Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 113

Edmonton, Alberta

The Edmonton article on en.wiki doesn't have the ", Alberta" part. It looks like the simple version was created in 2004 with it. I was wondering if the article should be renamed. 64.6.124.31 (talk) 15:55, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Probably best to leave it alone, as there's no real problem, and simple "Edmonton" redirects there. We don't always have identical titles to En wiki. There are a number of other uses of the place name "Edmonton", and they, too, have bracketed lables. The primary one is the place Edmonton, north of central London. It is on the old Ermine Street, the main Roman road from London through Lincoln to York. Edmonton appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, and other uses seem to come from this source. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:39, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Help for hawk, please

Apart from its introduction and infobox, the whole hawk page seems to be about the red-tailed hawk, which already has a page of its own. What should I do about the stuff that is in the wrong place? Cut-and-paste it across? Delete it and leave a note on the red-tail's talk page, so that people can find it to pick the good bits? Is there a special way to merge that keeps the history? Any advice would be appreciated. Pelagic (talk) 10:04, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the note. I'll fix the page later today. I have cleaned up many bird pages, but this one escaped notice. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:22, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Allied Occupation Zones in Germany

Hi, all. I just marked as patrolled American occupation zone, a new history stub, about ... well, the American Zone during the post-World War II occupation of Germany by the Allies. So here's my question:

• My first inclination was to tag it for merger into the article Allied Occupation Zones in Germany. That's how it works on enwiki, with each of the four zone names a redirect-to-section.
• However, to pick some relevant counterexamples, dewiki, frwiki, nlwiki and ruwiki all have five separate articles: a general article on the occupation and separate articles on each zone. So that makes me think we should keep these separate.
• We have articles on the British occupation zone and Soviet occupation zone, both of which have been around for a while, and both of which are a little more developed than the one on the American Zone. We have no article on the French Zone.

My current thought is to leave the separate articles alone, although possibly changing their names to the more formal "[blank] Zone of Occupation." But I wanted some separate advice on this. Thanks. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:03, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

IMO best to keep as is, since the subarticles are well developed. Use the main article for an overview/summary, add something on the French zone, job done. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:16, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Proposal: Database reports

Hello, I am here to propose generating database reports for this wiki as some of it is crucial in the maintenance of this wiki. Have a look at the English Wikipedia for an example and the implementation I have had on the Simple English Wiktionary. May I get the community's input on:

• Whether this proposal is feasible
• Whether it is possible to get a bot flag for User:HydrizBot to run these database reports
• What kind of reports that the community wants/badly wants.

I did a test edit on Templates without TemplateData. Other than the edit being made while not logged in, it is working fine so far. Thank you! --Hydriz (talk) 03:22, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

This looks very helpful! Did you have to do much customization to get them to work here? I could definitely think of some reports that could be helpful. I notice that there's some overlap with the reports at Special:SpecialPages -- not a problem, though, especially where these reports have additional info and/or are sortable. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:35, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Not much, the algorithm is the same, only the database name and the URL to the API was changed. There is some overlaps with the reports given in the special pages, usually its just for testing purposes. It is fine to not generate them if they are not needed. Thanks! --Hydriz (talk) 05:01, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Ping: Any comments on this proposal? --Hydriz (talk) 03:32, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

┌─────────┘
To answer your original questions:

• Feasibility: I don't know what's involved in running these or maintaining the software that does it, so I can't answer this.
• Bot status: this would be requested at Wikipedia talk:Bots.
• What reports: Would we choose from what's shown on the enwiki page, or can we suggest other things? I assume it parses a database dump, is that right?

--Auntof6 (talk) 05:22, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Right now, the bot queries the live database that is replicated to Wikimedia Labs and not from a database dump (though this might change in the future). It is possible to choose what is available on enwiki and also suggest more reports. In terms of feasibility, I meant whether or not the community would benefit from these database reports. If it is not entirely beneficial, generating them would be a waste. --Hydriz (talk) 03:38, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

I think there is some useful information that could be obtained, and help direct attention to various areas needing work.--Peterdownunder (talk) 05:17, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

I have added some database reports as a test. Please do leave comments on the talk page to request for more reports. For the curious, the code that the bot runs on is available here. --Hydriz (talk) 10:24, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Hashish

The seems to be something wrong with this article. There are sections after the Addiction section but they are not showing up and I can't figure out why. 64.6.124.31 (talk) 17:52, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Fixed. The closing for a reference had a pipe instead of a slash. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:20, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Incorrect use of a pipe for Hashish? I don't know, Aunt ... StevenJ81 (talk) 13:57, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Would anyone like a medium-small cleanup project?

