Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 1

This is a copy of old messages from Simple Talk. They were moved here on August 11, 2005 AD.

Maximum number of words per sentence

Should there be a rule as to how many words a sentence in an article which is not a quote should have? I see that many articles already approach typical Wikipedia prose with paragraph-long sentences. Perhaps a limit of 20-25 words per sentence would be useful.Eloquence 11:06, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'd like to avoid any strict rules on word count as it isn't a very practical thing to enforce, but on first glance, even 20-25 seems quite long. A better way if just to try to aim for one concept per sentence, rather than worrying too much about the number of words. So, use a new sentence where you might otherwise have used a comma. A lot of the pages here currently are not simple enough, so they shouldn't necessarily be used as a guide. Angela 19:54, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

How about using one of these tests?Eloquence

Thanks for the link. I'd not seen that before. Perhaps aiming for the Fog Index to be less than 10 would be the easiest recommendation to make. The others depend on having to decide which age level we are aiming at. Angela 22:40, 29 Dec 2003 (PST)

Taking out links from articles that come from outside Simple

I have changed difficult words into several words which say the same. Many difficult words are links. When should we simplify words which are links?

The pipe trick may help, or maybe it does not. Should we try to have many difficult words remain in the article as links to articles which explain them?

Or would it be better to have them at the end of the article? I do not mean that we would have them as a list of links. The idea I got was that maybe we should have the words which might be links as a list of short explanations (a glossary). I will show what I mean below:

pipe

is a word to do with computers which means moving data from one program which works alone to another program working alone. It can also mean telling some program to get data for itself from somewhere else than the place which is given more visibly.

glossary

is a list of short explanations of what words mean. It is often put where a text has words that are difficult.

I mean explanations like that. Then we could have simple words in the article. The more difficult words that have to do with the matter of the article, would still be with it. -- C I M O N 12:21, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I think avoiding the difficult words is a better option. Where they are linked, it may be because the original author couldn't think of a way of simplifying it, so went with the alternative of explaining it in another article, but if this can be avoided, that would be a good thing. The glossary is a good idea, particularly where there are technical words that would be common in a normal text but have been omitted here, as it would help people when they then have to read normal texts on the topic. Angela 19:58, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Sorry for my sarcasm, but I think if this is to be Simple English, it should be "trying not to use" instead of "avoiding" and "the one who wrote it in first place" instead of "the original author" or "make it easier" instead of "simpflify". User:Jakob Stevo

In an article, yes, but at the moment we are using full english for all meta stuff. It's much easier than way, and AFAIK, we don't have any contributers that don't speak good english. -- Tango 20:11, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Often the editors here will have good English. It's harder to write in Simple English than it is to write normally, so I doubt any regulars here would have problems. However, feel free to modify what I've written if you feel it would be useful. I would appreciate it if you made a note underneath to say you've done this though. Angela 21:09, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Wiktionary?

Most of the articles I have come across on this Wiki seem to really belong in Wiktionary. People seem to think that "simple" means give a dictionary definition because "simple" readers won't be able to understand anything more complex. Can I just copy and paste articles such as Numeral or River into the Wiktionary? Why may they not be appropriate for Wiktionary? Are they appropriate here?--Skyfaller 17:47, 25 Jan 2004 (PST)

I think that you are allowed to copy them to Wiktionary as long as you attribute the authors in the edit summary when you save the page there, and note where it came from. I think they should not be deleted from here though as most of them are a start to an article, which will hopefully improve to be much more than a simple definition later on. Angela 00:35, 26 Jan 2004 (PST)

Angela, does this apply equally to Favorite and About? Forgive me if my comment here or on Talk:Favorite seems pushy; I'm just trying to understand what the community standard is so that I don't transgress it. Thx, PhilipR 17:01, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Skyfaller forget the river! I just turned it into an encyclopaedic article so it's not a dicdef anymore! hehe, just kidding. I agree with Angela. Optim 08:27, 26 Jan 2004 (PST)

Name

Shouldn't the name of this Wikipedia be Easy English rather than simple? Kokiri 11:49, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

No. why? Optim 07:02, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Because the connotation of easy is more positive than that of simple, but nevermind. Let's have good articles, that's more important. Kokiri 21:16, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I always thought that Simple English is like some established sort of English invented by Dr. Watsizname in 1846 or something... Something established... but I may be wrong, maybe Wikipedians just chose this name randomly. Both have good and slightly bad connotations. --Menchi (Talk). 05:36, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You're probably thinking of Basic English. --gwalla 09:13 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

And then of course there is Plain English (or if you are incredibly pedantic Plane English since the expression derives from Plane Sailing). But I think Simple English is best --BozMo 18:43, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)Talk

Do you have a link to "Plane English" or "Plain English" ? --DavidCary 19:28, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Plain Talk: "RudolfFlesch wrote a book called TheArtOfPlainTalk" -- discussed at http://CommunityWiki.org/FormOfWriting

Simple English, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_English

Wikipedia for kids?

Have you ever thought of making this a Wikipedia for Kids? There are many versions of Wikipedia right now so it may seems that everyone would contribute to their language version. I'm just wondering cuz it seems that an article like en:Sedna (astronomical object) doesn't seem to be good for a K-6 kid, but the Simple English version would be great for them. Thoughts?

Btw, previews are appearings on the bottom instead of the the top of the page. =/

—Michael | Talk 03:07, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I had already proposed this on talk Main Page. What would one call it? Perhaps given how little progress Simple is making we should shelve the idea for a little while--BozMo Talk 18:40, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I do think it could be called Junior Wikipedia. How about that? Thorpe 19:58, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

The preview setting can be changed at any time; go to "Personal settings" in the upper right corner and check or uncheck "Show preview before edit box and not after it." --Bkell 00:02, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

In my opinion there is a big difference between a dictionary for kids and one for simple english speakers:

• dictionaries for kids try to describe the world's entities in a simplified and non-ambiguous manner, leaving out complex thoughts which only can be understood with a broader amount of life experience
• dictionaries for adults with low language experience just avoid special idiomatic terms that are conventional shortcuts (symbols) for specific well-known circumstances, since most simple english speakers are likely to be grown-up and mostly know these circumstances but don't know the respective idiomatic terms

--213.23.24.75 11:19, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)(de:Benutzer:Babakus)

re: kid's wiki...I am working on a miniproject I've been thinking of as A Child's Garden of Wikipedia, see this link if you'd like. I'd be willing to collaborate on it, but you might want to note that the wiki I am thinking of will be censored and that is contrary to one of our foundational "rules" so I don't know if anyone else is up for it. I'd welcome help, but my goal is an 'absolutely unquestionably wholesome space' for kids reading age to early teens. I just wrote my simple english user page, would anyone who has time pop over to my simple english user page and give me some feedback on how this page fits with the 'simple' project, jutst to see if I'm on the right track? I also just edited Insectivore and expanded it quite a bit, mind having a look over that page too?Pedant 05:53, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

