptalon (talk) 08:48, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of these have been directly copied from books or websites. Qadar Yar was one of the few for which I couldn't find any evidence of copying. I should note that one of the users, 82.9.215.103, is blocked on enwp. Osiris (talk) 16:00, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

'View history' change

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T36449

I notice the 'View history' record now gives us pluses and minuses, but no summaries of total bytes. Is it possible for us to have that information as well? It can be quite useful. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:10, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It might be a feature of MediaWiki 1.19, I believe, but I'd have to get that checked.  Hazard-SJ  ㋡  18:33, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You will have to go comment at the tracking page on meta to ask. -DJSasso (talk) 18:38, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This issue was already reported. I've added a link from the bug to the discussion here. -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 20:05, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's a MediaWiki feature, yes :). Just for transparency, the bug can be found here if anyone wants to comment. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 20:06, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It does for me if you hover over it. Kennedy (talk • changes). 22:02, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, hover over the pluses and minuses and it will tell you how many bytes are in the article. -Orashmatash (talk) 22:16, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Now I'm seeing it without having to hover.  Hazard-SJ  ㋡  00:35, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From what I see on Bugzilla, it was fixed and deployed to cluster.  Hazard-SJ  ㋡  00:36, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Big Artillery Weekend

I am starting Big Artillery Weekend. The basis is to contribute to any and all eras of artillery, from Medievial to Modern, and all kinds of artillery, including rocket artillery. Jobs will include article creation, tagging, improving and others. It will start February 18th and end February 20th. Feel free to input suggestions, reports, comments below. `Shakinglord (talk) 20:46, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd recommend that the weekend code be "BARW" to avoid confusing it with the Big Airport Weekend. -Orashmatash (talk) 20:47, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sort of wondering if it is entirely wrong that others are writing about howitzers and rocket launchers and I'm writing about BFG 9000S and the Death Star.. They may be fictional (the best weapons are in most concepts of the word best) but they still let military guys blow stuff up pretty well from a distance. --Creol(talk) 09:35, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I wish I had thought of it, go for it!--Peterdownunder (talk) 11:14, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Pages that need work

Progress

Currently four editors have made 69 edits, 15 new pages, and 1 new cat. Join in!--Peterdownunder (talk) 11:56, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Issues with Navigation Popups?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T36480

Has anyone else noticed issues with Popups since the recent software upgrade (if anyone else here even uses them)? They're working OK on enwiki, so I suspect they just need updating here. If no one else has reported this, I'll report it over on enwiki -- let me know. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:07, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Most likely due to the MediaWiki software upgrade; I am having the same issue. It's got some JavaScript code in it which automatically loads the latest version from ENWP and since they have it fixed I'm not sure why it's not working here. -Orashmatash (talk) 21:16, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The script is hard-coded to load from https://secure.wikimedia.org/ which is having problems today. It should be changed to just the second mw.loader.load line. Let me know if you find other problems that might be 1.19's fault. -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 23:35, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The fix was trivial and should be working now. -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 23:38, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, but it still looks wonky. Here's a screenshot of what came up when I hovered my cursor over Qadar Yar.

 

Normally that information comes up in a window, not as text overlaying the other text on the page. Also, the text that pops up doesn't go away when I move the cursor off of the link. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:25, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for providing the screenshot. I see this displayed normally, so I'm not sure yet what the problems is. -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 13:42, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK, here's a screenshot from enwiki of what I usually see:
 
