Jump to content

Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 107

Add links
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tech news: 2013-27

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.

Recent software changes
(Not all changes will affect you.)
  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf9) was added to test wikis on June 27. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on July 8, and on all Wikipedias on July 11.
  • On Wikisource, the canonical names of the "Index" and "Page" namespaces in the Proofread Page extension are no longer localized (bug #47596). Please check scripts that depend on $wgCanonicalNamespace. [1]
  • A JavaScript problem caused the "View history" and "Add topic" tabs in the Vector skin to be moved into the drop-down menu on right-to-left wikis. The issue is now fixed and links are visible as before (bug #50196). [2]
  • There was a short site outage on June 28.
  • The automated Category:Pages with broken file links now includes broken file links inserted inside the <gallery /> tag (bug #50119). [3]
  • The Nearby feature is now enabled on Commons and shows images in a user's area. [4]
  • There is now a special page listing disambiguation pages for wikis that use the Disambiguator extension (bug #44040). [5]
  • The old version of the Article feedback tool (version 4) was removed from wikis that still used it. [6]
  • VisualEditor news:
    • Many bugs that caused text to be removed or damaged have been fixed, including one related to copy-paste (bug #49816).
    • VisualEditor now offers a visual interface to edit references.
    • In preparation for enabling the VisualEditor on a wider scale, new documentation has been created, including a list of frequently-asked questions and a user guide with many images. Please help with translations.
    • Several problems related to overlapping of elements with the VisualEditor toolbar have been fixed (bug #50096, #50159, #50324).
    • TemplateData information is now displayed for templates that are added to a page (bug #49778).
    • Section edit links now show links to both VisualEditor and the old (source) editor (bug #49666).
    • Images are now loaded securely when using HTTPS (bug #43015). [7]
Future software changes
  • VisualEditor will be enabled for all logged-in English Wikipedia users on July 1, and for all users on July 8.
  • From July 8, it will be possible to upload WAV and native FLAC files to Commons, and use them directly on wiki pages ([[<tvar|bug-49505>bugzilla:49505</>|bug #49505]]). [8]
  • The Universal Language Selector will be added to the English Wikipedia on July 2, and to remaining wikis on July 9. [9]
Erratum

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

14:31, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Deletion policy addition

Hi everyone, I want to add something to WP:DP, I want to add "It is also recommended that the Administrators look through the "View History" to see if the blanker has said something in the change summary. Some users say something in the change summary like "blanking, no deletion"". --Aaqib 16:29, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Don't need added bureaucracy. Administrators know what they are doing. If someone says don't delete in their edit summary an admin doesn't need to be told to not delete by a policy. -DJSasso (talk) 16:42, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple interwiki errors in an error; how to correct them?

In the article Parrot, all the interwiki links are wrong; they point to the family Psittacidae (true parrots) in other languages (except English that was recently added by someone) instead of to the order Psittaciformes (Parrot). I do not know how to change this mess. In the article True parrots, the interwiki links are right but they don't come from Wikidata becase there is a conflict with the article Parrot. What can be done? I do not have a clue. --Jmarcano (talk) 22:42, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I volunteer to help with this. I need to take a brief break (maybe 30 or 60 minutes), but I can be back after that. Do I understand correctly that "true parrot" is a subset of "parrot"? Is there an entry on Wikidata where all those wrong entries should be pointing? --Auntof6 (talk) 23:42, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I've taken a look at this. How about this:
Would that work? --Auntof6 (talk) 00:07, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the corrections; I think that everything is working. Sorry I didn't answer inmediately but I had to log out of Wikipedia for a day. --Jmarcano (talk) 20:31, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But I didn't do anything. It looks like Djsasso took care of it. I was actually trying to help you learn to do it, rather than do it for you, because we need more editors who understand that stuff. However, at least it's done now. --Auntof6 (talk) 15:33, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Universal Language Selector will be enabled on 2013-07-09

On July 9, 2013, Universal Language Selector (ULS) will be enabled on this wiki. The ULS provides a flexible way to configure and deliver language settings like interface language, fonts, and input methods (keyboard mappings). Making it available here is the last phase of making ULS available on all Wikimedia wikis.

Please read the announcement on Meta-Wiki for more information. Siebrand 12:55, 4 July 2013 (UTC) (via Global message delivery).[reply]

Infobox Play

I'm trying to create a Template:Infobox Play but I'm "stuck". Can someone help? Thanks! Oregonian2012 (talk) 23:16, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Is there anything specific you can't get working? I've run through the code and corrected a few things, so try whatever you wanted to do again and let me know if it's any better. Osiris (talk) 23:37, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
 (change conflict) There's already one on enwiki. Would you like me to import it for you? By the way, template names should be in lower case, just like articles, except for proper nouns. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:45, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's working beautifully! Thanks to both of you. I don't know what I was doing wrong. It's great to have experts on board! Oregonian2012 (talk) 02:23, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Tech news: 2013-28

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.

Recent software changes (Not all changes will affect you.)

  • VisualEditor news:
    • VisualEditor deployment has been delayed by a week. It is now planned to enable the editor for logged–in editors on chosen Wikipedias on July 22, and on all Wikipedias on July 29.
    • A bug that made it impossible to save VisualEditor edits that triggered a CAPTCHA has been fixed. [11]
    • Several bugs that occurred on right–to–left wikis have been fixed last week (bug #49416, bug #49613, bug #50543).
  • Uploading files has been restricted on Meta Wiki to administrators and the newly created uploader group. An exemption doctrine policy is being developed (bug #50287). [12]
  • Emergency priority CentralNotice banners will always be shown unless users have hidden them, ignoring cookies set for lower priority banners. [13]

Future software changes

  • MediaWiki will allow choosing a specific page of a PDF document or a thumbnail of a video file to show up inside the <gallery /> tag (bug #8480). [14]
  • It will now be possible to create empty MediaWiki: messages, for instance in order to disable them (bug #50124). [15]
  • The Nearby feature will soon be enabled on Wikivoyage wikis again. [16]
  • The Notifications extension messages will now include a direct link to diffs on wiki as well as in notification e-mails (bug #48183). [17]
  • Table of contents will now use the HTML <div /> element instead of <table />, fixing a nine–year–old bug #658. [18]
  • First mock–ups of a mobile Wikidata application have been published by Pragun Bhutani as part of his Google Summer of Code project. [19]
  • A discussion on minimum documentation practices in MediaWiki code has been started and awaits comments from the community.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:39, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Simple English spell checker

I've just been using this Simple English dictionary for Firefox. I like it a lot. (I wish it said "Simple English" instead of "English" in the spell checker dictionary list.) Do you think it would be useful to make a page that tells people how to use it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:11, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free. I just discovered how to get it to say ... well ... "English (simple)" instead of "English". You need to find the files, which are called en-x-simple.dic and en-x-simple.aff. Rename them to en-simple.dic and en-simple.aff. Then they will appear as "English (simple)". StevenJ81 (talk) 03:03, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe add a note on Wikipedia:Aids for Writing Simple English? BTW, this a Simple English dictionary extension is already mentioned in Wikipedia:An_English_Wikipedian's_guide#Simple_English. PiRSquared17 (talk) 04:52, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have to admit I am pretty surprised people still use it. When I tried it way back when it was created I found it just flagged nearly everything and so it didn't really help at all. -DJSasso (talk) 11:48, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Truthfully? For me, it works the other way: What it doesn't flag I don't have to worry about looking up. What it does flag ... then I can look up. StevenJ81 (talk) 19:06, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps it has gotten better since then. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:59, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I added it to Wikipedia:Aids for Writing Simple English. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:05, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A note was made on my talk page at Wikidata about the differences between simple:Lawyer and en:Lawyer with respects to d:Wikidata:Interwiki conflicts#Advocate/lawyer. Editors are in the process of swapping some of the interwiki links around to make them match up. Some are being moved to link with en:Jurist and en:Advocate. Our article Lawyer should obviously match whatever en:Lawyer is talking about. Is anyone here willing to try and make them a bit more sychronised in terms of scope and definition? Osiris (talk) 03:12, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't worry about my students

Hey,

I will have a small group of students online again in a couple of hours. They are real newbies. Please do correct errors. Please do leave messages on their Talk pages. Please do edit their work. But, please hold off on the QDs or blocks for at least a little while. They are:

Thanks, and I do appreciate everyone's patience. ELTted (talk) 03:48, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am wondering why the community should not QD articles created by newbies just because it was requested. These six new users are no different from the rest of the new users. If these users wish to create new articles, and you are expecting them to probably be QD'd, then it's better for the articles to created as subpages of userspace. TCN7JM 03:54, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Being somewhat new to simple you might be unaware that we allow school projects here. See Wikipedia:Schools/Projects for more info. -DJSasso (talk) 11:42, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Will your students' articles have some kind of class project notice on them? That would help us identify the articles better than having a list of the editors. It would also help readers understand why those articles might not be as polished as we might like. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:18, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, In answer to both.
Why not? 1. They are being supervised and I will make sure anything messy gets cleaned up. I've had a pretty good record of keeping these things cleaned up. 2. Some students have created or filled out substantial pages. 3. They are directly part of the readership this wiki is created for. 4. The main issue is time. Sometimes they try to create a new page, but it takes more than 15 or 20 minutes to add enough content to avoid QD.
I guess that makes sense. TCN7JM 04:46, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I will try to template anything asap, Auntof6. Sometimes it takes a few minutes. Today's focus will be on quality issues and expectations. Last time was more on navigation and editing. We ran into one problem which took a long time to fix last time. Thanks all, ELTted (talk) 04:33, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The students are, as always, welcome. They generally do a decent job while they're learning and ELTted does a good job of keeping them in check. Good luck. Kennedy (talk) 09:07, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, RyanCross. We've added a few references, especially for one BLP. I think they are basically OK, but if anyone sees needed improvements, please go ahead and add them. That kind of real-world collaboration and interaction is the point of this kind of online work for these students. Cheers, ELTted (talk) 08:33, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Great! I will keep an eye out as well. Reception123/Receptie123 (talk)
  • Me too. I'm also here for help. Your students can feel completely free to do anything constructive on this wiki such as creating pages and testing at the sandbox. As I have noticed what some of your students have done, if you would like an article to be deleted, you can ask an administrator for you to do it, or you can replace the whole article content with {{delete}}. Also, when your students work as a school project, the contributions should not be reverted. Please let us know if you need any more help. :) ~ curtaintoad ~~ talk ~ 11:19, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, CT. I have struck out your comments about getting articles deleted. If anyone from the class project (or anyone else) would like an article deleted, they should use the standard procedures. --Auntof6 (talk) 11:42, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The enthusiasm of our editors here is remarkable! Your students are doing fine. When your classroom activities are complete, do let us know so we may proceed with clean up if necessary. Your students are free to practice their skills at anytime here on Simple English Wikipedia, and do drop us a line when you visit again. — RyanCross (talk) 11:31, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So ELTted is the same person as Gotanda? Reception123/Receptie123 (talk) 12:50, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Reception123 and anyone else, User:ELTted is my alternate account. I've listed it on my primary userpage at User:Gotanda. And, back when I first set it up, I announced it on, I think, ST or AN. In case anyone is wondering why I need an alternate account, there are a few reasons, but mainly just to keep things organized for students. With an alternate account only for teaching, I can tell students to review my contributions as ELTted to see how I edit and learn from changes I make that are relevant to class. They don't have to wade through more complex, personal, or irrelevant edits (like this one). I can also create a userpage that is more student-friendly. No secrets or socking, just trying to make it easy on my students. Also, it's been a while, but I have done some workshops with teachers. I hope to do that again soon. Having a dedicated account for that also makes it easy to show people what I have done with students, and only that. I never vote or do anything else from the ELTted account--just for class use. Thanks all for your help, Gotanda (talk) 21:22, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Question about bot