But its kind of scary having a kindergartener having the power of the edit button, isn't it? I'm just shaking at the possibilities. ;-) -- 130.111.98.198 23:09, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Response: Okay, here's a thought; you picked an article on an asteroid, for crissake-- what kid'd find that?! If you wanna make a point, pick sumthin reasonable, huh? response by 24.1.249.184. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:15, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There's m:Wikijunior in the making. Aurora 02:19, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Copied from English Wikipedia" message

I copied and edited a page at en.wikipedia to Platypus. I thought a standard message for such copied might be useful. It can be added by typing {{msg:en}} at the end of the article. It looks like this:

What do other people think about this? (After simplifying the article, will I ever be able to think in the passive voice again? Help!) Kevin Saff 22:46, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I don't like having tags on too many articles, and this could apply to nearly all our articles here. I tend to acknowledge it in the edit summary when I create the page. Personally, I think that's enough, especially as we have a link to the English version in the interlanguage links section anyway. Angela 02:29, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The way I see it, english and simple english are not really separate languages. Therefore, I'd expect articles for the two to be tightly coupled. An example where this is currently not the case is movement (simple). There are no interlanguage links to en:movement and back (Hey, why is that extra colon required in [[:en:movement]], I thought this is not necessary on talk pages?). Would it be possible to automatically link "simple:movement" to "en:movement" and back? Rainer

The colon isn't necessary on talk pages. This isn't a talk page, despite it being called Simple talk. :) Pages in the Wikipedia namespace do need the colon. Angela 21:27, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the article on Buddha. Need an article about Nelson Mandela

Hello. Thank you for the good idea of making a Wikipedia in simple English. I am currently working on a new Wikipedia, the Tok Pisin wikipedia. In order to facilitate the work of users-to-come, I am using bilingual frames with English next to Tok Pisin. Whenever there is an article in simple English, I use it rather than the article in English.
But for the article on Buddha, there is no simple English article yet, and the English article is far too complicated. Could you make it more simple, and more explanatory about Buddhism?
Please see:
http://tpi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buda
Thank you all in advance,
Milaiklainim ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk%3AMilaiklainim )

Hi, Milaiklainim. I started translating Buddhism, but it is hard! (I'm new to "simple"; I'm not used to editing to a good language level.) I'll work some more today, to help you. Please, make suggestions if the text is too complicated or too "dumbed down". Kevin Saff 19:04, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hi, Milaiklainim. I translated the article on Buddha (not a particularly good original imoh) but couldn't see how to get it into the simple wiki. It inserted itself into the normal English version instead. I reverted it, but of course the simple version will be archived if you think you can fish it out and paste it across correctly. Need to keep your eye on the title bar to see which version you are editing! Perhaps the simple version could have a different background tint or something... Shantavira 10:00, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, I think I managed to get Buddha in but only by editing the url to "simple.wikipedia" in the title bar. Any attempt to create a new article in Simple took me to the original article in "en.wikipedia". Hopefully someone will fix this soon.. What do you think? Am I on the right track with this Simplification? Shantavira 14:35, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hello all, thanks for the article on Buddhism and on Buddha. I will use them in the Tok-Pisin Wikipedia (for the moments, links to the Simple Wikipedia are not set, but I will update them soon). I hope the Simple will grow; one reason is that it could well help less-favored languages to find a basis for their Wikipedias.
For the moment I would like an article on Nelson Mandela. Count on you guys! Best --Milaiklainim 09:36, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Tier system on simplicity

From the User talk:Kevin Saff page:

"
As for the Simple Wikipedia, here is my comment:maybe a bit too long; I was thinking the other day about the Simple articles that maybe they could have two or three "levels". One very simple, dictionary like, definition (short but as explanatory as possible), one slightly more extended list of relevant points; and then details. All could be on the same page or on different pages. Well, those are only my comments as a non-native speaker of English. Anyway, thanks again! I hope for more cooperation between the Simple and the TP Wikipedias. --160.23.221.3 02:58, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)"

I think that is a good idea, just there might be trouble regulating it. However it might limit the direct copying from English. Any further comment?
SimonMayer 20:03, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I like the idea. I do think entire articles could be useful for translation. I also see that this could be just too much information. Some people might only make the full version. Others might only make the short form. I think it could work. It might also give an excuse for using top level headers. Kevin Saff 22:28, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hello all. I am the non-English-native user who suggested to have (more or less) three levels of simplicity/complexity (see above). It seems that you like the idea. My suggestion now is to work on a sample article or example article to try it, and refine it until we have a better idea how it could work. I would be glad to participate. --Milaiklainim 01:03, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
PS: I'd like an article on Mandela, could be this one, but it could also be a more commun thing than a biography.

OK, I think we should use Wikipedia:Simple talk/tier sample as our test page. I think we should write on something fairly standard and as we are all united by being human, we should write about Earth.
SimonMayer 01:28, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Three tiers sounds great -- -- -- -- Dar1435 09:57, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I do not think we need tiers of simplicity. It might help some people, but it might go against the purpose of the "Simple English" Wiki. This Wiki is for non-English-native people. It is not designed for people who are not too smart (but it might be useful for them). If the texts are kept basic, it should meet everyone's needs. 65.30.177.40 12:19, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Simplicity policy

Is there a proper simplicity policy at the moment?
Where do simple and complex meet?
SimonMayer 13:39, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hi everybody; you certainly had many debates about this subject. Nevertheless, I'd like to add my comment as a non-native English speaker about this point.

Sentence complexity. I tend to make rather long sentence when I write, but it is only because I am not very good at... simplifying. Nevertheless I understand written English when sentences are short. They are also easier to translate to another language (including in computer-assisted translation), and easier to understand for children. So my suggestion is to try have one phrase sentences rather than multiple-phrase sentences. Exemple: "Earth rotates so each part of it is in light during the day and dark at night" could be something like: "Earth spins. When one face of earth faces the sun, it receives light. That is day. The other side is dark. That is night". (see Wikipedia:Simple_talk/tier_sample)

Vocabulary. Maybe you could use the 800 some words dictionary of basic English as a guideline. Complex words could be occasionaly used, but with a clarification between brackets, Exemple: "Create your watchlist (a list of the pages you would like to follow)".

I read somewhere that some of you don't want to give such guidelines, but it seems to me that they can not be avoided. Nevertheless, they could be used only in order to symplify already written pages, in order to let people use their creativity when they right new articles, wirthout having to bother to much about simplicity criteria.

--Milaiklainim 10:54, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It's just we need to do something about complex articles that are just copied from en also there are ones that have just been written in complex English straight on here.
Some of these articles can be simplified quite easily, but there are others that are too long or far above our understanding. Do we then delete the article? Or do we do something else like placing a MediaWiki notice?
For example:

This page is not simple enough, you can help Wikipedia by simplifying it.

If we go down that route, should we also have a Wikipedia:Needs simplifying page?