FYI, I use Firefox. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:20, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm getting the same, but mainly just on most category pages. I have hard refreshed a page affected - no change. Turned off the gadjet, hard refreshed and no popup as expected, turned it back on, refreshed, and back to not working. It is the same on both Chrome and IE9 (clean ie9, never been used on this site before so nothing to hook on). Affecting at least Vector, Nostalgia and monobook skins. --Creol(talk) 06:35, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the browser information and pages where you're seeing this. Investigating. -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 13:42, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Confirmed on Category pages. Thanks for the report! -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 13:44, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm seeing the same problem using Firefox also, but only on category pages. Osiris (talk) 20:05, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm using the latest version of Firefox and it's broken on all pages. -Orashmatash (talk) 21:27, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I can't reproduce this. Navigation pop-ups work fine for me on simple.wikipedia in both Firefox and Chrome. Tried it on both article and category pages. Can someone provide more specific steps to reproduce? Kaldari (talk) 22:40, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Using the last article I created as an example - it has the following cats. Some work fine, others are all wibbly-wobbly:
Im in and out of categories constantly though, so hard to tell which are cached or not. Of that list, the only one I can confirm being in during the last week was American singers and pretty certain I have not been in Stand-up for a while. --Creol(talk) 01:08, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I can't reproduce now even though I could before. Magically fixed? -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 00:03, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Not fixed for me. I even tried removing my customizations from monobook.js and that didn't make a difference. --Auntof6 (talk) 00:13, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Popups has been broken since long before that upgrade. It has only worked intermittently for over a year now. sonia♫ 00:29, 18 February 2012 (UTC) (addendum: Currently working fine in fx, not at all in IE, and not on category pages in Opera, on win7, latest versions of all. sonia♫ 00:39, 18 February 2012 (UTC))[reply]

Very weird but User:sonia's note makes sense. Shortly after I wrote the above, I tried again and saw the problem on category pages. While I was playing with ?debug=true and the like to try and find why it works here (for example) but not on a category page, it suddenly started working again. I'm guessing this is some kind of weird caching problem. -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 00:31, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Has worked without problem for me - and is still working. (Firefox)--Peterdownunder (talk) 00:39, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah most of the gadgets for simple don't work reliably at all. It has always been a use at your own risk situation since we haven't had the editors to be able to keep them up to date and working in this community. -DJSasso (talk) 21:10, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Non-patrollers marking their own edits as patrolled

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T36503

Why is it that some non-patrollers have been able to mark their edits as patrolled? -Orashmatash (talk) 21:05, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Because it happens automatically for auto-confirmed people I believe. -DJSasso (talk) 21:06, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It shouldn't happen automatically for autoconfirmed users. Reported.  Hazard-SJ  ㋡  23:12, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm now I see IPs doing it so yeah something is up. -DJSasso (talk) 23:19, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  Fixed  Hazard-SJ  ㋡  01:05, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Pikachu Picture?

I wanted to add an actual picture of Pikachu on the Simple English wiki for it, but I can't. I've already asked this on the English wiki and they told me to go here for help. Can someone do this for me? The Pikachu Who Dared (talk / contribs) 14:27, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Image uploads are not permitted on Simple English Wikipedia, so any image you want to add to an article would have to be hosted on commons instead. Any media file uploaded to commons is required to be free to use in both the United States and the file's country of origin. See Commons:Licensing for information on copyright law in whatever country this may be (is it Japanese?). Osiris (talk) 14:46, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try and do that, Osiris. The Pikachu Who Dared (talk / contribs) 14:53, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Pikachu, please look carefully at en:File:Sugimoris025.png. Pay special attention to the "Licensing section" and to the "Fair use" section of this English Wikipedia page.

No free or public domain images have been located for this artwork. It is protected by copyright.

Can you understand that this is the reason that why no image can be added to Simple Wikipedia? --Horeki (talk) 15:16, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Parser expressions

Anybody got any idea what's causing the error in these two location maps? It's showing up in transclusions. I've put it down to the centering in the map scale, but see no difference between our version and the enwp version. Osiris (talk) 03:10, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Copied Template:Location map/Info from enwiki and it works now. -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 05:25, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, but the actual transclusions are still broken (see e.g. Asakuchi, Okayama or Abiko, Chiba). The /info page looks to me like an instruction-only template and doesn't get transcluded. Osiris (talk) 05:39, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Right, I neglected Template:Location map. Try now. -- ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 06:36, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Looks perfect. Thank you very much!   Osiris (talk) 06:44, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Simple Spanish