Can you please tell me how a bot works, where should I put it's script, where should I log it in? Reception123/Receptie123 (talk) 05:38, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Based on these questions alone I can tell you that you should probably not be trying to use a bot. -DJSasso (talk) 11:51, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I thought so too as it seems kind of difficult. I will try again when I am more experienced and informed on bots (not anywhere near now). Reception123/Receptie123 (talk) 11:55, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There are many kinds of bot - you can find out about how most of them from the pages linked to en:WP:BOTS. Many of them use advanced coding (Python, etc.). AutoWikiBrowser (AWB), can be used in "manual" semo-automatic mode or "bot" fully automatic mode, but that's one of the only easy-to-use bot programs. Generally, if you have a task that needs a bot, it's better to find someone who already runs a bot to help you figure it out or run the task for you. – Philosopher Let us reason together. 20:14, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Controlled Drug in United Kingdom

I just noticed what a difference there is between our version and En wiki. We seem to be singing from different hymn sheets... Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:23, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean in terms of the information or the setup? I only wrote it about an hour before you posted this, so anything you can do to improve the page please feel free. Osiris (talk) 03:16, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I must have been looking at the wrong page on En wiki. Our page is a perfectly good start. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:29, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Jewish festivals and holidays

I probably should have asked for the flood flag for this, but in case someone is patrolling me:

  1. I added the category as an "includeonly" to Template:Jewish and Israeli holidays. So ...
  2. I removed the individual category tags from the various articles linked there, leaving them in the category by virtue of the template only
  3. I changed the Wikidata link of the category from one lining up with en:Category:Jewish observances to one lining up with en:Category:Jewish holy days, because it's a better match

StevenJ81 (talk) 15:46, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone interested in the American Civil War?

I plan to work on ACW articles and was wondering if there are any other users interested in this subject. Wild Wolf (talk) 16:16, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am. I can't really do any writing on it; I'm busy with Judaism articles. But I'm glad to have a look at what you write. You can reach me at my talk page. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:50, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Judgmental rules on Simple Wikipedia needs to go

I understand that everyone here on Simple English Wikipedia come from vastly different backgrounds, cultures, ethnicity and language, however, we should not be told what is and is not "important" on any Wikipedia because what maybe important to you may not be the same to someone else. I continue to edit here and on the English Wikipedia and what I have found on the English Wikipedia is that arguments have arose numerous times between users who argue that popular culture is not of significance to those iconic figures in history books. While the other party argue that popular culture articles (ex: movies, recording artists, television series and sports teams) are at the same value of historical figures because of their importance and influence on modern society and technology. I believe that all users should be free of judgmental rules such as WP:CORE. What I found to be disturbing is this sentence which profiles these remarks:

"Until we grow into a large encyclopedia with entries on all Core articles, we strongly encourage editors to focus on core articles, since these articles are of more general importance. This fits with the main purpose of Simple English Wikipedia, as we work towards creating high-quality articles of general interest in easy-to-read language."

What stood out to me was this "high-quality articles of general interest". Who and what is to say is of "general interest"? According to Wikipedia's traffic, popular culture articles such as Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse and Brittany Murphy received over a million views on the days after their deaths while Michael's article remain above 20k views a day and is the top 100th most viewed article in that Wikipedia. These popular culture articles are examples of what most people are interested in reading (at the time), while in that list non-popular culture articles are also favored (at that time). This is not to say that iconic figures such as Albert Einstein is not important at all, in fact, I believe his impact on the world is more powerful than those I have mentioned combined. However, this doesn't confirm that the younger generation would pick him over their favorite musicians, movies, TV shows and sports team because of their influence on their lives which impacted them on a more deeper level. Einstein indeed influenced these inventions we have today, but when it comes down to it he wouldn't be in everyone's "general interest" field, same goes for Michael Jackson. On both parties, everyone is right that each article on Wikipedia is important (that is why they have an article) but what they don't agree on is how important they are, which should be left out of creating articles for people to educate themselves with. So to sum this up, I believe we should remove those statements from this Wikipedia and be a more open site that promotes creation from any user as long as it meets WP:Notability. Best, jonatalk to me 02:34, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think you have an excellent, if somewhat long-winded, point. That guideline was written in 2006. We have since grown to the point where we may not need it. --Auntof6 (talk) 03:07, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't even really aware of the existence of that page. I think it could be rewritten slightly, especially the part about "avoiding" certain topics. And it can easily fit atop Wikipedia:Vital articles. Identifying and ranking articles that are important for an educational encyclopaedia is a good idea. Music is a far more important subject than Amy Winehouse, and we should encourage editors to focus on the more important, but we shouldn't say to avoid lesser subjects. And for this version of Wikipedia, there's no denying that articles on complex subjects like science and mathematics are vastly more important than those about songs and films. I doubt anybody is coming over here because they find enwiki's article on Brittany Murphy too difficult to understand. That's not what Simple Wikipedia exists for. People like Michael Jackson are on WP:VAE anyway, but the only difference that really need be between our version and the regular English version are vocabulary and sentence structure; there's nothing difficult to understand about that topic that needs explaining differently. So I think the guideline was a good idea in principle, but it needs to be rephrased and it would serve a better purpose to introduce why that list exists. Osiris (talk) 04:39, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree with Os entirely. I'd add that, because our only access to photographs is Commons, there are many biographies whose pages on Simple carry no photo of the subject. This is a pretty big loss in pop culture. The reason we have so many pop culture pages is that it is a familiar topic for our younger editors, and writing them is a good way for these editors to develop their skills, and they enjoy that. From the point of view of the readers, however, the important thing is that we should have readable versions on the important topics they are likely to need. For many readers that would be topics taught in their educational system, and topics important to living their lives (other than entertainment). Access to pop culture is not a lack in people's lives: they are swamped with it! Encyclopaedias, and education generally, should have an eye-opening quality and a question-answering function. I hadn't read the Core article page either, but I would have to agree that pop culture is not really a core function for us. Whatever, we do actually have a huge number of pop culture pages... Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:08, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The guideline tag should be removed from that and the historical tag be placed (which I have done). This guideline was deprecated a couple years ago when we removed the idea of core articles from WP:NOT. If people want to rewrite it and use it for another purpose then go ahead but for now I have taken this action since I believe it was just a slip that the guideline tag wasn't removed when the community decided to stop focusing on just the core articles. -DJSasso (talk) 11:38, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks guys glad to see that we have decided to archive that guideline. Best, jonatalk to me 21:33, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2013-29

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.

Recent software changes (Not all changes will affect you.)

Future software changes

  • A new version of the Single User Login system for global accounts will be enabled on July 17. Users will now automatically go back to the previous page instead of seeing the "Login success" page with logos. [23]
  • The software that resizes images on all wikis will change on July 18. Resizing of big images will be faster and more reliable, and the resolution limit for GIF, PNG and TIFF files (currently set at 50 megapixels) will be removed. [24]
  • Edit tags (mostly used by AbuseFilter) will now also be on diff pages. They include a link to Special:Tags before the edit summary. Wikis that use links in tag messages should remove them. [25] [26]
  • Global edit filters are currently in testing and will be added to wikis later. [27]
  • Wikivoyage wikis will start to use Wikidata for interwiki links on July 22. [28]
  • A new image gallery design has been proposed by Brian Wolff; comments and feedback are welcome.
  • An IRC discussion about Bugzilla is planned for July 16, at 16:00 (UTC) on the IRC channel #wikimedia-office on Freenode (time conversion). [29]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:44, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Is this article ready?

It's been awhile since Crash Team Racing had failed its first GA nomination, can the community please tell me if its ready to be renominated? I am hoping to get it to VGA status. All comments are welcomed and are very appreciated. Thanks, jonatalk to me 02:27, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

All the quotations under 'references' are rubbish, and should be deleted. That kind of ephemeral non-relevant stuff is not what notes or references are for. Also, you could use a single reference for the instruction booklet, using the in-line trick <ref name=instructions>. It's a short document, so anyone who has access can find the places easily (and if they don't, the page numbers won't help!). The real purpose of page numbers is that in textbooks and journals it may be hard to find the right place (they're not there because we distrust authors -- good faith is assumed). In general, the main content of the page may well be suitable for PGA. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:27, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your review, very appreciated. I took your advice on the referencing concern and if its okay for PGA what about PVGA? Do you think its ready? Best, jonatalk to me 20:26, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sports commentator categories

Please see Category talk:Sports commentators#Proposed rename of subcategories of these cats and comment on my suggestion to rename the categories there. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:14, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Given names encyclopedic?