SimonMayer 13:39, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

We already have Wikipedia:Cleanup for pages needing simplification. Sorry, but that's the only one of your questions I can answer right now. - Calmypal 21:59, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Standards for Simplicity

I personally think we need to use an established standard for "simple" English, such as Ogden's Basic English. Saying "simple" without specifying HOW simple is like saying in a recipe "Beat the mixture until it's ready" without saying how one can tell when the eggs are "ready". --Node

Very true, and that has been discussed a lot. There are problems with precise definitions though. Mainly the inconvienience stopping people contributing. Also, some subjects cannot be described using only Basic English, so less simple language has to be used - a tiered system has been discussed and seems popular, but involves writing more articles, so takes longer. -- Tango 15:32, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

On Insectivore I began with the easy things at the top. Harder things I put closer to the bottom. The more someone reads, the less simple the ideas are. Ideas that have a higer order of complexity are very close to the bottom. Cross references for further elaboration of the concepts in the text are located at the very end. In this way I hope that a reader may find themselves drawn further into the article if they are able, yet allow someone with lesser language skills to have an 'easy entrance' to the language. So in preference to the 'tier' idea, I have somewhat used a tier system within one article. I'd appreciate some feedback on this article if you have the time.Pedant 06:06, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Restricted Vocabulary

We don't seem to have an agreement on a restricted vocabulary. There appears to be a consensus that Basic English by itself is too limited. Also, the approximately 80,000 words understood by a native English adult speaker is too many. A great many of them overlap each other as unnecessary synonyms. I propose we use the Simple Wiktionary to attempt to come to a general agreement on the vocabulary. I suggest that the definitions use Basic English and pictures as much as possible. When there is agreement that a word is too complex, its listing should state this and propose an alternate word or phrase to use as a substitution. Any comments? Brian Merz 25 Jan 05.

• Vocabulary is not a problem. We should not use big words without a good reason, but most of our readers can always look up strange words in a dictionary. My wife often surprises me when I use a strange word; she says, "I understand." But she has trouble with difficult grammar. It is better to keep grammar simple than to use fewer words. Xiong 07:56, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• When I was learning serbo-croat I found the complete opposite. Difficult words made it very hard to read but new grammar was usually no problem. I think sometimes an article needs a difficult word and that's okay as long as it is explained and reapeated. I supect many people will use these pages to learn so the odd difficult word is good so long as it is given a context so people can guess what is meant. Dejvid 7 July 2005 10:12 (UTC)

Just for interest

As mentioned on my user page --(talk to)BozMo 10:48, 17 May 2004 (UTC) I (along with some mates) have put up a locked text only copy 1 May of the Simple pedia here along with a locked main en. They are really just there for people to compare with the evolving versions and I intend to add a copy every month or so. Without them the only way I could find to compare progress is via the page history which was a bit laborious. However am in discussion with Angela about possible non-compliance with licence which needs to be fixed. --BozMo Talk10:48, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Update 30 July. The Simple WikiPedia 1 May 04 has been joined by Simple WikiPedia 24 July 04. There are also several copies of en English WikiPedia 24 April 04 24 July 04 and following a request at Le Bistro a French static copy is being added shortly. Couple of minor bugs still being fixed. --BozMo|talk 12:37, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

A French WikiPedia to follow shortly following a request on Le Bistro. Done here --BozMo Talk 11:56, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Forced lowercase

Now resolved. See Wikipedia:Bug reports

Length of articles

As of the 22nd May, this wikipedia is the 34th biggest by official article count, however we are 65th in bytes/article. We seem to have got into a habit of writing stubs, and not expanding them. Does anyone else see this as a problem? -- Tango 13:02, 29 May 2004 (UTC)

Maybe, but I don't think it's a huge problem. I believe it's fairly common for Wikipedias to start this way. The early stages focusing on article generation, and as they get larger, focusing more on improving existing ones. Angela 03:44, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Stubs used to bother me too. But I start to like them, after I myself start to make them out of necessity...or laziness. Not sure which. --Menchi (Talk). 04:25, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I make stubs just before bed time. Often they are articles the next time I see them. I think some people make stubs to find out more information. Stubs do not bother me at all if they are good stubs. Stubs are ideas for articles. Stubs are asking for more information. Stubs can hold a place that a bigger article can go in. You can link to a stub. Linking to a stub creates a structure for information. When you link to a stub, you are pointing at it. Some people may follow the link because they want to see what you are pointing at. When they find that it is a stub, that is a chance to add something. If it is a very good stub it will be liked to by many other articles and many people will see the stub. Many people cannot help adding some information to any stub that they find. I like good stubs. They are easier to fix than a long bad article that says things that are not true.Pedant 06:49, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Stubs are good. Xiong 07:26, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

British vs American English

Do we have a policy on which spellings, etc., to use? I would expect that most people learn British English, so we should stick to that. Comments welcome. -- Tango 17:13, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Spelling and its talk page. I think allowing both leads to less arguments. It's not easy for AE writers to switch to writing in BE, and I don't think we benefit from trying to force them to do so. Angela 19:59, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Agreed, but perhaps there should be some really unintrusive small template (maybe a little odd-colored superscript US or UK or whatever?) so that we're not leaving new English speakers in confusion? - PhilipR 15:47, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Length of Articles

This is my first time on this wiki. I have read the Useful pages and how to edit. I also read the earlier questions here. But I'm still confused about how long or complex articles should be. For example, the "Dog" article in En: wiki is very long; the Dog article here is very short. Is that on purpose? Or is it simply that no one has expanded the one here? It might help transplanted wikipedians like me to have a Good Example of one or two En: articles that you think are well done here. Elf 19:18, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I don't think there needs to be a limited length. An article can be simple but still long. Readability analyses take into account the number of words per sentence, rather than the number of sentences. I expect that one reason pages are still short here is just because we're still a small Wikipedia. It takes a while before people start focusing more on expanding existing articles rather than writing new ones. Angela 23:50, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Guanabot

I will be running the Interwiki bot as User:Guanabot to update and fix interwiki links. Until I get approval to run it here, it will be highly supervised and run without a bot flag. If there are any problems, contact me at wikipedian at gmail dot com. Guanaco 00:54, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It now seems to be problem-free, so I have requested bot status on meta:Requests_for_permissions. Guanabot 23:35, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Article of the week/Main WP editors

How about a system like that at English WP:Article of the week, where a topic is nominated to be a 'focus' for the week. The only problem is that there doesn't seem to be enough editors working here often enough. I think there could be a real push to get English editors to work on Simple. Maybe a campaign to get people who create a new article at the main WP to also create a matching Simple article here? Even if they don't become regulars here, they will have added at least one page. Considering that anyone at the main English WP has the potential to be able to write at the Simple WP, there could be a strong collaboration set up between the two. Instead of Simple being seen as "just another language I don't understand". Prehaps simply getting a prominent list of needed Simple articles at the main WP (Community Portal) could kick start the effort. I need to think through some ideas more closely first, but I wanted to see if anyone else has similar proposals. TPK 06:29, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've taken this to the Main WP Village Pump for more exposure. TPK 07:31, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

• While we don't have an article of the week (maybe every other week or something?), people should have a look at Wikipedia:Peer review (also since nobody's really there anyways).