Just wanted to let you guys know that to see what people think about the starting of a Simple Spanish Wikipedia (yes, I am aware that there have been past proposals that haven't succeeded). If anyone here has an opinion about it, you should head over there and give your input! I'll do my best to translate your comment into Spanish if you don't speak the language :) just comment on the discussion in English (keep it simple, please! My Spanish is good, but I have limitations), email me at tragicnotbeautiful gmail.com, and I'll get to translating it ASAP! (The emailing me part is important. I'm a spacey person.) cymru.lass (talk)⁄(changes) 19:44, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I wish you luck. The language committee passed a resolution to never open any more non-official language wikis. We only exist because they didn't want to close existing wikis. -DJSasso (talk) 00:41, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think the French Chapter created there own wiki project to do French Victuallers (talk) 13:29, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I remember that something clever was done with namespaces to do a simple under a language, it may have been something like fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/simple:Main for example. Truth be told, that might be the right way to do this simple. Josh Parris 06:34, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Billy Graham

Billy Graham is at WP:PAD for those interested. Albacore (talk · changes) 20:57, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

{{translated page}}

Hello all. {{Translated page}} is not working the way it should. It is doing something strange with the ISO template (see Talk:Klein-Brabant for an example), and I can't fix it. If someone with expertise in ParserFunctions could take a look it would be appreciated. -Orashmatash (talk) 14:29, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just needed {{ISO 639 name nl‎}} to be created. Osiris (talk) 04:20, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Simple

Editors of Simple English are very welcome
@MonmouthpediA announces the Charles Rolls Challenge

This is the first multilingual Wikipedia collaboration to create a wiki-town. All Wikipedians can take part, in any Wikipedia language. The challenge runs from 1 March until the 19th of April 2012. (Prizegiving webstreamed on 21st April).
Sign up now
"Can you imagine a Wiki Project that involves 1,000 QRpedia codes and free WiFi?"

We do include simple as a language Victuallers (talk) 13:31, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Master of Music needed

Looking over some (ok a whole lot) of our articles, I'm noticing an issue that needs the touch of someone(s) with a lot of free time on their hands, a bit of wikignome in them, and a good understanding of music and modern musical genres. Were this a simple category issue, I would be right on it, but this goes deeper than that (though categorizing is the heart of the issue). Our bands (and in many cases musicians in general) show no consistancy when it comes to genre. The same style of group may be listed as rock, punk, emo, hardcore, post-harcore, etc dictated by how the original editors chose to write the prose (and others followed behind and linked/categorized based on what they are given).

I'm just curious if there is anyone out there with a focus on music (and a lot of free time) willing to take a look at these articles. The main tasks seem to be copy'ing over the en: infoboxes on the bands as needed (let them do the work on defining genres), updating the intro (XXX is an <nationality> <genre> band.) and categorizing based on that info. Given the size of the issue, this is certainly not a short term project, more of an "when I'm bored and looking for something to work on" issue.. --Creol(talk) 09:27, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Moving articles in Simple English Wikipedia to English Wikipedia

I'm working with a group of high school students in Lower Normandy(Argentan,France). They are writing articles in Simple English about various communes in the region. Eventually, I would like to move the most useful articles to English Wikipedia. Cut and paste is the easy answer but I would need to transfer all the edit history and the sources, both of which would make the task much more difficult (sources) if not impossible(edit history). Is there some easy system that I don't know about? --the above unsigned message was from‎ Mlane78212 Talk 06:57, 5 March 2012