We have a Category:Given names, which holds 149 entries at the time of this writing. There is one template, and the general article about Given name. The remaining 147 entries are for given names. Yes, this name is based on that one, and in an acient language no one speaks any more, it had that meaning. If you look at the statistic yearbook of that country, it had this prevalence... - Sorry, the type of content is not encyclopedic. Simple English Wikipiedia tries to be an encyclopedia, not a name directory. I post this here, to see what the opinion of the other editors is...--Eptalon (talk) 09:53, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually this sort of information is very encyclopedic. The meanings of names etc are written in many many many books. And that is all that is required to meet WP:N. It is no different than writing about a food item or a sports team or a character in a book. People can find anything non-encyclopedic if they are not interested by it. But encyclopedic isn't really the criterion we go by. We go by notability which briefly skimming these names I am sure most are. -DJSasso (talk) 12:09, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure whether I agree, but would you say the same about surnames? I do think these articles could be cleaned up and standardized. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:11, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
How could we have the articles cleaned up? Please give me a few examples on that. September 1988 (talk) 19:23, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well the biggest most obvious thing is you don't seem to be adding any references. -DJSasso (talk) 19:33, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Here are some items:
  • They could be divided into paragraphs to make them easier to read. For example, one paragraph for general info (gender, language of origin, variations), one for popularity info, one for uses of the name (that one should probably be at the end), possibly others depending on what's in a given article.
  • General simplifying would be good -- some of them have compound sentences that could be broken up.
  • There should be a distinction between given name pages and disambiguation pages ("dab pages"). It's possible for a page to be both, but it's better to have them separate if there are enough entries to support that. For example, Naomi is a dab page and Naomi (given name) is a given name page. A page with "given name" in its title should have only information about the name itself and people and fictional characters that use it. Hurricanes are probably OK there, too. The dab page should have only people and things called just "Naomi", not people whose given name happens to be "Naomi". For example, the page Naomi (given name) should have only given name info, but it also had a book (until I removed it just now). The page Naomi could have both. I've made some change to these pages that you can look at.
That's what I see when I spot check a few. There are probably other things that I can let you know when I come across them. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:59, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
 The naming system developed over a long time; in Europe, and the US, a "modern" name seems to made of one or more first names, and a family name.If you look at the middle ages, Giotto refers to Giotto di Bondone,Bondone is a small village of 600-odd people near Lake Garda. For "Donatello", there are two artists, one of the 14th century, the other from the 16th. So, yes, "Family names" are probably different.--Eptalon (talk) 19:52, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, but in the Giotto example, "Bondone" isn't really a surname. Just as "Vinci" isn't a surname for Leonardo. I was referring to actual surname pages, like Johnstone and Platt (surname). --Auntof6 (talk) 20:01, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but usually, there are "more" people with a surname that actually are related (how many "Mary"'s are?). And no, I don't want to scare you: de:Bach_(Familienname)...--Eptalon (talk) 22:55, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Most controversial topics?

Hello, a team of researchers from the universities of Oxford, Budapest and New Jersey published a paper about the "most controversial" topics in different language versions of Wikipedia. See here. As published, the paper is about thirty pages in size. What is also interesting is the fact that the "most controversial" articles seem to be language-dependent. Anyway, just wanted to let you know. --Eptalon (talk) 08:44, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your comments invited on simplifying a guideline from enwiki

I have been working to simplify en:WP:Words to watch for use here. We have the page Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words that covers part of it, but I thought it would be good to have the other sections here as well. My work page for this is at User:Auntof6/Words to watch. I would appreciate comments at User talk:Auntof6/Words to watch, especially as to whether the community has any issues with publishing a simplified version of this guideline here. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:42, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2013-30

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.

Recent software changes (Not all changes will affect you.)

Future software changes

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

21:15, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Broken templates

It appears that when I imported some templates from Enwiki it has broken some of ours and is causing script errors. Someone can send me a trout while I go and revert all my latest changes.--Peterdownunder (talk) 02:50, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, here's a problem. If I rollback/revert/undo/restore the changes, nothing happens, the new version stays current. Everything still remains broken.--Peterdownunder (talk) 03:35, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's probably a cache problem. It might clear on its own, or you might need to do dummy edits on the pages. Try doing one dummy edit. It if clears the problem, the rest will probably clear on their own eventually. --Auntof6 (talk) 03:38, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like I might have really broken it. I suspect it is Template:Resize that is causing the current grief, but after 90 minutes experimenting, nothing seems to solve any of the problems I have caused. I hope it is something really complex, because if it is a simple problem I will be forced to eat my monitor! Any suggestions? Does someone else need to revert me?--Peterdownunder (talk) 04:03, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There was a server error in the middle of the import, which might not have helped.--Peterdownunder (talk) 04:04, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Big thankyou to Osiris who has fixed it all.--Peterdownunder (talk) 04:49, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Pywikipedia is migrating to git

Hello, Sorry for English but It's very important for bot operators so I hope someone translates this. Pywikipedia is migrating to Git so after July 26, SVN checkouts won't be updated If you're using Pywikipedia you have to switch to git, otherwise you will use out-dated framework and your bot might not work properly. There is a manual for doing that and a blog post explaining about this change in non-technical language. If you have question feel free to ask in mw:Manual talk:Pywikipediabot/Gerrit, mailing list, or in the IRC channel. Best Amir (via Global message delivery). 13:45, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Creating new articles

Hi editors, I have a question. When contributors create articles on this wiki, does the person who creates it needs to add references, or does another changer add it later on? ~ curtaintoad ~~ talk ~ 10:38, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you're adding a statement that needs a reference to support it then, by all means, add the reference. You're supposed to add your own references when creating articles on any wiki. TCN7JM 10:51, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. The person who creates an article should not purposely leave references for other editors unless they don't know how to add them. If they don't know how, there are many editors willing to help them learn. The same is true for other things, including adding categories and putting interwiki links in Wikidata. --Auntof6 (talk) 11:26, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. --~ curtaintoad ~~ talk ~ 11:30, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The best advice is to do what you can. I would not expect a new editor to get it perfect, that is where the community helps. In fact if you see above for the mess I made importing, even experienced editors make mistakes or get it wrong. Do the best you can, take and give advice, and enjoy editing.--Peterdownunder (talk) 12:59, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
My advice is do your best. Everybody makes mistakes, even the most experienced of Wikipedia editors. Peterdownunder is right. Please do the best you can. September 1988 (talk) 13:04, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Recent flood of new Japanese band articles

First, thank you everyone for patience with a few hiccups this semester as I introduced another group of students to this wiki. Second, there are a whole bunch of new articles from IP 60.43.38.155 that are poorly translated and not well formatted. I have nothing to do with these. Most of them would actually qualify as notable if they were explained a bit better. But, they need a lot of attention that I cannot give them until next week. QD or whatever as needed, please.

It seems these are all coming from a school in Hokkaido. If there are better internet sleuths out there who can identify the school by the IP, I can probably contact the teacher there and help them set up a proper school project and do things a bit more smoothly. Thanks, ELTted (talk) 21:31, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Archiving user talk pages

I've noticed recently that some user talk pages are getting long. That's perfectly OK, but I thought I'd mention for our newer users that there is an automated way to archive sections from user talk pages. (Archiving means to move sections from the main talk page and put them on different pages where they can be found if needed.) We have a bot, User:MiszaBot, that can regularly archive talk page sections. Each user can say how long to wait after the most recent edit before archiving each section, how many sections should be left on the page, what the archive pages should be named, and other things.

If you would like to set this up or learn more about it, the bot's user page has a link to more information. If you're having trouble understanding that information (I did!), leave a reply here or on my talk page and I or someone else will help you. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:55, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Biographies of famous Americans

I have no idea how this has lasted in the mainspace for so long – it's not an article, nor is it really a list. It's an assortment of short biographical descriptions with no clear inclusion criteria or purpose. There are literally millions of Americans that could be classified as famous, and there is no natural or definitive idea of who classifies as a "very well-known" American.

It's a nice looking page, but it doesn't belong in the main space. It was moved there in mid-2010 by its author, Purplebackpack89. It was previously at User:Purplebackpack89/WikiProject Famous Americans. He also created such a page on the English Wikipedia, but it was promptly deleted after a unanimous decision (unanimous except for PBP himself). Can we please do the same or move it back into userspace? Since PBP is banned, I suggest User:Project/WikiProject Americans or something similar. Osiris (talk) 07:05, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'd support moving it back or even deleting it, since we already have separate articles on each person. If we don't want such an article, then there's no reason to have it in userspace, either. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:20, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Since every single person there has an article, why not delete? Only reason to retain would be because the template below would have no "home" article. But I don't see that as a problem; there doesn't need to be one. StevenJ81 (talk) 13:44, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Okay then. If neither of you mind, I will copy this discussion to begin an RfD page. Thanks for the input. Osiris (talk) 05:05, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Fine with me! :) --Auntof6 (talk) 07:16, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Location of stub tags

I've noticed a lot of articles lately with the stub tags at the end, after the categories. As far as I know, those tags are supposed to go after the article text, before categories, defaultsort, persondata, etc. Has that changed? I know this is minor, and I'm not suggesting a wholesale change, I just want to know. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:41, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think it does not change the position of the stub notice on the page.Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:20, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Stub tags at the end according to en:WP:ORDER. Although AWB puts them the other way around. I don't think it makes a difference to anything, though. Osiris (talk) 01:09, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Technically they are supposed to be after the categories. But AWB mistakenly puts them before the categories. I have been meaning to put in a bug report with the AWB people for awhile but other than you we didn't have many people that did alot of AWB work so it wasn't high on my mind. -DJSasso (talk) 11:44, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have a different kind of thought. I double space stub tags so they don't interfere with the text. Ancillary material should not crowd the actual content of a page. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:20, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I double-space them, too, when they're before the categories like I'm used to seeing. I haven't checked to see if putting them at the very end takes care of that. --Auntof6 (talk) 12:27, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You still have to double space them when the come after. It used to be that all our stubs were after but as more people used AWB they started getting moved to the top. As I said I never felt strongly enough to go have the AWB bug fixed. -DJSasso (talk) 12:31, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2013-31

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes; not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf12) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 25. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on July 29, and on all Wikipedias on August 1. [37]
  • Wikivoyage was offline for around 40 minutes on July 24. [38]
  • Pywikipediabot moved their code from SVN to git; bot owners need to update their tools. [39]
  • The Notifications and Thanks extensions were added to Meta-Wiki on July 26; other wikis will get them soon. [40]
  • It is now possible to add edit summaries on Wikidata using the API; the feature will be added to user interface soon. [41]
  • The software that resizes large PNG images on all wikis was changed on July 25. Resizing of PNG files bigger than 35 megapixels should be faster and more reliable now. [42]
  • Three new webfonts (Gentium, Old Persian and Shapour) will be added to Universal Language Selector. [43], [44], [45]
  • Special:MIMESearch, which gives a list of files by type, will be enabled on all Wikimedia wikis with MediaWiki version 1.22/wmf12 (bug #13438). [46]
  • A mailing list to discuss multimedia features was started; users are encouraged to sign up.
  • VisualEditor news:
    • On July 24, VisualEditor was added for logged-in users on the German (de), Spanish (es), French (fr), Hebrew (he), Italian (it), Polish (pl), Russian (ru) and Swedish (sv) Wikipedias; it will be added for all users on those wikis on July 29. [47]
    • A preference to completely disable VisualEditor while it is in beta phase was added on July 24. [48]
    • Many bugs were fixed in right-to-left languages. [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54]
    • It is possible again to scroll down in the template editing window (bug #51739).
    • VisualEditor now works with the FlaggedRevisions extension. (bug #49699)
    • If the user opens VisualEditor using a section edit link, the title of the section is added to the edit summary (bug #50872).
    • Invisible templates now can't be deleted by accident or on purpose (bug #51322).