Take a look at Category:Articles with infobox errors. Template {{Infobox person}} puts pages in this category with a sort key of "1" when the page uses any of the following deprecated parameters: location, death_location, academyawards, emmyawards, goldenglobeawards, sagawards, tonyawards, imdbid, notable role. Since these parameters are deprecated, any information given in them is not displayed in the article.

If you'd like to help clean this up, look for articles about people in the category under sort key "1", see which of those parameters are used by the template, and remove them. Here are my suggestions for how to handle the information given in the parameters:

• location: not sure what this was -- birth location maybe? If so, add info into text if desired and not already there
• death_location: add info into text if desired and not already there
• award categories: If not too many, combine into the "awards" parameter. If there are a lot, just remove and add info into text if not already there. You could also imbed {{Infobox comedian awards}} as a module.
• imdbid: add to other-websites section if not already there
• notable role: add info into text if desired and not already there

I'll probably get to this eventually if no one else does, but I know sometimes people are looking for something to do so I thought I'd throw this out there. You don't have to do them all -- just do one or two if you want. Let me know if you have any questions. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:38, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Not for right now ... maybe later ... but did you ever figure out what was going on with that geography infobox? StevenJ81 (talk) 20:53, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

You mean the one where the URLs weren't displaying? I did all I could on it before I posted above. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:17, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

I will try to look at that url issue when I get a chance. Its a hectic week for me this week but I will see if I can find it. I am guessing its probably hidden deep template inside template inside template -DJSasso (talk) 22:13, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

We both think so, too. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:36, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Call of Duty: Black Ops II

IP user:108.20.75.47 has made several edits to this article since June 4th. Should the changes be considered vandalism? 64.6.124.31 (talk) 15:27, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #3—2015

Did you know?

When you click on a link to an article, you now see more information:

The link tool has been re-designed:

There are separate tabs for linking to internal and external pages. The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has created new interfaces for the link and citation tools and fixed many bugs and changed some elements of the design. Some of these bugs affected users of VisualEditor on mobile devices. Status reports are posted on mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.

A test of VisualEditor's effect on new editors at the English Wikipedia has just completed the first phase. During this test, half of newly registered editors had VisualEditor automatically enabled, and half did not. The main goal of the study is to learn which group was more likely to save an edit and to make productive, unreverted edits. Initial results will be posted at Meta later this month.

Recent improvements

Auto-fill features for citations are available at a few Wikipedias through the citoid service. Citoid takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. If Citoid is enabled on your wiki, then the design of the citation workflow changed during May. All citations are now created inside a single tool. Inside that tool, choose the tab you want (⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-auto⧽, ⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-manual⧽, or ⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-reuse⧽). The cite button is now labeled with the word "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽" rather than a book icon, and the autofill citation dialog now has a more meaningful label, "⧼Citoid-citeFromIDDialog-lookup-button⧽", for the submit button.

The link tool has been redesigned based on feedback from Wikipedia editors and user testing. It now has two separate sections: one for links to articles and one for external links. When you select a link, its pop-up context menu shows the name of the linked page, a thumbnail image from the linked page, Wikidata's description, and appropriate icons for disambiguation pages, redirect pages and empty pages (where applicable). Search results have been reduced to the first five pages. Several bugs were fixed, including a dark highlight that appeared over the first match in the link inspector. (T98085)

The special character inserter in VisualEditor now uses the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki can also create a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Please read the instructions for customizing the list at mediawiki.org. Also, there is now a tooltip to describing each character in the special character inserter. (T70425)

Several improvements have been made to templates. When you search for a template to insert, the list of results now contains descriptions of the templates. The parameter list inside the template dialog now remains open after inserting a parameter from the list, so that users don’t need to click on "⧼visualeditor-dialog-transclusion-add-param⧽" each time they want to add another parameter. (T95696) The team added a new property for TemplateData, "Example", for template parameters. This optional, translatable property will show up when there is text describing how to use that parameter. (T53049)

The design of the main toolbar and several other elements have changed slightly, to be consistent with the MediaWiki theme. In the Vector skin, individual items in the menu are separated visually by pale gray bars. Buttons and menus on the toolbar can now contain both an icon and a text label, rather than just one or the other. This new design feature is being used for the cite button on wikis where the Citoid service is enabled.

The team has released a long-desired improvement to the handling of non-existent images. If a non-existent image is linked in an article, then it is now visible in VisualEditor and can be selected, edited, replaced, or removed.