Templates

How can I see a list of all the currently available boilerplate messages in Simple? Is there a way to spit out a list of Template:'s? en has a nice (manually maintained) listing, but I'm grasping at straws for what's available here. Thanks! Ocon | Talk 02:46, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

If you're looking for a certain template, you can do a search in the Template space. Other than that, there doesn't seem to be a way to get an automatic list of every template. There'll need to be a manual list created sometime; how? I don't exactly know. I doubt there are a huge number of templates at Simple, anyway. TPK 05:49, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

There is no automatic list. To create a manual one, you'd need to download the database and run a query on that. Angela 23:17, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Ah. Thanks Angela. Guess it's time to brush off my SQL skills. :-). Ocon | Talk 04:21, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Image transfers

Is there a quick and clever way to move images along with their descriptions from en over to simple? We're going to end up using many of them, and it gets old saving a copy to disk, uploading it, and adding the description. Quick fix, anyone? Ocon | Talk 05:13, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Unfortunately, as far as I know, there is no such quick way... There should be, though. Kokiri 07:03, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

There's no easy way yet. Once the Wikimedia Commons is up there will be though. Until then, you need to download the image to your computer and re-upload it on this Wikipedia. Angela 23:17, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Message copied from "contact us" page

This was left on the contact us discussion page on simple. Is there a standard text for explaining what we are about? --BozMo|talk 14:24, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC): ---

 I am a brazilian Psychologist.
I need urgently neuropsychology tests.
Do you have some of them free ?
Thanks for now.

Alvaro Labuto Filho labuto@uol.com.br labuto@brturbo.com.br

---

---

I'm Mariusz Marcel Ernst I'm living in Warsaw Poland, Tukana str. 7 code : 02-843 tel. (+4822)644-15-57 mariusz_ernst@o2.pl Yo, get by it.

---

Link to English on main page

There is still no normal link to regular English on the main page. I don't know how to edit those boxes or I'd do it myself; the lniks at the top and at the bottom don't have it, and someone has just put an informal link in the middle of the page. There *is* a link to "Simple English" !Saintswithin

• Fixed. Thanks for pointing it out. -- Netoholic @ 05:14, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia Image

It would be nice to have a different image from the regular Wikipedia image at the top left of the page; as both are in English it's hard to see which one you are now on when switching between the two. Saintswithin 20:03, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree. Unfortunately, there are few options to make the logo significantly diffrent from English. I have proposed changing the wording slightly ("Translating" it to Simple English). Here are my ideas:

• Wikipedia - The Free Book of Knowledge
• Wikipedia - The Free Knowledge Book

Any thoughts or other ideas for a logo? -- Netoholic @ 06:56, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Why not just have "simple" written across it? To be honest, I think "book of knowledge" is much harder to understand for adult non-natives than "encyclopaedia", but that's another matter! Is there any discussion on that anywhere? Saintswithin 05:51, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

So assuming we keep "encyclopedia"... how can we make the logo distinct from En? Should we instead do something with the site layout or style or backgroung? -- Netoholic @ 08:30, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Book of Knowledge / Encyclopaedia

As there seems to be no separate page for discussing language questions only, here's how I see the problem of using "book of knowledge" and not "encyclop(a)edia".

• a book of knowledge could be anything, a religious text, for example, but "encyclopaedia" is only one thing. Children's encyclopaedias are called "books of knowledge" in English, but how should learners of English know that?
• if you use a dictionary, you can find exactly what "encyclopaedia" is in your language, but with "book of knowledge", you are not sure. It's like a crossword puzzle but without the crossword grid.
• "know" is a difficult verb which often translates as two verbs in other languages (know a fact / know a person).
• "Knowledge" also sounds very different in other languages, but "encyclopaedia" sounds nearly the same. Compare:

knowledge - French: connaissance, savoir; German: Wissen, kennen; Croatian: znanje, spoznaja, vijest; Icelandic: vitneskja, þekking, kunnátta, vitund, viska; Czech: vŘdomosti, znalosti, vŘdenˇ, erudice, věda, vědění, vědomí, vědomosti, vzdělání, znalost, zpráva; Filipino: kaalaman, nalalaman, karunungan

encyclopedia - French: encyclopedie; German Enzyklopädie; Croatian: enciklopedija; Icelandic:encyclopedia; Czech:encyklopedie; Filipino:ensiklopedya

What do other people think? Should we use only words from "simple" wordlists? Do other people also find that harder to understand sometimes? Saintswithin 07:25, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I correct myself: encyclopedia is on a simple word list, too: Ogden's Basic English International Word List Saintswithin 07:31, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The reason I posted this was really to answer the question... "do we try to always use the simplest word lists possible?". I took some time looking at the various encyclopedia entries on the various wikis, and I agree that the translation should not be a problem. This is further supported by Ogden where the Basic English international wordlist is described as "words that are assumed to be known". -- Netoholic @ 08:30, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Logo

File:Wiki-simple-logo.png

Suggestion A

File:Wiki-simple-logo2.png

Suggestion B

File:Wiki-simple-logo3.png

Suggestion C

File:Wiki-simple-logo4.png

Suggestion D

File:Wiki-simple-logo5.png

Suggestion E

I found just now this wiki has no logo (see the left-top). IIRC it is only enough update a image as wiki.png ... how about sharing English Wikipedia logo or we had better to remark Simple for our logo? --Aphaia 16:57, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

How about these? Saintswithin 21:18, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I like suggestion B best. Using "Simple English" makes more sense than just "Simple". Angela 22:43, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Here's another couple. Did someone change the captions on the others? They now appear in reverse order to me. I prefer the one which is now A, as the others look quite cluttered. Saintswithin 11:05, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I like E (Wiki-simple-logo5.png) of these. -- Netoholic @ 15:43, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

E is good too. I have no preference between that and B. Angela 17:16, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I support B and E. I prefer E but I am afraid the logo letters are too small to easily to read.--Aphaia 01:30, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The writing ("Wikipedia" etc) on E is the same size as the original English one; I just tried making the globe smaller on those two. The italic writing on B is smaller. I'm quite happy with E except for there being so much writing; the original is much simpler than the Simple version! Saintswithin 12:50, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:) Oops I meant "I prefer B"; but wiht smaller letters Free Encyclopedia E goes well.

I like E myself. Mindspillage 14:49, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It seems E is the favourite. How could we change the logo to E? Or does someone have a good reason not to? Saintswithin 10:29, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Can you resize it to fit 135x155, like the current image? It doesn't thumbnail automatically like other images do. -- Netoholic @ 15:06, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've now uploaded it as Simple-wiki-logo-thumb-2.png - 135 x 165 px Saintswithin 19:30, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, looks like it must be no taller than 155px. Also, the background should be transparent, not white. -- Netoholic @ 01:28, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This is a GIF, hope that's OK - Simple-wiki-logo-thumb3.gif Saintswithin 10:33, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

GIF won't work, it has to be PNG. -- Netoholic @ 15:49, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've heard this before, but not seen why 'gif won't work'?Pedant

Because it has to be uploaded as "wiki.png". -- Netoholic @ 23:41, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I can't create transparent .pngs with my usual software. I downloaded GIMP but haven't had the time to learn how to use it; it seems I'd have to do something weird with my fonts before I could even open a file with it. Could it be passed on to Nohat on [1]? Saintswithin 22:42, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I left a request at meta:Requests for logos, but if you want to try contacting Nohat, that would be good too. -- Netoholic @ 01:30, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Just grab a copy of gif2png from http://www.r1ch.net/stuff/gif2png/gif2png.zip drop gif file on gif2png.exe and see png file appear ;) en:user:plugwash