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

20:57, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion for blocking policy

If Editor has account in several Wikipedias and get blocked in one Wikipedia, blocking would have its affection also in other Wikipedias, at least little bit.

Example: User has account in Swedish and Italy Wikipedia. If user gets 1 week blocking in Swedish Wikipedia, The user gets automaticly somekind of discipline in Italy Wikipedia also. How big that discpline would be, needs discussion. 91.145.99.76 (talk) 10:08, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We already have a policy that deals with this. See WP:ONESTRIKE. -DJSasso (talk) 11:42, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We regularly deal with editors who were blocked on other projects. Some of them get a new start here and become prolific. Others are handled by the one-strike-rule cited by DJSasso (In most cases after the first or second block). So there is no need for action here. --Eptalon (talk) 15:06, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

PLM articles

Another set of articles that we need to take a look at are those in Category:University of the City of Manila. All were created by the same user, who is blocked here and on enwiki for copyright violations. Most of the articles are very complex, and it's easy to see why: I checked the first one that appeared on a worklist of mine, PLM Admission Test, for copyright issues. The text appears to have been copied from various websites and collated together [55][56] So this first sample contains more than one violation of our guidelines on plagiarism.

I looked through a few of the others; some of them look okay, but others - like this one and this one - are just massive violations of the terms of use. Others contain extremely close paraphrasing of random webpages and books, which I could only gleam a portion of on Google's previews. Some of these topics are probably a bit excessively detailed anyway, like Seal of the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila [57] I would probably suggest just deleting those for all the problems they contain. Those that are notable, I would suggest cutting down to a few short sentences and possibly even merging into University of the City of Manila. Osiris (talk) 06:41, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'll go ahead with the necessary actions. Osiris (talk) 09:56, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Page behaves strange way

page Oscilloscope hides text depending I zoom screen. Why is it possible? 91.145.99.76 (talk) 18:24, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Now it seems to work.91.145.99.76 (talk) 13:49, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion of "Knowledge Without Borders"

Hello! I am a new page patroller and rollbacker of Chinese Wikipedia. I am the founder of "Knowledge Without Borders", an organization that hopes to improve all the language version of Wikipedia. I like Simple English Wikipedia very much, but I suggest this wiki to add portals and editing groups. Thamks.

P.S. Sorry for my broken English :) --Carrotkit (talk) 02:34, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome, Carrotkit. The reasons we don't have portals are 1) we don't have enough active editors to keep up with things like that, and 2) we try to keep everything simple here, not just the language in the articles. I don't know what editing groups are: maybe you would explain that? --Auntof6 (talk) 03:18, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Editing groups are wikiprojects that organize Wikipedians to edit, like en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games. Sorry for my broken English again. --Carrotkit (talk) 03:49, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We don't do formal Wikiprojects here for the same reasons I mentioned above. We do have some informal Wikiprojects, though. Those are managed in user pages. The same thing could be done with editing groups. By the way, your English looks very good, as far as I can see! --Auntof6 (talk) 04:13, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And we are not a language wiki in the same sense as other wikis. We have a special remit which others do not have. Macdonald-ross (talk) 05:50, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Interwiki needs updating

This page needs updating to include info about Wikidata. I can try to do some work on it when I'm back on my main PC, but I thought I'd mention it here in case anyone else wants to do some work on it. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:40, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

New timebox userbox

Hi, all. This notice is being placed at WP:Simple talk and on user talk pages of people transcluding {{User:Gwib/timebox}}.

I have built an updated timebox userbox. It is built from {{User:Gwib/timebox}}, but has some expanded functionality. You can find this userbox at {{User timebox2}}.

StevenJ81 (talk) 21:55, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Steven. I was looking at the doc to see how to use it, and I noticed that the offset for Arizona was wrong. Arizona is UTC-7, not -6. I fixed it, but I thought I'd let you know in case you got the info from somewhere that would also need to be fixed. --Auntof6 (talk) 22:16, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, I know better, and just brain-froze. You know how you can write something, then try to proof it, and miss the same mistake over and over again? ... Thanks. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:25, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, BTDT! I knew it because I'm just one time zone over from there, but I didn't want to assume you'd know. --Auntof6 (talk) 22:47, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Block of Aaqib

Why did we block Aaqib? --96.238.186.68 (talk) 22:44, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

He was banned by the community. -Mh7kJ (talk) 23:26, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not lying, but he is an administrator. --96.238.186.68 (talk) 23:28, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
He is not an administrator here. Even if he is one elsewhere, his behavior here led the community to decide they did not want his contributions. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:34, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
He is not an admin in the Wikimedia Foundation. He is an admin in three wikia wikis. He is a trustworthy user and he tried his best to improve the wiki. Especially when Chenzw was rude to him. He was rude to him!!!! --96.238.186.68 (talk) 23:39, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It makes no difference where he is an admin. He may have been doing his best, and his work in other places may be excellent, but his contributions here were disruptive. Many of us tried to work with him, but in the end it didn't help. If someone here was rude to him, which I'm not convinced of, that doesn't change the fact that Aaqib's changes here were disruptive. You are entitled to disagree with the action, but it had community support. --Auntof6 (talk) 13:14, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I will add that a lot of people tried to work with Aaqib on this over time, but Aaqib did not listen. StevenJ81 (talk) 13:38, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I am an administrator on a wikia but that doesn't mean I can be trusted here. --Reception123/Receptie123 (talk) 16:56, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And, by the way, Aaqib isn't an administrator but a founder. --Reception123/Receptie123 (talk) 17:03, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal for big weekend

I proposed a new big weekend. Can someone please check it out? Reception123/Receptie123 (talk) 09:51, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You should probably have suggested it earlier. Singapore (Chenzw and me) is enjoying a very long weekend now, 4 days from yesterday to Sunday. Because yesterday was Hari Raya Puasa and today is National Day! :D ✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 10:03, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, but then I will have to appoint a different coordinator as I can not make it earlier then that. Lets see what the other contributors think about the date. Reception123/Receptie123 (talk) 10:06, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If I have the time, I will create some articles on Singapore's remaining forests. :) ✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 10:26, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
VG idea! Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:10, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Request for some input

Hi everyone. I would like some editorial input on Talk:Animal, regarding the merge request for Animal and Animalia. The first is one of the most viewed articles on the wiki, and the tag has been up there for a while so I'd like to decide one way or the other and get rid of it. Osiris (talk) 01:44, 11 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's already done. Animal is the page and Animalia is the redirect. Content is adjusted. Macdonald-ross (talk)

Articles not linked to other languages

Hi Simple Wikipedia. Here is a list on Wikidata of all simple wiki articles that do not yet have a connection to any other Wikipedias. It may help you to make connections, or find duplicated topics. Happy editing. Delusion23 (talk) 15:08, 11 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for this. It's a bit outdated, though, especially the mainspace part. The items in other namespaces will be helpful. Osiris (talk) 21:25, 11 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It is a bit outdated in the mainspace, and the items that have links that are redirects or have been deleted on simple will in turn have to be deleted. The category and templates sections appear to be particularly useful, however. :) Delusion23 (talk) 22:32, 11 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Just to add the obvious point: since we are not a typical "other language" wiki, one does not always find one-to-one correspondences, except perhaps with biographies. Similarly, we made the decision not to have such a complex system of categories as En wiki. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:18, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It usually isn't that hard to find the corresponding enwiki category for any simplewiki category. I was working on this earlier yesterday and found this very easily. TCN7JM 09:21, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Cyberbullying

With recent new headlines again raising concerns about cyberbullying, One in five children bullied online, it seems the right time to remind editors of Simple English Wikipedia's cyberbullying policy. The Simple English Wikipedia will not tolerate cyberbullying. I urge editors and admins to take strong action on any action or edit that is bullying. There are templates ready for use in such situations. It would be good if someone could add them to Twinkle. --Peterdownunder (talk) 23:18, 11 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

YouTube

Note the link to a YouTube version of English wiki's article on Socrates. It was uploaded to our own version of Socrates, and I have left comments on the talk page. The whole idea raises interesting possibilities. A great pity the narrator did not use our version, especially as he calls his version "a simple English" version. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:05, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

HTTPS for users with an account

Greetings. Starting on August 21 (tomorrow), all users with an account will be using HTTPS to access Wikimedia sites. HTTPS brings better security and improves your privacy. More information is available at m:HTTPS.

If HTTPS causes problems for you, tell us on bugzilla, on IRC (in the #wikimedia-operations channel) or on meta. If you can't use the other methods, you can also send an e-mail to https@wikimedia.org.

Greg Grossmeier (via the Global message delivery system). 19:39, 20 August 2013 (UTC) (wrong page? You can fix it.)[reply]

Sources for population data

I'm looking for sources of population data. I'd like sources for countries and lower-level subdivisions, for anywhere and everywhere. I don't expect anyone to go searching for them, but if anyone has some go-to sources, would they mind sharing them? Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 11:30, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried unstats.un.org? It takes a bit of rummaging to get what you're looking for, but it's got a whole load of population statistics from censuses and other sources. Osiris (talk) 11:55, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, never heard of it. I'll take a look. Thanks! --Auntof6 (talk) 12:03, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm getting redirected to donateonlines.com when I try to go there. --Auntof6 (talk) 12:09, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
WhoOps!! Sorry, it's actually unstats.un.org. Osiris (talk) 12:23, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The CIA factbook is often used for countries..but doubt it has sub-national divisions. Each country through probably has its own statistics arm of the government. Canada for examples has Statistics Canada which has a website with all of that sort of thing. -DJSasso (talk) 14:24, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reducing DYK update time

Hi all, straightforward proposal to reduce the amount of time between DYK updates. For some months now DYK has had a sustained amount of quality nominations being put forwards, and we're currently running with about a month's lead time between a hook getting proposed and appearing on the Main page. In my eyes, this is too long and is causing an (unnecessary) backlog. For reference, updates are currently made every five days (formerly seven) and I'd like to suggest that we reduce this to three days. It can always be reduced further again if we feel that might be an option down the line. With a three-day cycle and six queues a hook should appear on the Main Page in around a fortnight at the current rate of nominations. Still not ideal (we should be looking at sub one week, imo) but I think we can all agree that it would be unwise to go to extreme and to take things in stages. All thoughts welcomed. Goblin 01:32, 22 August 2013 (UTC) I ♥ GoblinBots![reply]