This problem could be solved by adding an explanation to each "new" article's talk page:
Article based on Simple Wikipedia
This article or parts of it were created based, in whole or in part, on this version of the Simple Wikipedia article. The complete history of the article can be found there. -- signed by new article creator
In each case, change the red "this version" with a link to the original article.
For example, compare Enoshima and Talk:Enoshima with en:Enoshima. See also Template:Enwp based. --Horeki (talk) 15:27, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Could they be imported from English Wikipedia? I don't know if importing brings the edit history with it, though. --Auntof6 (talk) 22:42, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Import is a good idea, but if you don't want to bother someone with the import permission, the normal procedure I believe is to use en:Template:Translated page on the article's take page. On another note—do we even have any good French commune articles? I remember cleaning up the infoboxes in hundreds of them, and I can't remember one that was more than a few sentences long... Osiris (talk) 23:39, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've been catching a lot of them in my simplification runs, and I've only seen 1 or 2 that were longer than that. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:09, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That is because most of them were created by bot during a craze where the wiki was creating articles via bot for straight foward articles like these. But based on the comments above I think they are intended to improve commune articles. -DJSasso (talk) 13:33, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm the originator of the request.Thank you for your responses. Currently, I'm not interested in transferring any existing commune articles, as they are too brief as you noticed. However, as time goes on and new students at higher levels join the project( we only have 13-to-14-year-olds at the moment) I can foresee better and longer articles. Since all the students are from a small region around Argentan, I suspect future students will be adding to the existing articles. In addition, they haven't begun library research up till now. If that program goes well, they should begin to add more and richer information. It is a slow learning project as we all learn how fast this can go. I also wanted to add an incentive. I wanted them to know that their teacher and I would be choosing the best article(s) to move to English Wikipedia, but only if they were good enough. A regional newspaper wants to write an article as well, so this may be a program that grows beyond my two hour a week volunteer time.
BTW thank you Auntof6 and Osiris for your attention to their articles. I think it makes them feel noticed.Mlane78212 (talk) 14:28, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Survey invitation

The Wikimedia Foundation would like to invite you to take part in a brief survey.

With this survey, the Foundation hopes to figure out which resources Wikimedians want and need (some may require funding), and how to prioritize them. Not all Foundation programs will be on here (core operations are specifically excluded) – just resources that individual contributors or Wikimedia-affiliated organizations such as chapters might ask for.

The goal here is to identify what YOU (or groups, such as chapters or clubs) might be interested in, ranking the options by preference. We have not included on this list things like “keep the servers running”, because they’re not a responsibility of individual contributors or volunteer organizations. This survey is intended to tell us what funding priorities contributors agree and disagree on.

To read more about the survey, and to take part, please visit the survey page. You may select the language in which to take the survey with the pull-down menu at the top.

This invitation is being sent only to those projects where the survey has been translated in full or in majority into your language. It is, however, open to any contributor from any project. Please feel free to share the link with other Wikimedians and to invite their participation.

If you have any questions for me, please address them to my talk page, since I won’t be able to keep an eye at every point where I place the notice.

Thank you! Slaporte (WMF) (talk) 22:10, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Italic titles

It is possible to make italic titles with the template '{{italictitle}}'. This is done in enWP for titles of films, books, etc. Should we do this? A recent new page Bal du moulin de la Galette has brought this up. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:54, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I believe we already do do it. But alot of pages haven't had it added. -DJSasso (talk) 16:24, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we have that template. I've been trying to add it to everything that needs it, but you go ahead, too! --Auntof6 (talk) 21:19, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please consider Japanese food dishes like Takoyaki and Okonomiyaki — but not Teriyaki or Sukiyaki which have become English words?

What about Korean food dishes like Jjigae — but not Kimchi because it has become an English word?

Is this template appropriate for these articles and others like them? --Horeki (talk) 15:15, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

IMO italic titles should not be used for titles in foreign languages. enWP uses them for a) titles of books, films &c, and names of biological genera and species. These are clear-cut uses. Foreign words are so often imported into English that we would have a difficult time identifying those that were genuinely foreign from those which have been 'naturalised'. A huge number of words in English are of foreign origin. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:52, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Macdonald-ross. See en:Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Titles#Italics for the list of things that take italic titles. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:00, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, agree. --Horeki (talk) 19:18, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • 15:55, 6 March 2012 diff . . (-15)‎ . . Jjigae ‎ (remove italic title template)
  • 15:55, 6 March 2012 diff . . (-15)‎ . . Okonomiyaki ‎ (remove italic title template)
  • 15:54, 6 March 2012 diff . . (-15)‎ . . Takoyaki ‎ (remove italic title template)

I've just written on my talk page by mistake.