I see no use in continuing to indent, so I'll just comment here. It seems that none of these has been implemented, or that perhaps another was chosen. I like A, because it is consistent with all of the other Wikipedias. For instance, the text is in the same place, and it says thesame thing. No other language Wikipedias have Free (Language) Encyclopedia because it is evident by what language it is written in, making the English part unnecessary. Also, the text on B is too small. My only question is would it be free simple or simple free. I guess it depends what type of Wikipedia it is. --User:Moogle 1:10pm 2-25-05 (MST)

---

--208.187.180.214 20:10, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• We've pretty much settled on "E" (just that noone's been available to create a good-quality final logo). Also, there is a strong desire that the logo look different enough from the main English Wikipedia, so that the two sites are not easily confused. -- Netoholic @ 15:37, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Creating new pages

On English wikipedia you can create new pages by searching for them - if the page doesn't exist there's a link saying "create an article with this title". That isn't possible on Simple - you can only create a new page by making a link to it on another page. Could that be changed? Saintswithin 15:17, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Done. It only works on when you use "go", not "search", but this seems to be the case for the English Wikipedia too. Angela 17:16, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Excellent. Could we also simplify the text a little? I think "put up a request" is a bit hard. Saintswithin 13:06, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I took a shot at simplifying it. Now reads "You can create an article with this title or ask for someone to write it. Please search Wikipedia with care before making a new page. There might already be a page about that subject, but with a different name or spelling." -- Netoholic @ 15:02, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oops when moving

Hi. I accidentally moved Wikipedia:Proposed deletions to Pages to delete. I meant to move it to Wikipedia:Pages to delete. I need help fixing this. Vacuum 02:23, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Looks to be fixed nowPedant 07:25, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

replacement for disambiguation

I've started a discussion about replacing the term "disambiguation" with something simpler. I'd welcome your comments on Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation. -- Netoholic @ 23:03, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

sandbox message

I think the sandbox message is unsimple. Content? Experiments? Formatting? Permanently? 24.101.81.135 10:28, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Idiom usage

I think the attempt to create a simple english version of wikipedia is excellent. Maybe using short sentences is valuable for someone who does not speak english well. Obviously it is very difficult for someone who speaks english natively to create text which is easily understood by someone who doesn't. However, I think there is one important aspect of language simplicity which has not been mentioned -- and that is the use of idioms. If text is created without using very many idioms, it will be much easier for readers to look up words in a dictionary and understand the english text.

Good Luck with this effort.

Dates

I noticed all the "Most Wanted pages" are dates. Does this reflect a view we ought to have a complete set of date pages here or is someone putting links on all the dates in the belief that we do? --BozMo|talk 14:14, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It is a self-updating daily reminder that if there are any significant anniverseries, that people can add them. We are missing approximately 90% of the days of the year at this point. -- Netoholic @ 17:39, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Not anymore. However, someone may wish to make all the day/month conventions redirect to the month/day convention. Besides, when is the Wanted pages going to be updated? Also, could someone change it so that it doesn't link directly to the edit page for each article? Currently, it shows up with a red link regardless of whether there's an article there. --Ricky81682 (talk) 10:33, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking of asking about the regeneration of the list also. As it is, finding needed articles that are interesting to oneself is a bit painful. Hmm, yeah, I hadn't noticed that the red links were a permanent artifact of the date when the generation process is run. That is, they aren't real links. Shenme 19:01, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

SQL Dump - indecipherable data?

The SQL dump from http://download.wikimedia.org/archives/simple/ (20050209_old_table.sql.bz2) seems to have a lot of indecipherable/junk data under the old_text attribute of the schema, of course after decompressing and running the sql script. Has anyone come across this?

At first, I thought the .bz2 file could have been corrupted during donwload. But thats not the case since I've downloaded the same file more than once with no luck. Is the source file itself corrupted or am I the only one facing this problem? Any thoughts??

-- svarada

Spelling, U.S. vs. UK, Basic English

I'm having an argument concerning the Basic English Word List. Please have a look: [2] Since the list is of British origin I think it would be fair to include both U.S. and U.K. spellings (there are only a few words with variants). U.S. and U.K. spellings are both acceptable on Wikipedia. Is there any policy/guideline concerning this matter? 202.32.3.147 08:01, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This is coverd at Wikipedia talk:Spelling. In general, we tolerate both spelling variations, except with regards to the word on our internal word lists (like Basic English). The word lists should only be changed if there is supporting documentation showing both variations are allowed. -- Netoholic @ 19:04, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

FWIW I added some templates that I think might be of use in tagging US or UK variants: United States and United Kingdom. My idea is, a link could be placed there that would lead to a fuller explanation. Let me know what you think. - PhilipR 21:03, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Other languages "simple"?

Are there any plans to make "simple" versions of other Wikis? Like French? *hint hint*

---

Wikimedia Quarto

Would anyone mind simplifying the English text on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WQ/2/Covers for the WQ cover. -- user:zanimum

Simple Talk

This is "Simple Talk". Here, we talk about Simple English Wikipedia. This is a wiki, too, just like Wikipedia. So, anybody can edit it. To edit well, we must talk about editing. Should we use many big and strange words here? Should we use long, difficult sentences? I don't think so.

Is Simple a gift to people who have some trouble with Standard English? Or does Simple belong to us all? Maybe people who read and write Standard English well have trouble writing Simple English. Maybe people who have trouble with Standard English can write Simple English well.

My wife is Chinese. She has a lot of trouble with Standard English. She might like to read this Simple English Wikipedia. It might help her in many ways. She might like to write something, too. If she joins the community, she will want to join in the talk, too. But she will not understand the talk on this Simple Talk page.

Let's keep our talk simple. Xiong 07:58, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This is not a joke. Xiong 13:09, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

We don't use big words here. If we do, I invite you to replace them with small words. -- user:zanimum

You are correct, Xiong. But sometimes it's hard for us who speak English to talk ABOUT Wikipedia (new ideas, suggestions) without using difficult words. Sometimes we forget.  :) So please remind us if we forget, and don't be afraid to ask for a clearer explanation. - PhilipR 16:04, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

List of other languages?

Looking at the list of languages (at the bottom of the main page), I notice that certain languages in the first section (largest wikipedias) such as Spanish and Italian are in the second section of the English Wikipedia's list. Is there a different criteria for the Simple list (not based on number of articles)? Marknew 10:43, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikimedia Collaboration

The Wikimedia Collaboration of the Week is an attempt to get the Wikimedia community to join forces in tackling problems that affect all our projects. The current COTW is to create a standard multilingual manual for the MediaWiki software. The help pages should be linked from Help:Contents on Meta, our Wikimedia-wide coordination wiki. If you would like to improve the help pages in Simple English, please see the instructions for this COTW. Angela 20:03, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

suggestions from catalan wikipedia

Hello, I m catalan speaker, i just discovered this simple wikipedia. I had seen it many times before as links but i couldnt understand its purpose until i got here. A wikipedia for non-native english speakers is a great idea. But i think I another one: as many people use (or might use) this wiki to learn, why not have a correction section? Non native will be able to collaborate and then good speakers will correct artcicles. This would have three benefits; 1) it will make simple wikipedia grow 2) it will animate contributors from many parts of the world, so artciles would not be as englishcentric as they are now; it would be the wikipedia of the world, in the most spoken language of the world 3) it will help people to learn

Ah, catalan wikipedia is http://ca.wikipedia.org. We are trying to make it bigger. We could use a lot of simple articles!