I am still thinking... I did see that there are many Queues waiting. I will think about it and give an answer when ready. Reception123/Receptie123 (talk) 06:32, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Update Days since last No. of other
Q's full
January 7 49 days 0
February 1 25 days 0
February 11 10 days 0
February 24 13 days 1
March 6 10 days 1
March 17 11 days 1
March 27 10 days 1
April 6 9 days 1
April 19 13 days 2
April 27 8 days 1
May 4 7 days 4
May 12 8 days 4
May 24 12 days 3
June 6 13 days 3
June 14 8 days 4
June 21 7 days 5
July 1 10 days 6
July 10 9 days 6
July 15 5 days 5
July 27 12 days 6
August 1 5 days 5
August 6 5 days 5
August 11 5 days 5
August 19 8 days 5
Why don't we just have a specified minimum period, and then adjust the frequency depending on the number of queues that are full? It was in April or something that activity at DYK became really backlogged. If we look at the history of T:DYK, it was only in the last month that we deviated from the 7-day frequency specified at WP:DYK. The frequency of updates has changed quite often over the past year and it'll probably continue to change just depending on the activities of two or three editors. So instead of changing it every time our editor activity changes, we should just work it out roughly based on the number of queues that are full. Osiris (talk) 09:54, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm perfectly happy for this to be the case - this was the previous agreement allowing the deviation from 7 days down to 5 days and is a sensible one to have in place. That said I'd also want to see a maximum time in place (and hope we can stick to it) - for example the 49 day gap was a little bit silly. If we're going to look at a 'minimum' time, I'd suggest 24 hours as that time for maximum flexibility. Goblin 10:20, 22 August 2013 (UTC) I ♥ The Rambling Man![reply]
I agree with Osiris. I'd say minimum 24 hours and maximum 10 days. What do you think? Reception123/Receptie123 (talk) 10:49, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What I meant was.. specify a minimum period to be used when we have all six queues waiting to go; but if we have less queues waiting, then use a longer gap period. That way, if one of our DYK editors decides to take a wikibreak, the queues won't disappear faster than we can refill them. If you base the frequency of updates on the number of full queues waiting, then the maximum comes naturally as a product of the rate at which queues are being filled. The 49-day gap is a perfect example; nobody planned for that long to pass between updates – that's just how long it took to fill one queue at that time. Osiris (talk) 11:39, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and that's why I suggested that we also make sure there is a maximum limit between updates, so that if there are only one or two queues filled we don't end up waiting forever. Either way, let's not drag out this discussion beyond something that should be straightforward, or add more red tape... Goblin 11:58, 22 August 2013 (UTC) I ♥ Fr33kman![reply]
In the example you used above, there were zero queues filled – the update was done as soon as we got five hooks reviewed and ready to go. Which happened to take 49 days. You can't really control the limits in that situation; the only way to decrease the gap is to ask for more nominations and reviews. Looking at the statistics, when we've had one additional queue waiting at the time of an update, the average time until the next update was about 10 days. Which seemed to work fine. But then in July we took 12 days to make an update even though we had five or six full queues waiting. So instead of trying to stick to a rigid "update time" and changing that time whenever activity levels increase/decrease, use the number of full queues as a guide. As a rough example, if we have one queue waiting, update every 10 days; if we have six queues waiting, update every 24 hours (or whatever minimum is decided)... Osiris (talk) 14:27, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
 If I take some statistics from the set, I see that the mode (the "most common" value) is 10; the mean is 11.3, and the median is 9.5. If I take a range of 5 days - 12 days, I capture 75% of all values we have had in that table; We have 16 values 0..10, 6 values 11..20, and one each 20..30 and 40..50. I would therefore propose we update the DYK every 5 to 14 days; that is: One update every 14 days, even if the queues are not full. Ideally, we do the updating mid-week (Thursday?) so we have it for the weekend? --Eptalon (talk) 12:47, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In many cases the values in that table are skewed and don't give us a real picture of the update cycle. Where we have been a few days out has generally been down to no-one performing the update when due; I'm working on a bot to solve this problem. Every update since at least the middle of April can be considered as 7 days for the purposes of this analysis. Similarly, during this time, either 5 or 6 queues have always been full - therefore we can further deduce that 7 is too long a period - a month and a half for an article to appear is ludicrous. Additionally, five days, where we are at now, is still too long, without a doubt. It needs reducing, and doing a simple analysis of the statistics isn't going to help us because it doesn't show us the "real terms" - something you really need to be heavily involved with DYK to understand. Goblin 14:23, 22 August 2013 (UTC) I ♥ Bsadowski1![reply]
I'd say leave it at 7 days...would rather have full queues than the same thing on the page too long because we ran out. If we notice the backlog in queues getting too large we can easily drop the number by a day or two as needed. -DJSasso (talk) 16:28, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

m:Requests for comment/Global ban for Ottava Rima

Per the m:Global bans global policy, you are informed of the discussion above. Please comment there and feel free to appropriately distribute more widely in prominent community venues in order to «Inform the community on all wikis where the user has edited». Nemo 10:12, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2013-34;

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

New features

  • The previous version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf13) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on August 15. It was enabled on non-Wikipedia sites on August 19, and on all Wikipedias on August 22. [58]
  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf14) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on August 22. It will be enabled on non-Wikipedia sites on August 26, and on all Wikipedias on August 29. [59]
  • You can now use new styles of galleries. Please give feedback to User:Bawolff. [60]
  • You can now visit a random page in a category, for example Special:RandomInCategory/Science. (25931) [61]
  • You can now use the <wbr> HTML5 tag to say where a word can be cut. (52468) [62]
  • Gadget authors: you can now use the wikipage.content hook, so that your scripts are re-run when a page is changed after the document-ready event (for example using Ajax). (30713) [63]

Problems fixed

  • There was a bug where file redirects didn't work when a file was renamed; it is now fixed. There is still an issue with purging, but it should be fixed soon. (52200)
  • Maintenance reports provided by special pages will now all be updated on each wiki every six months. This will for example give you recent information on uncategorized pages, unused templates and most wanted pages (see details).
  • There was a bug that caused false positives for anti-blanking edit filters; it is now fixed. (52077) [64]

VisualEditor news

  • The "edit" and "edit source" tabs and section edit links can now be changed more easily; for example, some wikis are using "edit source" for wikitext editing, and "edit beta" for VisualEditor. You can ask for the same change in bugzilla.
  • You can now edit references that are added inside a <references> block. (51741)
  • You can now test on mediawiki.org new basic tools to add and edit struck text (with the button for the <s> tag), lower text ( for <sub>), upper text ( for <sup>), underlined text ( for <u>), computer code ( for <code> and <tt>), math text ( for <math>), Egyptian hieroglyphs ( for <hiero>), and to say that text is in another language ( for lang="ar" dir="rtl"). (51609, 51612, 51611, 51590, 51610, 52352)
  • You can now use VisualEditor with the Opera browser. [65]

Future

  • Starting on August 26, you will be able to use data from Wikidata on Wikivoyage sites. [66]
  • Starting on August 27, you will also get notifications on the mobile site if you're logged in to a wiki using notifications. [67]
  • Starting on August 28, all users with an account will be using HTTPS to access Wikimedia sites. HTTPS brings better security and improves your privacy. Some countries (like China) will not use HTTPS. If HTTPS causes problems for you, tell us on meta. [68]
  • Starting on August 29, you will get the code editor interface to edit JavaScript and CSS pages on all wikis. [69]
  • The plan to use Solr for search in MediaWiki was changed; instead, Elasticsearch is now planned. [70]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

20:12, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Big Weekends

Another successful Big Weekend has ended, and I am left wondering why so few editors take part. Over time, we have come down from 16 or 17 editors to six, with many who put up new pages regularly not taking part. It is one of our very few collective activities, and the only one which adds actual content. Anyway, thanks to Reception123 for overseeing an excellent experience. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:42, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sincerest apologies for my absence. I was planning on taking part, but life unexpectedly got in the way. I will probably still do the things I was planning on doing during the course of this week. Osiris (talk) 14:00, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the complements Macdonald and I am sorry Osiris coudn't make it to the Big Weekend. Maybe I will make another big weekend soon. Reception123/Receptie123 (talk) 14:03, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks from me, too, Receptie! I'm sure it's not easy to track all the changes. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:03, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

VisualEditor

Wikipedia:VisualEditor is a new editing tool for Wikipedia. You can test it today if you want. Go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing and turn it on.

The Wikimedia Foundation will probably turn on VisualEditor for everyone at the Simple English Wikipedia in September. When VisualEditor is turned on, everyone will see two buttons for making changes. On other Wikipedias, these buttons say "Edit" (for VisualEditor) and "Edit source" (for the old way of making changes). On the Simple English Wikipedia, they say "Change" and "Edit source". You can have these buttons say whatever you want. Please let me know what you want the buttons to say. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:00, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Template sandboxes

I suggest deleting template sandbox pages that aren't currently used anywhere and haven't been edited in some time. The amount of time could be determined. I think somewhere between six months and a year might be right. Reasons for doing this would be:

  • These pages would stop showing up at Special:UnusedTemplates. That would make it easier to research what templates really are unused.
  • Some template sandboxes were created just so they would exist, and were never used for testing template changes.

Comments? --Auntof6 (talk) 10:52, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Notifications (Echo)

Greetings!

Notifications, also known as "Echo," will soon be released on the Simple English Wikipedia. Notifications is a new tool for following talks that you are a part of. To find out more, please visit this page or read the FAQ. Please contact me if you have any questions about this new feature! Keegan (WMF) (talk) 20:54, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is great! I've been wanting to know when we'd get this, and I know that most of us will really appreciate this feature. Osiris (talk) 20:59, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Great! I always wanted to have Echo here like on meta! Reception123/Receptie123 (talk) 08:46, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Question about Simple News

Can someone please tell me what happened to Simple News and why was it closed? Reception123/Receptie123 (talk) 08:43, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Basically it was becoming harder and harder for, I think, three of us to keep going in a timely manner, and "news" was getting rather thin on the ground. It's a bit pointless now if you want my opinion (as a former Editor). Goblin 13:40, 30 August 2013 (UTC) I ♥ Chenzw![reply]
Ok. Reception123/Receptie123 (talk) 13:47, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ogden's Basic for science 1942

I thought some of you might be interested in C. K. Ogden's attempt to list the terms needed for basic science teaching. It is one of his works on Basic English. You can find it here: User:Macdonald-ross/Basic for science. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:07, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I see that a lot of those are links to dab pages. Would you like me to try disambiguating them? --Auntof6 (talk) 09:23, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The dab pages I looked at seemed OK as they are; but if you feel improvements could be made, do go ahead. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:33, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Nah, I thought about it some more, and it's a list of words, not topics, like the lists of Basic English words. In some cases, more than one of the meaning could apply anyway, so disambiguating wouldn't necessarily help. They just stick out to me because I have some code that highlights them in a different color. --Auntof6 (talk) 09:45, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to delete some template sandboxes

I'm reposting this (slightly modified) because it got archived with no responses.