Let's work together

• Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
• The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, usually on Wednesday at 12:00 (noon) PDT (19:00 UTC). Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker, though. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the VisualEditor Q4 blocker project with the bug.
• If your Wikivoyage, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, or other community wants to have VisualEditor made available by default to contributors, then please contact James Forrester.
• If you would like to request the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.
• The team is planning the second VisualEditor-related "translathon" for July. Please follow this task on Phabricator for details and updates! Announcements will follow in due course.

Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

— Elitre (WMF)

10:44, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

New Wikipedia Library Accounts Available Now (June 2015)

Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL OWL says sign up today!

Today The Wikipedia Library announces signups for more free, full-access accounts to published research as part of our Publisher Donation Program. You can sign up for new accounts and research materials from:

• Taylor & Francis — academic publisher of journals. The pilot includes two subject collections: Arts & Humanities and Biological, Environment & Earth Sciences. (30 accounts)
• World Bank eLibrary — digital platform containing all books, working papers, and journal articles published by the World Bank from the 1990s to the present. (100 accounts)
• AAAS — general interest science publisher, who publishes the journal Science among other sources (50 accounts)

New French-Language Branch!

• Érudit (en Francais) — Érudit is a French-Canadian scholarly aggregator primarily, humanities and social sciences, and contains sources in both English and French. Signups on both English and French Wikipedia (50 accounts).
• Cairn.info (en Francais) — Cairn.info is a Switzerland based online web portal of scholarly materials in the humanities and social sciences. Most sources are in French, but some also in English. Signups on both English and French Wikipedia (100 accounts).
• L'Harmattan — French language publisher across a wide range of non-fiction and fiction, with a strong selection of francophone African materials (1000 accounts).

Many other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page, including an expansion of accounts for Royal Society journals and remaining accounts on Project MUSE, JSTOR, DeGruyter, Highbeam Newspapers.com and British Newspaper Archive. If you have suggestions for journals or databases we should seek access to make a request! Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team 22:08, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

We need your help! Help coordinate Wikipedia Library's account distribution and global development! Please join our team at our new coordinator signup.

This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List

Proposal to add "products" to quick-delete reason A4

I have introduced a proposal to add products to other subjects whose articles could be quick-deleted under A4 under appropriate conditions. Please see Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy#A4May2015. Thank you. StevenJ81 (talk) 23:12, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Original discussion has been closed. Consensus is "yes" to part 1, "no" to part 2. But there is still an open question as to the wording. Please see Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy#Closing discussion. Thank you. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:52, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

This discussion was closed on June 11. See Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy#A4May2015 for outcome. StevenJ81 (talk) 13:06, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

HTTPS

Hi everyone.

Over the last few years, the Wikimedia Foundation has been working towards enabling HTTPS by default for all users, including unregistered ones, for better privacy and security for both readers and editors. This has taken a long time, as there were different aspects to take into account. Our servers haven't been ready to handle it. The Wikimedia Foundation has had to balance sometimes conflicting goals.

Forced HTTPS has just been implemented on all Wikimedia projects. Some of you might already be aware of this, as a few Wikipedia language versions were converted to HTTPS last week and the then affected communities were notified.

Most of Wikimedia editors shouldn't be affected at all. If you edit as registered user, you've probably already had to log in through HTTPS. We'll keep an eye on this to make sure everything is working as it should. Do get in touch with us if you have any problems after this change or contact me if you have any other questions.

/Johan (WMF)

22:00, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Template help needed on Template:Infobox NBA team

This template seems to be leaving some stray text. You can see it at the top of the template itself, and on pages that use it, including Boston Celtics. Could someone take a look? Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:28, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I got it partway there. All of the "stray text" is now inside the infobox, as it should be. Now I can't seem to figure out how to get that bit to spread out across the entire infobox. StevenJ81 (talk) 12:42, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Just fixed it in Special:Diff/5160971. The infobox table had two columns, but the original syntax assumed that you only want the text to be in the first column. Using colspan="2" will do the trick. --Hydriz (talk) 14:52, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Ouch. Didn't put the "2" in quotes. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:02, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you! --Auntof6 (talk) 15:03, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Template:Main

See the main page: Template:Main

This template seems to be broken! It looks like it's trying to call a Lua module. This is a problem!! StevenJ81 (talk) 17:30, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