Hello, I am Japanese Wikipedian.
I tried to create my user page. However, I make a mistake, in my talk page, I would write the contents of my user page.
I was a blank page to the users of its own. And, again, I wrote to the same content as the user page.
I Do I have to the procedure of something?
Thank you. --御門桜(MIKADO, Sakura) (talk) 17:32, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. No you don't really need to do anything, I've put a welcome message on your page to make it look like a proper page, and to just to say welcome! :) Kennedy (talk • changes). 17:50, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much. I was very helpful. The problem is resolved. --御門桜(MIKADO, Sakura) (talk) 13:50, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Complete, exhaustive vocabulary list

Is there a complete, exhaustive vocabulary list? I look at Wikipedia:Basic English combined wordlist, and I see addition but not additions, page and not pages, overdressed and not dressed, knowledge and unknown but not know or known.

Is there a list of additional words that editors can be exposed to? Wikipedia:Basic English combined wordlist does not, for example, list article, save, title or category. Josh Parris 05:25, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, but you don't have to use only the words listed. First, all versions of a noun or adjective are included in the main word listed. Verbs are a bit trickier, but the infinitive plus basic tenses are included. Second, you can go outside Basic English, but take care to explain or 'translate' words readers might find difficult. There is a list of Most common words in English, and you should regard any word in the top 1,000 as being simple. Research has established that the more common a word is, the better it is understood.
I notice you brought over the whole of a rather complex page as your first act. As you were not experienced in our ways, that was perhaps not such a good idea. You could have imported the introduction alone, and worked on that. Or, you could have imported the page into a sandbox and worked on it there. Beware of long, complex pages! They can take a huge amount of work, and often the enWP original is far longer and more detailed than we need here. When all else fails, use common sense... Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:05, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And I'm still not done! The first pass of translation seems to have produced an article that doesn't hang together very well. Weaknesses in the source article become glaring when simplifying.
It may be good that my first article was too hard; I learned a lot. I didn't realise how much effort is involved in translation, and I didn't realise how poor the support infrastructure here is. On enWP there's no end of policies, procedures, advice, guidelines and processes, and automation up the wasso. If you just invest enough time in reading, eventually you'll come across the answer to just about any procedural question; if you make a mistake, it's noticed fast, probably by a bot. Here it's the Wild West, the pioneer spirit.
It looks like one of the first things I'm going to need to do is write up the BE 850 as an exhaustive list, and then the same for BE 1500. That should provide a basis for the construction of some tools, like reports of the proportion of a page in BE850 and BE1500. I'm going to suggest a that there should be a guideline of "no unlinked words outside of the exhaustive BE 1500". The appearance of {{complex}} ought to be driven by compliance that can be objectively measured. Josh Parris 10:49, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, and welcome here; before you spend effort compiling world lists, let me point out that the vocabulary used is specific to the domain of knowledge the article covers. It may be possible to write an article about a general subject using the BE850, or BE1500 (word list), but as soon as you write about scientific subjects, this becomes very difficult. In order to be able to write about scientific subjects, we need to use the language that goes with it: biologists, mathematicians, physicists, psychologists all have their own languages; while these people can try to explain the topics really well, it is not possible to model these articles with n basic word forms. As you have seen yourself, the word lists do cover singulars but not plural forms, they also do not cover compoisite words. Another problem few peaople mention: prefer to use simpler word forms, that have fewer, but more specific meanings: extract is better than pull out. Avoid phrasal verbs, because the meaning of the composite cannot be derived from the parts. If I put a book up on a shelf, I put up with not being treated fairly, or I put someone up in a boarding school or mental institution, I always use put and up, but with wholly different meanings. In short: try to explain well, using simpler words. but do not rely on word lists, as they may be false friends and make artticles more difficult to understand than they need to be. It is possible to make a word list based on occurrences of words in all the texts. If we take the correspoding texts, the resulting word list will probably include somewhere between 45.000 and 125.000 word forms; the value of such lists in everyday life is probably limited, though. --Eptalon (talk) 11:26, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The big thing to realize is that simple english isn't quantifiable like that. Yes we have the basic word lists and we should try to use them as much as possible. But we don't even remotely restrict ourselves to those lists. Basically what we do is any word that is likely to be considered difficult gets wikilinked or replaced by something more likely to be understood. As Eptalon says the basic word lists are fine for very general prose, but you often have to go outside them in any article about a subject that is more than a very basic article. The basic wordlists are just samples to give you an idea of what to strive for, but they certainly are not the be all end all. If you use Firefox there is a dictionary you can download that will underline words considered to be complex as if they are spelling mistakes which some people like. I don't know how good it is because I don't think its the best way to go about it but its worth a shot if you are looking for tools. -DJSasso (talk) 14:20, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe it's not as much Wild West as you think. As far as policies and guidelines, our practice is to use what's on enwiki if we don't have a specific one here. Not much point in duplicating a lot of policies here if we can just point to enwiki. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:52, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Follow English Wikipedia is the practice he is talking about. -DJSasso (talk) 00:05, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notability of settlements