I'd like to delete template sandbox pages that aren't currently used anywhere and haven't been edited in some time. The amount of time could be determined. I think somewhere between six months and a year might be right. Reasons for doing this would be:

  • These pages would stop showing up at Special:UnusedTemplates and Special:UncategorizedTemplates. That would make it easier to research what templates really are unused or uncategorized.
  • Some template sandboxes were created just so they would exist, and were never used for testing template changes.

Comments? --Auntof6 (talk) 10:52, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Changes to templates {{Dmbox}}

I noticed recently that Special:DisambiguationPages and Special:DisambiguationPageLinks were no longer being updated. I think it's because whatever builds those pages started looking for the __DISAMBIG__ tag to identify dab pages. I found that that tag was added to enwiki's version of {{Dmbox}} on 18 June 2013. I think we need to add it to ours as well. I made and tested a sandbox version of the template, based on enwiki's version. (There are a few small differences other than adding that tag.) I think it's good, but I'd welcome additional opinions from anyone who knows more about that stuff than I do. Would anyone care to take a look and see what you think? Let me know if you have questions. Thanks! --Auntof6 (talk) 06:52, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Good catch. Have you noticed the differences in categorisation between the codes, including the set indices thing? Do we want those? Whether we want to use the category handler depends on whether we want to have disambiguation pages in namespaces other than the main space (like project pages). Osiris (talk) 07:00, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Good questions. I'm thinking we probably don't need all the ones that enwiki has. Maybe some of them, like human names and place names. I'd hate to see it turn into another situation like we have with stubs, though, where we want to control it and people keep adding more types. As for set indices, I personally hate those, but that's just my view. I don't see the need to distinguish between dabs and set indices, and I think people use set indices just so they don't have to follow the rules for dab pages (</rant> :) ). So I guess I'd say "probably not" on the dab subcats (at least for now), and definitely not on set indices. We only have 2,310 dab pages anyway, not hundreds of thousands like enwiki. Are you up for making the change to the code? --Auntof6 (talk) 07:34, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we need to distinguish set indices either, so I added your new code but omitted the details for that. The only thing that I wasn't sure about was the categorisation by namespace. At the moment, all mainspace disambiguation pages get put into Category:Disambiguation. In the sandbox version, they're split off into Category:All article disambiguation pages. Since we don't actually have any disambiguation pages outside the namespace I wasn't sure whether you wanted me to include that change...(?) Osiris (talk) 08:12, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Um, I guess I would leave it the way we've always had it. If we ever split the dabs into categories, we could revisit that. Thanks for making the changes! --Auntof6 (talk) 11:00, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Categories

I think we have a problem with over-splitting of categories, mostly by users who have little experience of our wiki. We have our general agreement not to carry this sort of thing so far as English wiki, but still new categories are being put up in droves. This does not help biographies in particular, which now are collecting a host of categories of marginal usefulness. I would put this matter right by stopping new users putting up categories except via one of our admins. Or, second best, extend rapid deletion of categories for which a good case has not been made. Handling this by means of the RfD page is not going to work when there are so many to deal with. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:24, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. There are a few areas where I think we're over-categorized, such as several of the movie categories. Sometimes people seem to think the three-entry rule means you must create a new category when there are three entries. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:05, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Protection level not correctly shown

If I visit Template:Sister, I get a "view source" tab, not a "change this page" tab, If I click that, I get the message "This page is currently semi-protected and can be changed only by autoconfirmed users." - but there are two problems with this. One is that I am autoconfirmed (unprotected pages show a "move" tab); the other is that the page isn't semi-protected - the page logs show that it is actually fully-protected. The message about semi-protection is in MediaWiki:protectedpagetext - please could this message be fixed? --Redrose64 (talk; at English Wikipedia) 09:35, 5 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

 Fixed. Thanks for the notice! Osiris (talk) 10:27, 5 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

VisualEditor on 24 September

Greetings! I am posting to let you know about the VisualEditor editing interface. It is a new, visual way to edit Wikipedia. We would like to deploy VisualEditor on this Wikipedia soon, and we would like to get editors' opinions on the new platform.

To test VisualEditor, you can enable it by going to "Preferences" "Editing" → "Enable VisualEditor". After doing this, you will see two options for editing an article. We welcome your feedback, and would like to know about any problems or "bugs" experienced on ???.wiki. It is also important that VisualEditor's buttons and labels are translated into as many languages as possible, along with several important help documents. If you have skills in other languages, you can help out at Translatewiki.net and VisualEditor's TranslationCentral on mediawiki.org. You must have an account on Translatewiki.net to translate.

We expect to enable VisualEditor here on Tuesday, 24 September unless there any critical bugs with your particular Wikipedia that you find during testing. Enabling VisualEditor here for everyone will help the software to be developed and improved to meet the needs of all users. After the rollout the new editor will be displayed side-by-side with the button to edit using wikitext. Once VisualEditor is enabled you will have the option to disable it in your preferences so that you will no longer see it while it is in beta testing. We hope that you do not chose to do that because it would limit the opportunities to find out how we can make VisualEditor better for the Simple English Wikipedia. The option to edit using wikitext will not be going away. Thank you for your comments, and happy editing, Keegan (WMF)(talk) 21:00, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Racepacket's unblock request

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not change it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No more changes should be made to this discussion.

Racepacket remains blocked indefinitely. A minimum of one year is to pass until another appeal can be filed. Osiris (talk) 20:46, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Racepacket (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is appealing to the community to life his ban.

It has now been 18 months. I continue to offer my technical background, experience of wikimarkup langauge, and a spirit of good will to build the Simple English Wikipedia. Not that the dispute on EN Wikipedia has any relevance to my block here, but two of the sysops involved in the dispute over there have been desysoped, and one was admonished. Otherwise I continue to participate in my local chapter and work to advance the open access to knowledge movement. Thank you in advance for your consideration. Racepacket (talk) 03:58, 6 September 2013 (UTC) [71]

Previous appeals were made in February 2013 and April 2013. Please make it known whether you support or oppose an unblock. Osiris (talk) 06:29, 7 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Responses: To Macdonald-ross, I would note that the articles that were later found to be "too complex" were reviewed and cleared by another editor as "simple" before moving into article space. I have always been open to correction and instruction. Nor was it the case of my articles been on "too technical" topics. I would encourage you to compare my deleted version of Island of stability with the current version. Many of the deleted articles were added during the Big Airport Weekend on airports. Those articles involved simple English prose, but included data in tables or lists that drove up the simplification ratings. Similarly, because the chemistry articles included long technical terms, their ratings when up. In many cases, the article topic came from a "Vital article" list or the Translation of the week.

To Curtaintoad, I ask you to revisit the issue that drew your comment. One reason given during the last two unblock discussion was that certain IP addresses on EN were blocked for expressing views (similar to my own) that the sport of netball is not an "Olympic sport" played in the Summer Olympic Games. (The International Olympic Committee and international press agree on this fact.) These IP addresses are located across the United States. So, whenever an IP address tries to correct an article that claims that netball is played in the Olympics, the location of the IP is misdiscribed as my location, no Checkuser study is conducted, and that false assumption is used to argue against my return to Simple.

Again, I have made my request in good faith, and I trust that it will be considered on that basis. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 08:21, 8 September 2013 (UTC) [72]

That's another appeal that Racepacket has posted on his talk page. --~ curtaintoad ~~ talk ~ 08:27, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. I shall oppose on the grounds that his actions as a content editor were extremely damaging to us. He has never acknowleged this, nor promised to reform. I have explained before that no-one in the history of this wiki has put up such unsuitable pages, and been so completely resistant to all attempts to get him to change his ways. He imported many highly technical pages without simplification. Most were listed for deletion, but he fought this tooth and nail. His pages on chemistry were an absolute disgrace. They were completely incomprehensible, and not simplified. His behaviour suggests that he does not accept our general remit as Simple. Yes, actually, that was not what he was banned for. But consider this: if he was a dreadful editor as well as the behaviour for which he was banned, how much the more should we beware of him. You will notice that his application does not include a full apology for all his past errors and a promise never to offend again. He was a constant, constant problem as an editor, and would be again if readmitted. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:45, 7 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I wasn't there when he did get blocked but I agree with Macdonald as I checked his contributions. Reception123/Receptie123 (talk) 07:48, 7 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. That unblock request portrays a sense of arrogance. Mac also sums it up pretty well. Chenzw  Talk  08:18, 7 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Comments like this are just inappropriate. You can't just go to a trustworthy candidate that may as well be trusted on another WMF site and say something like "this is incorrect" or going rude towards the user. Also, if you're going to say something like the one at the top of this section, you probably can't pass that question. FMI, this question is one that you didn't pass. You can't say something like "please unblock me, I will try to make good changes" because you had the chance to make good contributions before you got blocked. Please don't blame us, because many of us have sent you enough warning messages regarding vandalism, but you just continued the disruption. If you want to continue making contributions to this site, the answer is just going to be "tricky". I'm sorry, but this is just how discussions like this are. --~ curtaintoad ~~ talk ~ 08:58, 7 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per my comments last time, and per lack of clue as to why they were banned the first time, and per Mac. --Rschen7754 16:31, 7 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose pretty much per all. The user is a net-negative to the project; their unsimplified contributions have always been a drain on the project, and we're better off without them. The user has shown no willingness to learn from their mistakes or work with others when the issue has been raised. Additionally, as noted above, the tone of the unblock request is really not a good sign that the user has reformed, the same for other comments that have been made both recently and in the past. No thank you. Goblin 17:27, 7 September 2013 (UTC) I ♥ Mh7kJ![reply]
To Bluegoblin7, I have worked well with other editors on several of the Big Weekend projects, new changes patrol, and with various mentors who reviewed by individual articles before they were moved into main article space. I continue to be open to advice and correction on the simplification process. The block at issue here was for an intemperate remark in an edit summary. Usually, such blocks can be undone by a single admin at the end of the specified period, but the blocking admin said that it would be "subject to community discussion", so we are here again after the prior two discussions ended with "no consensus." Thanks. Racepacket (talk) 15:37, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose yet again. And, a firm minimum time period is in order. Six months seems short to me. We have wasted enough time and attention here. Gotanda (talk) 13:07, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm probably not going to voice an opinion about this. But as I mentioned to Racepacket on his talk page, this is the third time we've had to discuss this matter in six or seven months. I suggest that, should the appeal fail, we set a minimum time period until the next appeal can be made (similar to WP:OFFER, something like six months). Osiris (talk) 05:20, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Longer, IMO. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:23, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. After having twice closed discussions involving him, I think it is quite clear that the community wishes to have nothing more to do with this editor (indef ban). The standard offer doesn't apply as strongly anymore. A year or two hold on unblock (unban) requests would be good better. Chenzw  Talk  08:46, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
 (change conflict)  Oh, I didn't manage to see the part about the standard offer. I have reworded my above statement accordingly. Chenzw  Talk  09:02, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Still disagree per above comments and previous two discussions that other candidates opposed. Racepacket may also re-appeal his ban after it expires if necessary. --~ curtaintoad ~~ talk ~ 09:01, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Racepacket's ban does not expire... Chenzw  Talk  09:03, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good to me. I don't care how long, just as long as it's at least six months. These unban discussions for the same editor are getting tiresome. Osiris (talk) 09:18, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I would also agree with the six month requirement. --Rschen7754 18:05, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for the same reasons I have the last few times. I would also suggest a bare minimum he be allowed to appeal after 1 year. If 3 requests in the last few months hasn't even remotely came close to a consensus I can't see anything changing in only 6 months. -DJSasso (talk) 01:37, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose - Like Reception, I wasn't here yet when he was active or blocked. But just looking at Mac's statement, all the problems on his talk page and simplification issues is enough to oppose without second thoughts. (✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎) 02:58, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Unless anybody has any further comments I think this can be closed with the decision for the ban to remain in place indefinitely, as before, with a minimum of one year until it can be appealed again. Osiris (talk) 17:51, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not change it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No more changes should be made to this discussion.