@Peterdownunder: Are you able to import the respective Lua modules from the English Wikipedia as you did for the templates? That should fix the problem. --Hydriz (talk) 21:08, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I probably broke it last night - I don't think we use the Lua modules here.--Peterdownunder (talk) 21:57, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I have reverted an import I made last night and that seems to have fixed the problem.--Peterdownunder (talk) 22:04, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Um, I thought I fixed this a little while ago by importing the modules. It was working after I imported 2 or 3 modules. Peter, your import didn't actually seem to change the template -- I tried reverting your change first, but there was nothing to revert. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:33, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

That confused me too, but I found I had to go back to the last version on Simple - so where it said I imported 5 revisions, I had to go back six steps. That was a good discovery, so I am ready for next time.--Peterdownunder (talk) 23:51, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Yeah I don't believe Lua works here as I don't think its been implemented on this wiki. -DJSasso (talk) 16:41, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Lua

What is Lua, and should we think about having it?--Peterdownunder (talk) 23:51, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

It is a scripting language and I don't know. I would have said no before because who would maintain it in our small userbase. But seeing as more and more templates on en are converting to it and we tend to use theirs we probably should. -DJSasso (talk) 02:28, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, old templates that have been here should continue to work. But anything new that relies on Lua could end up breaking things, as seems to have happened this week. The key is to look for a call of {{#invoke: ...}}, as that is what invokes a Lua module. StevenJ81 (talk) 03:46, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Lua provides performance improvements compared to using templates and should be preferred if template syntax gets too complicated. I would be glad to help out on writing Lua modules though. --Hydriz (talk) 03:55, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

What is involved - do we have the skills to implement it?--Peterdownunder (talk) 07:31, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

You will need to know how to program in Lua and understand how it is implemented within MediaWiki. It should be fairly easy for existing developers to pick up the skills needed to program in Lua, but otherwise it would be difficult to use it as a replacement of templates. Do search up the reasons Wikimedia decided to implement such an extension to MediaWiki to understand the rationale behind having Lua modules. It should be sufficient to solely import from the English Wikipedia, but we will need people to regularly check for updates on their end. --Hydriz (talk) 10:18, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

┌─────────────┘
I do see a misunderstanding somewhere. Lua is already available on this wiki (see a list). However, when importing templates from the English Wikipedia, it is also important to know which modules the template invokes and import that module accordingly. --Hydriz (talk) 10:21, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Gungnir

This article was just created a little while ago. Should it be nominated for quick deletion or tagged for cleanup? 184.2.107.214 (talk) 04:05, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Problems with cite templates

The citation templates have been producing messy output for a while (see this discussion for one place where it was discussed). I've been seeing some editors substitute the templates to make things look better. I understand wanting to have things look good, but I don't think we want to substitute these templates. The problem will eventually be fixed, and then we'll have all those places that aren't using the templates any more. I know the output looks the same and is in acceptable format, but I think we want to use the templates everywhere we can. What do others think? --Auntof6 (talk) 17:01, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

This is a big issue. No, I don't think the cite templates are good for academic references. They produce a messy, overcomplicated output. As someone who tries to make references look more readable and less threatening, I would be distressed at any attempt to force us to use them. I can't speak so much for their uses for media and web sources. I do put up some thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of academic references for natural science articles each year.
It has always been optional to use cite templates. Our real intent is to have statements backed by reliable sources. That is what's important. I don't have views as to what others should do. Anyone who prefers templates is welcome to use them. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:27, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Ban speedy deletion

I believe that speedy deletion should be removed because it gives people barely enough time to make a decison. I am trying to get rid of deletion I am just trying to get rid of deletion that is fast. If you people feel the same comment below-90.206.227.252 (talk) (this comment has been moved to this page --Peterdownunder (talk) 01:28, 5 July 2015 (UTC))

Speedy delete is a tool used by administrators to remove pages that clearly fail to meet our page rules. It can only be used in very clear cases. Where there is doubt, they article goes through a community discussion process. I have deleted over 3,500 pages - if each of these went through the rfd process, we would be swamped with articles that are usually little better than vandalism. I think our processes work. To avoid having pages deleted, make sure you read our rules first.--Peterdownunder (talk) 01:34, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I assume you're talking about our quick deletion process. Deletion doesn't have to be permanent. If you think a quickly deleted page shouldn't have been deleted, you can discuss it with the admin who deleted it or bring it up at Wikipedia:Deletion review. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:37, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

• The motive behind this is the repeated QD of Dao Ranaldo/Yung Trace (MC). Those QDs were entirely justified. If we did not have a QD system, we'ld be overwhelmed with pages for discussion at a rate of 30 to 50 a day. The suggestion is self-serving from an editor who has an interest in getting his own way on those correctly QD'd pages. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:53, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