I see that this has been brought up before with different responses. I'd like to try and get a solid community consensus about whether populated places are inherently notable. Currently, we have thousands of stubs on towns in the United States that were created by AWB. The vast majority of them consist only of the following line:

[City] is a city of [state] in the United States.

An example is Douglass Hills, Kentucky. It gets no hits in the archives of Google news, and nothing at Google books. And this is one of the larger cities. There are others, like Fifty-Six, Arkansas (population 163), that struggle to even get results in a mainstream search. The enwp versions of most of these pages are purely collections of statistics gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau, formatted in prose.

The main issue concerning our versions is that under ordinary circumstances, stating that something merely exists is not an assertion of its notability (prec. Dingus, Kentucky, 2009). I believe that if I created a slew of such stubs on cities in India that basically just repeated the title, they would be deleted on the spot and I would be reprimanded.

So: is there an unwritten exception here to notability policies? If not, does anyone have any ideas about what to do with these pages? I have an idea, that I've hashed out my own idea on my talk page, but I'm open to alternatives/suggestions. Osiris (talk) 13:10, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note that there are literally hundreds of "X is a city in the U.S. State of Y." articles and "X is a commune in Y." articles. Deleting them all would be extremely tedious for the admins...--195.194.111.196 (talk) 13:13, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not proposing deletion. Osiris (talk) 13:19, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
When something does not meet the criteria for inclusion is it not usual to delete it? If it is decided to add settlements to the notability policy then those articles would be deleted as they do not assert notability (at least those I have seen).--195.194.111.196 (talk) 13:24, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No. Deletion is one option, but there are always alternatives. Osiris (talk) 13:27, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I know. But please take into account what I said above: There are hundreds of articles of this type. Improving them all will take ages. Not that this comment matters much per what Djsasso has said below.--195.194.111.196 (talk) 13:31, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not volunteering to improve them either, though I will volunteer to merge them if there's a consensus for it. Osiris (talk) 14:01, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Settlements are always notable, just as geographic features. Both are inherently notable. It comes down to the fact that they are always going to be noted in atlases and in various government documents and brochures etc etc. The people that live in the area are obviously going to note them. Remember notability does not have to be world wide. This is a topic that has been beaten to death. One sentence stubs are always preferable to no article and are usually preferable to lists. One thing to remember in doing a google search is that the news isn't the only type of reference that is acceptable. Atlases and maps and any sort of book that talks about the settlements in a location are all acceptable sources. If there are people living in a place you can guarantee that there are papers/books/documents that talk about the town. -DJSasso (talk) 13:29, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree on many points regarding inherent notability. Though I still think the uselessness of these pages as they are needs to be recognised. Readers aren't getting any more out of these stubs by clicking on them than they are by simply reading the names of the links wherever they might pop up. As far as I can see, they aren't articles at all. They're blue links with 10 words and "consist only of a rephrasing of the title". I'm now digressing, but I was piqued—why do you say they are usually preferable to lists? Osiris (talk) 14:01, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Because people are more likely to expand an article than they are a list. If I was a random reader from say Douglass Hills, Kentucky. I am considerably more likely to expand an already existing article on my hometown of Douglass Hills than to create an article from scratch or to take an article off a list and expand it to a bigger article. Basically we capitalize on our casual editors more when there are stubs than when things are merged into lists or don't exist at all. Remember not all people here are regular editors like we are, and we can't do everything so the more we use the resources of the random casual editor the better off we are. As a reader I am generally far more disappointed to find an article that doesn't exist than to find a one sentence stub that doesn't tell me much because atleast the article exists. -DJSasso (talk) 14:14, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
:Notablility should not be the only criterion for inclusion here; As I have pointed out before, if all you can say about a settlement is based on its geography, or census data, then it should not be included here; Positive criteria, where ideally several must be met:

  • Established at least 100 years ago
  • Historically significant (includes sites of disasters)
  • New town or planned city
  • Large population growth in recent (say last 50) years
  • Current population larger than a threshold, say 50.000 people.
  • Administrative center of a larger region/county/...
In addition to meeting three of the six criteria mentione, I strongly suggest that the article must state why the subject is notable. Given that you have at least one sentence for each of the three criteria, we get at least three-sentence stubs. We need to think that probably aobut a third of our current articles are such stubs, so we need to come up with a way of grouping those that would fall through with the proposed criteria. --Eptalon (talk) 14:17, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes by all means people should write those sorts of articles first. But we should strive to have all notable articles here so removing any that don't meet your ideals is counter productive and we are all volunteers, not everyone wants to write about those articles, they want to write about the notable topics of interest to them. The wiki awhile ago decided to drop just writing the common topics and move on to any notable topic. People really need to stop being concerned with stubs existing, they are a good thing. And these one sentence stubs do state why they are notable, they are notable because they are a town in Kentucky or whereever. -DJSasso (talk) 14:26, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But since they "consist only of a rephrasing of the title", the pages are worthless to the average reader. If someone creates a slew of pages of [Town], Nigeria saying "[Town] is a [town] in Nigeria", it's not an encyclopaedic entry because it only rephrases the title. Until they grow into something worthwhile reading, there's no reason for them to exist on their own. And the issue will continue to be brought up. If some in the community are against deleting them, and others are against keeping them, what other solutions can we come up with? I'm proposing to merge them together into a temporary container list until they can survive on their own. It's a good compromise, because it deals with the mess and keeps the door open for development. Osiris (talk) 05:57, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
2 points 1) Just because an article can be QD by policy does not mean that it should. There are hundreds - thousands of articles here that could be deleted under A4 where the topic is clearly notable (though it isn't stated why - Nickelback doesn't say why the band is notable, just that they made albums with songs on them, and got realy famous when they made one album - "realy famous" is the only claim of notability and its a very weak one that could be ignored in a QD situation - but Nickelback is a notable band even though it isn't stated. A lot of the actor, band, and musician articles could fall prey to an A4 if strictly followed. The key point is that an article can be deleted if it meets the criteria, not that it should/must be. 2) On a technicallity, "Only a rephrasing of the title" does not apply in the example given (and more articles implied here). The article does rephrase the title but adds one other bit of information - "is a town/city/village in". Most non-US ones also tend to include a link to the country as well as the list/article on districts (or the local translation) for that country. (state) --Creol(talk) 06:23, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm only drawing attention to that to show that they arguably could be deleted under the criteria. Or that a proposal at RfD could easily be justified. My proposal is not to delete, but to merge them instead. Osiris (talk) 06:38, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe this is a good time to look forward rather than backward. The massive number of commune/town stubs has been discussed many times before. There has never been a strong consensus to do anything about them and I doubt there will be in the near future. Personally, I don't much see the point of many of them, but the inherent notability argument seems to win. Let's just avoid this issue in the future. I'm not suggesting a rule or guideline, but we should probably discourage any mass creation of stubs by AWB or other means in the future. Most recently, see Japan Football's microstub spree]. Is there a way to throttle new article creation so that no user can create new articles every two minutes until someone notices? Or, is just a watchful group of editors and admins enough? Gotanda (talk) 01:49, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah after that batch of towns the community agreed to stop creating articles by AWB so anyone using AWB to do it will have their access to AWB revoked. As for users doing it manually there is no way to stop them, if the articles are notable they are fair game to be created. -DJSasso (talk) 03:40, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As written above, below (eventually) and likely sideways of this post, almost all communities are notable. There is a book or magazine or local newspaper out there that has ample information on them even if we can't find it on-line - some reliable source has, in all likelihood, written about every populated place in the well-explored parts of the world (ie, there are likely some non-notable places in Africa, the outback, and the Amazon basin - those are exceptions). The main point against here seems to be the one of the worst ideas ever - limit what notable subjects editors can write about. "We want you to edit here, but only if you do the articles we want and to our standards"... while at the same time pushing the idea of needing more editors. No, these particular edits may not be really useful but they are better than alienating a potential new editor. They are better than nothing at all in that page slot. They are an invitation to another editor (or the same) to add a sentence, and then the next person does the same.. As Djsasso points out, they are a launching point. Some will get used, others won't - neither case costs the wiki anything, there is no wasted paper here.