Good idea! I really like your suggestions, especially that Wikipedia needs to be less Anglocentric (focused on English-speaking countries). How would a "correction section" be different from regular Simple English articles? Or to think about it a different way, would you feel comfortable adding new content to, let's say, the article on Catalonia? (It looks like you could really help there!) If not, what could we do to help you feel more comfortable? Cheers, PhilipR 17:45, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Audio template

Hi, I am making audio recordings of the pronunciation of words. Example; Media:Nl-be guy verhofstadt.ogg To include this in a good way in your wiki I need to know what your audio template is and how it works. When I know it i, and many others, can put it directly inside articles on your wikipedia.

Can some one please put your audio template on this page;

• commons:List of the different audio-templates for the Wikipedias

Greetings, nl:gebruiker:Walter

I don't get the point of this encyclopedia

Are you trying to make a Newspeak encyclopedia?

That would be doubleplusgood, eh? Postdlf 08:09, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages and links

Regarding the use of Disambiguation pages and listings in articles, I've found that alot of people are putting links to confused terms in the 'See Also' sections, rather than the standard Wikipedia style of at the top in italics which I think most find alot easier to use as you can see right away if you are on the wrong page. Also, is there a word or phrase being used instead of 'Disambiguation'? As its hardly simple. - Nidonocu 04:48, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation... we're open to suggestions as to a better phrase to use. -- Netoholic @ 16:21, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Article Review

Hello. I was wondering if anybody can look at the articles that I have made to see if they are simple enough. They are Silvio Berlusconi, while I have added more things to Belarus, President of Russia and Kofi Annan. Zscout370 (my talk) 18:56, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Are usage explanations part of definitions?

I was noticing in the entry for temperature that the number systems were defined, but that the simplest usages of those numbers weren't mentioned.

Something as simple as we use smaller numbers for temperatures that are colder, and larger numbers for hotter temperatures. When the temperature is really cold we might use a negative number. When it is getting colder outside we say the temperature is going down. We might say the temperature will be high tomorrow if it is going to be hot.

What are the criteria for leaving out useful information? When do we go beyond definitions to teaching English usage? (Or would that be "the usage of English speakers"?) Shenme 05:40, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

How does one correct page names (titles)?

Example is Nancy ajram, where in the article the name is correctly capitalized as "Nancy Ajram". How can you "get to" the page name to update it?

You can't (but a sysop can delete it). But what you can do is to redirect/move the page to the correct name. Aurora

Thanks, I fixed that one and 'Leaopard' also. Shenme 03:53, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Stewards election

Hello,

The stewards election has started on m:Stewards/elections 2005. Anyone can vote provided that he has a valid account on meta with a link to at least one user page, on a project where the editor is a participant, with at least 3 months participation to the project. Stewards can give sysop right on projects where there are no local bureaucrate. Please vote ! Yann 14:40, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Little questions from Shenme

Redirects from misspellings

User:Netoholic reviewed some of my {{delete}} of moved/corrected page titles, and kept the original misspelled pages.

Is it really 'cheap' enough to keep the misspelled pages as redirects? If so, cool. (I'll be leaving them as-is now until I learn differently.)

• It's pretty cheap to keep redirects that reasonably could help with typos. Of course, don't go creating them yourself :). -- Netoholic @ 04:00, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Links within common headings in very common date pages

Fixing a typo within 1933 that had heading Films Released I began to wonder whether the Film should be converted to a link [[Movie|Films]]. The idea is that, as this 'is' the Simple wiki, perhaps even simple terms should always be linked. But I do see that both film and movie are in the Wikipedia:VOA Special English Word Book word list.

Should common terms like Film and Song in these common headings be left well enough alone?

• In my opinion, we should name our pages exactly like they do on the full English Wikipedia. Definitely craft links as necessary so that the visible word is the most simple, but avoid over-linking. Also, avoid linking words in headings. -- Netoholic @ 04:00, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

New pages with little or no content

I find new pages that no content or as little content as 'hi'. Examples are (20 May 2005) Poland and Boavista.

Should I enter {{delete}} or {{pdel}}? If so, what explanation to mention?

What amount of content constitutes a 'stub' that should be left to grow? That is, what is good enough as a 'placemarker'?

• Use {delete} for obvious candidates for speedy deletion. Use {pdel} for articles which you believe do not belong here. Always check the page history before adding a tag, in the Poland example, it was vandalised, then blanked. Reverting to the last known good version is the best option and then report vandalism to an admin. -- Netoholic @ 04:00, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Is every little typO/spellink/glitch worth fixing?

I find a page that begins "An Amount of ..."

Is making an edit to lowercase the second word "worth it" to the Wiki?

• Usually, I try and make multiple improvements in one edit. Add some more informatiom, an appropriate category, an interwiki link, along with your typo fixes. -- Netoholic @ 04:00, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Year categories

There are three categories (Category:Years, Category:Births by year and Category:Deaths by year) that I think will soon become a giant mess if we don't start to organize them. Would anyone have any objections if I split them into centuries and decades like at English? --Ricky81682 (talk) 05:20, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

No objections from me. Zscout370 (my talk) 01:49, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

I say go ahead. Aurora 03:58, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

If anyone interested, at Wikipedia talk:Days and years, we're discussing the format of the year pages (maybe try to make some consistency across the board for them?). I would love to hear any other opinions. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:18, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's a massive work in progress, but well, if anyone here reads this, can users please put years articles, birth and death categories either into the proper place or just simply into the main categories? I'm tired of having to hunt and look around for articles that people have created all over the place without any link to anything else. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 18:25, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Actual structure of the wiki

Actually, this is more of a general question in regards to the structure and purpose of this wiki. Is this wiki simply going to consist of the same organizational structure as the English one, but with parallel articles that are simplier in language? Or is this going to form its own structure (one that's also simplier) in terms of templates, categories, articles, etc. If the latter, we need to stop creating massive page dumps like 2004. One of the problems with these kinds of pages (beyond the obvious problem of simplification) is that it forces this wiki into a structure (especially since people also copy the category links over) exactly like the English one. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:34, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Simple: should be "independent" from en:. The target audience are English learners. We don't want to discourage them with complex structures, pages full with information etc. If they want more info, they could go to en:, or their own language Wikipedia (if there's one). Pages should be created from scratch, not dumped from en:. It's easier for people to add info rather than simplying a complicated article. Further, the articles must be "global", and not anglocentric as en: tends to do. My two cents. Aurora 04:00, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Some of the structure, such as the year categories, are so common among all the other Wikipedias that we should follow that approach. Moreover, I suggest that wherever possible we should have our page names match those at the full English Wikipedia. Presumably, any discussions about appropriate names have been handled there,and it makes linking to and from here more intuitive. Obviously, this means that for complex terms, we need to use piped links creatively, by hiding the complex page title behind simpler discriptive words in the article text. -- Netoholic @ 17:07, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Information on this encyclopedia

Is there any information on when this encyclopedia was made and general facts? Thorpe 20:02, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, Special:Statistics has notes on curent information. The Wikipedia article mentions that Simple was started on September 18 2001. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:26, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Images seen and not seen

Please look at article Chinese dragon and then look at the source (edit page). I can make one image show up that definitely comes from the media commons (I searched there to find it). But two other images found on the English wikipedia article for Chinese dragons and elsewhere don't seem to work.