Hmm...I noticed that we are missing this. It probably would be a good idea to have featured pictures on our main page. (✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎) 06:35, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's about time this came around again. We don't allow local uploads so Featured Pictures is a bit pointless as we're only ever drawing from Commons. Additionally, our community processes (DYK, PGA, PVGA) are already stretched - we don't need yet more. Goblin 07:19, 10 September 2013 (UTC) I ♥ Jersey![reply]
I completely agree with Bluegoblin. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:27, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What Auntof6 said. The rationale for doing it is just not good enough at this time to justify the community workload. --LauraHale (talk) 07:55, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we're not going there. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:01, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Then this brings about my 2nd question after reading Goblin's statement. Why aren't local uploads allowed? (✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎) 00:16, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The storage for Wikipedia files is Wikimedia Commons, not Wikipedia. Not having files here helps keep things simple. We allow only files that are specific to Simple English Wikipedia, such as voice recordings of articles from here and the Simple English Wikipedia logo. --Auntof6 (talk) 00:29, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In addition to the above, it also again comes down to manpower. In this case, we barely have the ability to make sure that all of our articles are in tip-top condition, and policing uploads would be yet another job for our small community. If a picture is useful it can go to Commons and be used everywhere. Goblin 02:50, 11 September 2013 (UTC) I ♥ Yottie![reply]


Category:Deaths by country

In the spirit of the recently passed rfd at Wikipedia:Requests for deletion/Requests/2013/Category:Deaths by city, I propose that Category:Deaths by country and its subcategories not be generally used for individual deaths. I will start the discussion at Category talk:Deaths by country. Please respond there. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:25, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So far, the discussion is running 2 to 1, in favor of the proposed change. More comments are welcome. --Auntof6 (talk) 03:35, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There have been no further comments since my note above. I plan to have this open for at least a week, which means two more days. If there are no further comments, I plan to make the proposed change. --Auntof6 (talk) 17:07, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, it was already a week, so apparently, I can no longer do artithmetic. :) There are now four people in favor and one against, so I am proceeding with the change. Thanks to all who commented. I will leave a notice on the talk pages of the two users I know of who created most of these categories, User:TDKR Chicago 101 and User:Jim Michael, letting them know. I will put a note on each "Deaths in X" category that doesn't end up deleted, explaining that it should not be used for individual people. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:50, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Toboar

Hi everyone. I'm Toboar. i was banned a few years back for vandalism and sockpuppets. I'm sorry for the inmmature behavior. I am now starting college and I'm much more mature now. I'm not asking for my ban to be lifted. I had to make this apology because how badly I handled this. I'm sorry to everyone in general affected by this and I'm sorry to Barras personaly.

Reading scores

I put the article Jumbo up for VGA. I want to run it through the reading levels scores. How do I do that? Thanks! Oregonian2012 (talk) 01:39, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There are two links on my page under "Stuff", which always gives somewhat different scores. The metrics are only valid for more or less continuous prose. General articles should be 60+ in the Flesch range; 70 is ideal. Technical articles sometimes struggle to get to 50+. Both programs also report in grade levels. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:05, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Macdonald-ross. I'm using these tests. Oregonian2012 (talk) 16:04, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Question related to this: I ran Para-alpine skiing through one of those reading level scores and got a score of 65.14 and Flesch-Kincaid of 8.45. Given the medical parts and technical sport parts, is this score in the realms of what I should be working towards? --LauraHale (talk) 06:36, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes! I note a few long sentences in the intro which might also be edited with benefit. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:22, 13 September 2013 (UTC) And see my later comments on the PGA page. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:10, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
In addition to Readability of Wikipedia, mentioned above, is this one from Readability-Score.com. The advantage is you can edit text on the fly. With each change you see your readability score. Just stop typing and the new score appears on the right. You can see the effects of breaking down longer sentences, rephrasing, and word substitutions. You can even find circumstances where adding text will raise your readability score. Rus793 (talk) 21:53, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't find a good list of links to readability calculators in Simple Wikipedia. Oregonian2012 apparently couldn't find one either. So I created a list at Wikipedia:Aids for Writing Simple English.
I hope this will reduce the number of times people are forced to say "The routine you are using for readability is giving you incorrect scores".(a)
Please tell me if there is a better page for such a list. --DavidCary (talk) 22:05, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Reading scores may be a good measure to score the readability of basic literary texts, but they fail miserably when it comes to scientific texts. A completely different problem comes form wanting an automated score calculation. TO the best of my knowledge, as of today there is no way to make a machine "understand" a text reliably; other than relying on measures such as sentence length and word occurrence. Unfortunately, you cannot reduce a domain-specific vocabulary to 5.000 to 10.000 English words which are also easy to understand, and replacing one word with another is often not an option, if you do not want to lose the very specific meaning of that particular word. So, we have a middle ground which consists in trying to explain the specific terms used; but this does not make them disappear. The difficult task is finding a balance between long-winded explanations some readers do not need, and the often short, snappy style without explanations. Yes, I know thats probably not what you want to hear, but those are the options out there. --Eptalon (talk) 14:10, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

List of colors, change into sortable wikitables proposal

In the pages of colors the comparison charts have no specific order. It is not sorted by ABC, Hex codes, Red, Green, Blue, Hue, Sat, or Lum. Plus you can not sort it by any of the orders listed above. For example the Baby Blue chart in the article Baby blue. The default order is the order already in the comparison charts. If you want to do this proposal you must use the layout and converter I used for here and at the List of colors article for consistency. The URL for the converter is http://serennu.com/colour/hsltorgb.php . If you want the full row to be color you can remove the color section and do this. 


|source

|- style="background:#123456"

|name

|hexcode

This what we use currently:

Light Bubbles (Bubbles Light (Xona.com Color List)) (Hex: #F5FFFF) (RGB: 245, 255, 255)
Bubbles (Xona.com Color List) (Hex: #E7FEFF) (RGB: 231, 254, 255)
Beau Blue (Plochere) (Hex: #BCD4E6) (RGB: 188, 212, 230)
BABY BLUE (www.99color.net) (Baby Blue (Maerz and Paul)) (Hex: #89CFF0) (RGB: 137, 207, 240)
Baby Blue Eyes (Plochere) (Hex: #A1CAF1) (RGB: 161, 202, 241)
Little Boy Blue (Pantone TPX 16-4132) (Hex: #6CA0DC) (RGB: 108, 160, 220)

And this is the proposed layout.

Name Color HEX Code Red Green Blue Hue Sat Lum Source
Light Bubbles #F5FFFF 245 255 255 180* 100% 98% Xona.com Color List
Bubbles #E7FEFF 231 254 255 183* 100% 95% Xona.com Color List
Beau Blue #BCD4E6 182 212 230 246* 46% 82% Plochere
Baby Blue #89CFF0 137 207 240 199* 77% 74% www.99color.net
Baby Blue Eyes #A1CAF1 161 202 241 209* 74% 79% Plochere
Little Boy Blue #6CA0DC 108 160 220 212* 62% 64% Pantone TPX 16-4132

24.218.110.195 (talk) 22:46 19 September 2013 (UTC) 6:46pm 09/19/2013 EDT.

I guess there could be some advantage to this. What exactly does the converter do -- take the code in the form we use now and produce the new code? I'd be concerned if the converter was needed after all the articles are changed -- I never trust that such tools will be maintained, especially if they're on an unknown site. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:05, 22 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
My ip address has been reassigned and im editing pages from the same same computer computer at the same same place its just that the ip address has been reassigned. I use the converter to get the HSL values, which is missing the the current comparison charts. Tell some other users to see what they think. The proposal design shown above is what I think it should look like.Some users might think that the whole row should be color. 107.3.117.228 (talk) 01:12 24 September 2013 (UTC) 9:12pm 09/23/2013 EDT.
The only way I'd have to tell other users is by posting here, which you've already done. Please don't put bold text in the heading -- that kind of formatting in headings causes display problems for some users.
Don't be too worried that there haven't been other replies here -- it has been less than a week since you posted this and sometimes people get busy with real life. I don't think this is the kind of thing that anyone would have strong objections to, so you could always just go ahead and make the change -- we call that being bold. My only real concern is needing to use an off-wiki tool to get some of the values, but I suppose they could just be left blank. --Auntof6 (talk) 01:57, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I just left a notice for Kidlat since he/she is the editor who works on most of these articles regularly. Osiris (talk) 03:25, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Some users might want to sort it by rainbow (Hue) by Gray to color (Sat) or Black to White (Lum) that's where the HSL values come in. 107.3.117.228 (talk) 22:02 24 September 2013 (UTC) 6:02pm 09/24/2013 EDT.

Convert module

As many of you will know, early last year we finished importing all of the functional subtemplates of en:Template:Convert. We currently have around 3,000 of these templates, most of which are not used but are essential to support the multitude of potential combinations of values. Now, Johnuniq and WOSlinker have finished developing a Lua module for this network of templates, and users on enwiki are getting ready to implement it in October. Once it is done, the 3,000 wikitext-based templates will be replaced by about 4 to 6 gigantic module scripts.