One strong point here is the usefulness of curbing the desire to create these. AWB should certainly not be allowed for usage in this manner. And this should be pointed out in writing. The AWB page should be imported, cleaned up and simplified (with a "for more information see <this> page on the English wiki" so we can keep it to basics) and the instructions specifically placed that AWB is not to be used for this type of editing and people found doing it will get their access removed.

It is one thing if we are dealing with articles so badly written that we are dealing with disruption due to the amount of time needed to make them understandable (and likely copyright issues - the Pakistani editor), but for concise (if even generally useless) articles, there is little to no negative impact of them existing. Oh, and time limits on creation could potentially get disruptive in the case of templates - for articles it could be fine, but at times multiple pages are needed to get templates working correctly.

As such, I would suggest that it be officially made policy that "AWB shall not be used for the mass creation of pages. Any user found to be in violation of this rule shall have their AWB access removed". --Creol(talk) 05:56, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can't decide one way or another. I don't see the benefit of "X is a place in Y", and like the idea of creating "List of cities in X". We can always link the more major ones to its own article. As for the Japanese football stubs, I think they (and the other football stubs) actually give a bit more info, such as the persons DOB, POB, height, playing position, teams they played for, managed and some stats; taking Park Young-Ho as a random example. It is my opinion that more than a "rephrasing of the title" is needed. Kennedy (talk • changes). 12:54, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If we take the Cities in Kentucky (no offense intended to anyone, just an example): There are currently 427 articles in the Category "Cities in Kentucky". Looking at the geography of Kentucky, there are 5 "regions"- Jackson Purchase, Mississippi platau, Cumberland Plateau, Outer Bluegrass , and Inner Bluegrass; this would leave us with about 85 cities per region (supposing they are evenly distributed, which they probably aren't. This means that a "List of cities in the Jackson Purchase" would list 60-70 cities (with 1-2 sentences each), plus perhaps link to the 10-15 cities that have longer articles? - This could laso solve the orphan porblems many of these articles have. What do you think? --Eptalon (talk) 16:47, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This is a perfect solution to me. I did begin have a go at cramming them all into one list by state, but it was obvious that it would become too long when finished. As I said above, the links will still be available and in most cases the information given will be much more than what's currently on the pages (even if it is all just statistics). Osiris (talk) 16:51, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And again this would discourage the growth of information for those cities. Not a single person has ever been able to put up any kind of strong argument for how these articles affect the actual readers of the wiki in a negative way. I am not talking editors, actual readers who for the most part only type in exactly what they are searching for and click links from pages. They don't generally just hit random page like is often the argument people make. Frankly if you don't like the articles, don't go to them. Don't damage the wiki by stunting its growth just because you don't like stubs. -DJSasso (talk) 21:04, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think Djsasso is absolutely correct - and I think if the effort in the discussion above had gone into creating one more sentence in a few hundred stubs, it would have been time better spent. Back to improving stubs and creating new articles. Peterdownunder (talk) 23:13, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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