Any ideas why? Are these other images actually stored inside English Wikipedia and can't been referenced from here? Shenme 04:35, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

that's right. You could just download them from English wiki and upload them back onto this wiki, but I think that's frowned upon as we are now supposed to be switching to using the Commons images. Saintswithin 10:16, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't do that. I'm not sure about all the copyright implications but I'm pretty such that it depends on which how the images are tagged in the English wiki. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 16:48, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Agree, ideally, since Simple: is a gateway between multiple wikis, we should use Commons extensively (I myself prefer exclusively). -- Netoholic @ 17:01, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Speaking of which, what do we do with images people have uploaded here? Do we need to start having them tagged? If so, is there a page that we can point to, or does it need to be created? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:46, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

From Wikipedia, ...

Discussion related to the tagline message ("From Wikipedia...") appearing at the top of each page has been moved to MediaWiki talk:Tagline. Please comment and reply there.

Grammar / usage reminders

I realize that I won't make any friends by appointing myself grammar cop policeman, so please understand the following as not directed at any individual(s). Also because we're all human and make the occasional typo or slip-up, this point is directed at myself as much as anyone else.

Because this Wikipedia is so useful for English-learners, we all need to make sure we follow standard English (regardless of the regional variant) to set a good model. There are two classes of error (or non-standard form) that seem to recur by my observation:

• Misuse of it's as the possessive of it
• Run-on/Comma splice, where two complete sentences are joined by a comma.

I'm sure there are others I haven't noticed, so feel free to edit and add to this list. Granted, both of these show up commonly in informal written English by native speakers. I actually believe that the use of "it's" will become standard in a couple more decades (much as "If I was..." for the past subjunctive is considered by many to be standard) because so few people observe the present standard. But AFAICT as a refence work an encyclopedia should use present-day standard written English, not advocate its change. Comments?

Thanks, PhilipR 16:55, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I worry about one part of this: commas and run-on sentences. My wife is a professor of English, and so I am now more careful in how I say things to her and others. :) But here we have a problem of not only the need to write correct English, but also needing to write English that can be understood.

I have written many sentences here, where I have used commas 'wrongly'. I have used commas where some people would pause (stop for a little time) in speaking. Often this is done so that a non-native English speaker can "catch up" with what has been said up to now. Many English sentences can be long (like in German), and it is hard for learners to hear (or read) all the ideas in even one sentence.

Instead of trying to write sentences that can be 'models' of perfect (or even good) English, I try to write simple English sentences that can be more easily read.

But this can be seen as wrong in two different ways.

First, a person can learn the wrong English! The language you might hear spoken is not always "correct English". And many people assume that anything written is (or should be) more correct than spoken. So some people might say you should never write bad English, as it is possible a learner might copy the bad English, thinking that it is correct!

Second, the best simple English is written as 'correct' English, without being too hard to read. But that is very hard to write! So the person writing incorrect English, using commas and run-on sentences, is being lazy?

We want to write the best Simple English. But writing Simple English takes learning and practice, just as reading any kind of English takes learning and practice. I guess that until I can write the best kind, I will contribute what I can, trying to improve, and watch as people change what I have written to be even better.

Shenme 01:19, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and my "pet peeves" are the mis-use of "your", "you're", and "you". Sometimes I send emails to web page writers saying "You're going to be embarrassed when you reread your writing.", and wonder if they understand what I mean. The other problem I see often is people dropping the 'r' from 'your', as in "I hit you car!". I have even seen people then start dropping the "'re" from "you're", as in "You going to be mad!" (as guess because they sound the same - once you have started doing the wrong thing for one case you can then start doing it wrong in both cases). Shenme 01:19, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Admin list

Why can't I request to be an admin? The page seems to be gone. (Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship)

Go to Wikipedia:Administrators. I created a redirect just in case somebody else follows you. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 16:34, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

OK, cheers. Thorpe 18:06, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Chobot

I want to get a permission to run a bot in the simple english wikipedia. I plan to connect interlanguage links between simple&ko wikipedias. I hope it will be helpful. -- ChongDae 14:01, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Bots. One of the requirements for running a bot is to be a good, active contributor first. You're free to run the bot without a flag, so long as you don't do anything massive and don't run faster than about 2 edits per minute. List your bot on that page, though. -- Netoholic @ 04:58, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

FWIW, having interwiki links to any other language (in this case, Korean) is probably a very Good Thing, because it could potentially draw English learners from their native WP to SE. Looks like it ran successfully and unobtrusively, so huzzah for Chobot. - PhilipR 13:18, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have blocked this bot for not doing as was described, and for flooding recent changes. ChongDae said he was only adding iw links to ko: from simple, but the bot was actually adding iw links to all articles and links to multiple wikipedias. See Special:Contributions/Chobot. Too aggressive. -- Netoholic @ 17:10, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for changing my policy without any announcement. It takes same time adding only ko links and adding "all" interwiki links. I'm using pywikipedia, which is used by most of wikibot operators. Could you permit to change the interwiki links in simple by Chobot? -- ChongDae 09:37, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Bots#Chobot for more discussion -- ChongDae 14:12, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

translations

How can I read an english article in its translated version?

unsigned post by User:80.105.151.113. I've added note for more information on his talk page. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 4 July 2005 03:00 (UTC)

Why couldn't there be a simplified version of other languages? This way people learning those languages will be able to read them more easily. unsigned post by User:Bookworm512 -- Ricky81682 (talk)

I think it would be a really good thing for there to be more simple wikipedias. But I think there is a reason why Simple English was created, and other simple wikipedias have not been created.

Some people have a lot of pride in their native language, and want people to learn it. For example, I am surprised there is no "Simple French" wikipedia. Other people want their language to still be used, and want to help their children learn the language even when they live in another country. These are good reasons to help people learning, but aren't good enough, it seems.