The modules have already been tested, and have been successfully implemented on the Bengali Wikipedia. I asked here about whether we at simplewiki should consider switching to modules as well. Wikid77, who is one of the users who developed and maintained the templates, believes that if our current setup works fine we should leave it alone. However, the stated disadvantages of using modules don't seem to apply as readily to our project. Every change made to the Module:Convert page will add all of the pages using it to the job queue; on enwiki that's 560,000 pages, but here it's less than 7,000. We use just over one quarter of the convert templates we have.

The main stated advantages are to do with performance. However, for our purposes, the main advantage that I am seeing is that we'll be able to see, clearly, when updates are made and glitches are fixed. We have way more convert subtemplates than enwiki does. That's because we've imported them over a long period of time, which means that we have older templates that have been moved or deleted on enwiki and we can't get rid of them here without going through all 3,000 in search of coding updates that allow those actions. Additionally, every now and then a combination of values will be used that results in a red link, and we will no longer be able to rely on enwiki to fix it. By switching to a handful of modules we will be able to clearly see updates and maintenance fixes. Osiris (talk) 00:31, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If there have been no major problems with the new modules, I think we should go ahead. Apart from importing the modules, what other changes do we need to make, if any? Chenzw  Talk  03:00, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hopefully none. There are a few possible problems that they've identified, and some of them will require manual adjustments to the transclusions should they pop up here. Any errors that are revealed should show up in maintenance categories, although it may take a while for the job queue to catch up. Osiris (talk) 05:20, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We would also need to add support for Lua would we not? I am not super knowledgeable but I seem to remember that a bunch of stuff had to be done to en.wiki to even support Lua. Is that the case? If not I say go for it for sure. Actually I probably say go for it anyways but I think there is probably more to it than simply adding the modules. -DJSasso (talk) 11:40, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The wiki has support for Lua scripting already, but do we need any prerequisite modules for this? Not really a big issue, but wanted to bring this up so that we remember to import any prerequisites as well. Chenzw  Talk  11:43, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, I'm pretty sure it's independent. Osiris (talk) 11:45, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, we're now using the modules. They've replaced all of the transclusions of the main template, and I'm in the process of reworking some cases where the subtemplates are being used directly. If anyone notices any errors or strange results, please let me know. Osiris (talk) 00:58, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox NFL team not working right

Would someone take a look at this template? It's putting the home field info at the left side of the page outside the box. For an example, see Baltimore Ravens. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:20, 22 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It also seems to be putting an empty box inside the main box, near the top. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:25, 22 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. The first issue is caused by the <nowiki></nowiki> tags. Remove them and it should be fine. The box is there for images, and I'll fix that up now. Osiris (talk) 01:49, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox NFL player is also needing fixed. The Career section looks like it is supposed to show first and last teams but doesn't. Couldn't see where to delete it from the Template. This one had <nowiki></nowiki> tags but removing them messed with formatting. Thanks! --Tbennert (talk) 05:58, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
K, that one needed updating anyway. Also: welcome back, Tbennert! Osiris (talk) 07:44, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Hoping to be on more often. --Tbennert (talk) 02:21, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Request for consultation on this community logo

First, I’d like to apologize for the English. If you can, please help to translate this for other members of your community.

The legal team at the Wikimedia Foundation would greatly appreciate your input on the best way to manage the "community logo" (pictured here) to best balance protection of the projects with community support. Accordingly, they have created a “request for consultation” on Meta where they set out briefly some of the issues to be considered and the options that they perceive. Your input would be invaluable in helping guide them in how best to serve our mission.

Thank you! --Mdennis (talk) (via the Global message delivery system). 03:09, 24 September 2013 (UTC) (wrong page? You can fix it.)[reply]

Don Giovanni at GA and eventually at VGA

The project doesn't have an opera in the VGA archives and I am willing to work on Don Giovanni to get it there. IMHO, we need some classic operas and ballets in the VGA archives and in the rotation on the Main Page. I need suggestions for improvement. I'm thrilled to report that the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease is 63.2 and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level is 6.8. The Average Grade Level is 7.2. Actually I think the article grades high because of the polysyllabic Italian words in the article. However, I can't see ridding the article of the few that are there. I need help deciding what to include in the article. I don't think the article at Simple needs long lists of aria and ensemble titles in Italian. But if this is something the article needs, it wouldn't be a problem adding it. I need your input on this. At Simple, the Italian should be kept to the essential minimum to maintain the Reading Ease. I'm not sure our readers need an "Orchestration" section though both paper encyclopedias and enwiki have this sort of section. This is why I need your help. What should I include and what should I leave out to get this through GA and VGA? I want to produce a good, simple, interesting, informative article for our 21st century readers, but I don't have a model. Thanks for your help! Oregonian2012 (talk) 02:33, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

semi-protecting

I think we should do more semi-protecting of pages with a high level of vandalism. I've just reverted yet another silly (but not offensive or really disruptive) change on Ancient Egypt. I know there are many other pages which kids simply can't leave alone... Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:18, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That page is certainly not a high level of vandalism. Yes it had a little spurt recently but the last 50 edits of any kind go all the way back to February so hardly a highly edited page. We are an open wiki that anyone can edit. Protecting pages is a very last resort thing we do when simply reverting or blocking isn't working. At this point I would say reverting is working. We haven't been unable to keep up. Its reverted shortly after its done. -DJSasso (talk) 16:10, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Rebel groups by area or by religion?

Hello,

just a quick question: I have introduced the categories Category:Rebel militia groups in Asia and Category:Rebel militia groups in Africa, to provide a geographical separation of the Category:Rebel militia groups. So far two Irish, and two Armenian rebel groups remain in the parent category. I have also found that we have a category Category:Islamic terrorism which lists some other groups, but which is rooted differently.

Would it make sense to unite the two hierarchies in some way? --Eptalon (talk) 09:14, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Probleblly linked to that: Probably, there are christian groups which are fundamentalist, and which resort to violence. Can we find at least three of them, so we can create a category "Christian religious violoence", or some such? --Eptalon (talk) 09:44, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think there are probably few enough that we can keep location and religion separate for the moment. Getting a category for Christian terrorism is probably a good idea. We've got National Liberation Front of Tripura, Lord's Resistance Army and possibly Ku Klux Klan? Osiris (talk) 09:55, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have created/added a category "Christian terrorism", moved the three articles there, and created a short article Christian terrorism. --Eptalon (talk) 15:02, 28 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

VisualEditor update

I wanted to tell you that the engineering department is hosting two office hours this week to discuss VisualEditor. The first of these will be held on Monday, 30 September, at 1700 UTC. The second will be held on Wednesday, 2 October, at 0000 UTC. Please join as Product Manager James Forrester discusses VisualEditor and upcoming plans. Logs will be posted on meta after each office hour completes. (If office hours are heavily attended, it can be difficult to get to all questions, but if you want to ask a question and cannot attend or do not speak English, please let me know your question at my talk page by [when] and I will present it among possible discussion topics.)

I also just wanted to remind you that VisualEditor is scheduled to deploy on this project on Monday 30 September. Please help us improve this project by tracking issues in Bugzilla and sharing your feedback at the English Wikipedia feedback page or the MediaWiki feedback page. If you notice major issues impacting your project, we would appreciate it if you could let us know directly. Please leave a note on my talk page or reach out to James Forrester, the Product Manager, at mw:User talk:Jdforrester (WMF).

Thanks! Keegan (WMF) (talk) 19:55, 28 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

English Wikipedia

Has somebody changed english Wikipedias properties. I tried to make new article but Wikipedia just allowed me to make request for new page. 193.166.73.183 (talk) 08:59, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is not English Wikipedia, but rather the Simple English Wikipedia. This project allows creation of pages by unregistered users unlike the main English Wikipedia. --Glaisher [talk] 09:02, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Is creation of pages disabled in English WP 143.51.145.5 (talk) 11:19, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If I remember correctly, creation of pages has always been disabled on English WP for anonymous users. Please create an account if you wish to contribute over there. Chenzw  Talk  11:56, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not "always", but for many years (2003? 2005?). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:53, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Special pages -- refreshed less often now?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T55227

Has anyone else noticed that some special pages (such as Special:WantedCategories) aren't being updated as often as they used to be? It used to be every 3 or 4 days or so, but now it looks like it's once a month. Does anyone know where I can find info about this? --Auntof6 (talk) 13:43, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's been reported on Bugzilla. Link right. Osiris (talk) 14:35, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! --Auntof6 (talk) 22:21, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Stub categories

Are the articles in the Category:Stubs supposed to be seperated into the various Category:Stub categories whenever possible? Why aren't they automatically added to Category:Uncategorized stubs? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.6.124.31 (talk • contribs) 19:11, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If there's a category that is immediately relevant to the article, then yes, they should be sorted. But Category:Uncategorized stubs is not a stub category. Category:Stubs is the category for unsorted stubs. Osiris (talk) 22:11, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Just to give a little more explanation, Category:Uncategorized stubs is for stub articles that don't have "regular" categories assigned. (Stub articles should have regular categories just like any other article.) To get into this category, the category has to be added directly to an article. It's better to add a more meaningful category instead of this one, but this one can be used if someone doesn't know what category(ies) to use. --Auntof6 (talk) 22:27, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Looking through the main category. Any chance someone could create stub templates for the following subjects:
  • Africa
  • Financial/Money
  • Cartoon/Comics (for comic books, comic strips, the like)
  • Languages/Linguistics (for languages, grammer terms, letters of the alphabet, etc.)
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.7.227.224 (talk • contribs) 1:07, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
Requests for new stub types should be brought up at Wikipedia talk:Simple Stub Project. Read through previous discussions there to get an idea of what we want before creating new stub types. If you think these categories fit our criteria, then go ahead and propose them. --Auntof6 (talk) 01:26, 5 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Will someone please move the following articles out of the user's subpages?

76.7.227.224 (talk) 14:09, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Why should they be moved? If you think they should be merged into the articles, you can do that yourself. If you think they need to be deleted, you can nominate them for deletion. Only (talk) 14:20, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Didn't notice that they were already articles. These pages have been redirected. 76.7.227.224 (talk) 14:36, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have undone your redirects. We do not allow for Cross-namespace redirects (i.e. redirecting user pages to article pages). These are articles the users put in their space to try to fix for some reason or another. They should not be redirected. Since these pages have not been touched in a couple of years (minus your stub/category edits to them this week), you can consider nominating them for deletion since we do not usually allow things like that to sit in someone's user space forever untouched. Only (talk) 14:53, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Nominations for deletion performed. 76.7.227.224 (talk) 15:14, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And I have declined the QDs. Being a test page is not a QD criterion, not to mention that these are in userspace. You can nominate them at WP:Requests for deletion, although it would be good citizenship to try to contact the creators first. --Auntof6 (talk) 01:25, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Simple_talk/Archive_107&oldid=8892895"