I think the reason that Simple English was created and should improve is because a lot of people must learn English. Not 'must' as though a person says it is the best language forever. But only that in the world today, English is used in more places than many other languages. Today, if you want to talk to someone from some other place in the world, it is very possible that the only language that both of you might know would be English. (At one time French was the language 'everyone' would know, and before that Spanish, which is why I say 'today')

I wish there was a Simple Mandarin wikipedia, and a Simple German wikipedia. But many people want and need a Simple English wikipedia. English is not easy. It is an accident that English is used in so many places today. But since it is so widespread, people need to learn English. We can help them here. Shenme 8 July 2005 04:13 (UTC)

I agree, shenme. I m not English, I speak catalan. But I think one reason to creat this wikipedia is to be used by other wikipedias to create their own articles (the famous list of 1000 basic articles). Lots of people don't know the existence of this wikipedia, so they go to English one. Advertise you in "Talks" of other wikis, it will be easy for you and useful for everyone.

unsigned post by User:62.175.92.118 -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:28, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Category:Stub

Right now, there is a Category:Stub set up for stubs but no articles in it. The template, Template:Stub does not automatically add the category. I think this is preferable. However, is Category:Stub really the best category? Following the English Wikipedia style would be Category:Stubs en:Category:Stubs. DoubleBlue (Talk) 05:21, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

With the new ability of Whatlinkshere to view all the links, a category doesn't seem needed. The best approach is to find the stubs and fix them. -- Netoholic @ 05:45, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't find this a very easy way to find stubs that I can expand. DoubleBlue (Talk) 19:45, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

So don't... just find some subject you are have knowledge in, and improve those articles. Unlike en: Wikipedia, I think we need to focus on article improvement rather than sorting into categories. That's just re-binning the work for someone else to do, and Simple: has precious few editors. -- Netoholic @ 19:59, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

First of all, I think that it should be Category:Stubs to be accurate. Secondly, while I agree with Netoholic, let's be realistic. We have way too writers who are creating stubs all over the place. It's just the nature of a wiki. We won't tend to have a number of large articles for a while, I believe. It's not too much work to move them into a category, which will also give us some kind of count of stubs. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 18:22, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I still think the Category:Stubs is a good idea. I don't think we should get into the mess of stub sub-categories that en: has though. I think a far better and easier solution will be found by combining a Category:Stubs with the DynamicPageList technology that Wikinews uses. DoubleBlue (Talk) 00:34, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and organising work to do does not necessarily mean not doing the work. DoubleBlue (Talk) 00:37, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I'd also like to point out that someone has already created and is starting to use Category:Computer and video game stubs, which belongs as a subcat of a stubs cat instead of just out there. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:01, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Preventing future Main Page vandalism

Since the Main Page doesn't actually incorporate any images, it may be helpful to modify this website's stylesheet to prevent vandals from adding inappropriate images to that page, as Roberto recently did, for example. This can be done simply by hiding all images on the Main Page. The following steps require the use of administrative rights:

1. Create a rule in MediaWiki:Monobook.css that goes somewhere along the lines of:

   div.hide-all-img img {display: none !important}

2. At the beginning of Main Page, add the following code:

   <div class="hide-all-img">

3. And at the end, add the following code:

   </div>

Obviously, this method isn't foolproof; those using Netscape Communicator or any skin other than MonoBook, as well as users with CSS disabled aren't protected, and no one is protected against inappropriate ASCII art. :^) We use a weaker variation on this at the Vietnamese Wikipedia, where the main page does include several images. It's always possible to obfuscate (bury) the image-hiding code, so that vandals have a hard time figuring out why their special contributions don't show up.

 – Minh Nguyễn (talk, blog) 06:39, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

"Humid"

Can anybody come up with a simple word for "humid"? I settled on "wet", but that doesn't really mean the same thing. This is in my Bahrain article. RickK 22:57, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

On Using Public Domain materials - Suggestions

Hello. I would like to hear other parson's opinions here though I posted the same to a page of User:Netoholic.

A point is that; I strongly disagree to deletion of

06:02, 23 July 2005 Netoholic deleted "Sam Cooke" (pure copyvio from http://www.manythings.org/voa/03/030126pa_t.htm)

Who owns contents of http://www.manythings.org/ legally? You should see "Terms of Use & Privacy Notice" from a formal VOA website as saying: You are welcome to use any material that is published by voanews.com. All text, audio and video material produced exclusively by the Voice of America is public domain.

I am afraid that we are NOT allowed to reuse any part of public domain materials. -- Green 08:10, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

How do you come up with the idea that we can't use public domain materials? BTW, the bottom of the manythings main page says, "Copyright (C) 1997-2005 by Charles I. Kelly and Lawrence E. Kelly. All Rights Reserved. Copying and uploading material from this web site to another web site or intranet is prohibited.", so they clearly don't allow copying. Is Voice of America a US government agency, or a semi-private entity? If US government, then they are clearly useable. If a semi-private entity, then their statement that all of their material is public domain gives us free right to it. RickK 23:53, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

How do you come up with the idea that the materials in question have come from ""the Manythings" website? Thank for very much for informing me there is a website which reuses materials of Voice of America .

You are one of administrater of this Wikipedia. Then, you should know that works done by US Federal Government can NOT be copyrighted as clarifing States Laws. In the meantime, I will report to Voice of America that her all materials are Copyrighted exclusively by ""the Manythings" website.

I think you should delete the Voice of America Word Book and also others retrieved from VOA website, as long as you defenf copryrights of the Manythings website in question. -- Green 00:26, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

YOU pointed to the manythings website above. I had never heard of it, until you mentioned it, and I went there and found that copyright. I have no idea what's going on with them or VOA. And I am not an admin on the simple Wikipedia. I am not DEFENDING anything having to do with manythings. You brought it up. RickK 17:37, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

BTW, you still haven't answered my question about why you think we can't use public domain material. RickK 17:38, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, RickK. To make it simple, I exlpans again. In the past I uploaded a public domain material here on Sam Cooke from http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/Archive/a-2003-01-24-3-1.cfm . But it was deleted later by an administrator as saying it was a clear violation of copyrights by Manythings.org. That was a whole story in short. --Green 01:12, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Please express your objection

There’s someone proposing a policy to close some minor, slow-growing, “hopeless” wikipedias on the wikimedia meta-wiki. (see [3]) This proposal is the enemy to the openness of the whole wikipedia community. I come here to inform you to express your opinion there. I think it's OK to use your own language on the talk page. Thank you. --Theodoranian05:43, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Making links to usage topics

I just came across another place where I had a big urge to make a word a link, but not to an 'obvious' definition or related word, but instead to a usage definition.

Type 1 or Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (IDDM) is caused by ...

If someone has been reading English a lot, they are familiar with a writer showing an abbreviation or acronym next to a long full name, and then using only that short word later in the article. But if someone is not familiar with this, they will wonder what that '(IDDM)' thing is! So I wanted to do this:

Type 1 or Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (IDDM) is caused by ...

I linked the word to a definition of how it was being used. The hope is that a confused person will see the definition of acronym, return to the article, look at 'IDDM' and discover that it really is an acronym of the four words before that. Of course, when they have seen this done once, they will know to look for this same 'acronym' thing again. But we are trying to help English learners, and that must include some stylistic or usage examples.

Is this an appropriate thing to do? When can it be done? Shenme 17:32, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

I'd suggest doing it like this

Type 1 or Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (acronym IDDM) is caused by ...

This prevents the confusion when someone clicks on the letters expecting more information on IDDM. -- Netoholic @ 19:20, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Nice solution! - PhilipR 22:45, 30 July 2005 (UTC)