When a page is QD'd, non-admins can't see what the content was, so there is no chance for anyone else to salvage the content by cleaning it up and/or adding material to make it clear that the subject is notable. The original nominator is not always the best equipped person to see how the value in material could be explained so that others can appreciate it. I agree with 90.206.227.252 that opening deletions for discussion is far, far, preferable. Overuse of QD leads to more edit warring than having a clear and open discussion about material. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:53, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

The Help:Notability page is relatively new, but it does help editors though the notability decision process between QD and RfD. The section 'What actions an editor can take' explains the actions an editor should take prior to requesting a delete. It applies not only to deletion requests based on notability, but to all deletion requests. The processes at simplewiki are controlled by the administrators as are any attempts to edit war. There is no reason for a lengthy discussion over articles that are clearly substandard, hoaxes, or other forms of vandalism. Besides, the nominator only nominates a page for QD, the administrators here make the final decisions and turn down those that they believe do not meet guidelines or policies. A further safeguard is found at the bottom of the Wikipedia:Deletion policy. Under the section 'Undeletion' is a link to request an undelete of a deleted page. The process works well here. User:Rus793 (talk) 15:36, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

We have QD's reversed here and sent to RfD (or just kept) often enough that I'm convinced the system works. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:46, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

My worry is that I might not notice that my work has been deleted, and if it is a QD I am unlikely to get a chance to check what was on the page; is it worthwhile to request an undelete just in case there was something precious there ...? Do the admins have time to respond to my request for an undelete? (Do I have to keep backups of my wikipedia work somewhere else? That would be hard to accomplish.) I'd like to be notified that my contribution is scheduled for destruction, and I'd like to have time to look at it to reconsider, but I'm not online continuously. My impression is that a fondness for QD is part of a general deletion-happiness that extends to other things: to rapid poorly considered changes to new material, as if "this is new, I must hit it with a stick"; to moves of redirects that are effectively deletions of the redirect. The perception of deletion-happiness here is for me an unsettling aspect of this wiki that I don't feel in the other wikis where I contribute much, much more. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:28, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm not an administrator, so I can't respond to your comments fully. I will say: For people making serious contributions to this wiki (as opposed to real vandals, spammers, self-promoters, etc.), there are pretty much two QD rules that you have to be careful of, but they are easily overcome:

• Make a credible claim of notability. If you do that, the article cannot be QD'd. And we do not construe "credible" narrowly here. Just about anything short of "because I said so" or "don't you agree she's great" will do. To say that someone was appointed second deputy treasurer of a village in France would do at the QD stage. That may not be enough to pass an RfD, but you'll at least get your chance to argue your case.
• If you are importing an article from enwiki (or translating from elsewhere) and are in the process of working on it, template it with {{Simplify}}. People will give you time to finish. Really.

Nobody is looking to delete serious contributions here. We have a couple of active editors who are a little quick on the trigger, but we are generally able to rein them in. And those editors, in turn, acknowledge their mistakes and move on. StevenJ81 (talk) 18:17, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

• Okay, I am bringing a case to you all. For examination: Nikau. For examination 2: Revision history: [1]. This article yesterday is still unpatrolled. The article simply said: meow. (Verify please in edit history). I checked Enwiki to see this could be a valid article. Being in a cute mood, I said "we can't delete an article that says meow, will create" (please see history). I did what is said to work: I placed the hallowed inuse tag on it at the time I said I would create it. (see history). I create articles in the edit window so I got into my 1st edit conflict when I realized another vandal had commented. This was at 17:12. The 'inuse' tag was still on. I made my second attempt to save at 17:15 and was edit conflicted by the admin who had placed a QD tag within that three minutes. My 'inuse' tag never left the page. Here is my conversation with said admin: [2]. My baby palm tree was going to be speedily deleted before birth by a hasty quick look and a wrong decision: QD as 'test page'. Within three minutes. All for an article that simply said 'meow'. Here is comment I made today on my talk page: I do agree it is very 'fend for oneself' here and 'contributor beware'. When you hit that save page button, it is fair game for whomever wants to mess with your mind. Hence my fiercer cat on my user page. I was frustrated beyond belief to almost lose Nikau to Quick Deletion. I should have just let it go. Wasn't my article to start with. Instead I scolded the admin. [2]. Whatever. So yes, there is too much haste here and the failsafe did not work for me. The pink QD tag advises admin to check edit history (which would have shown my comment that I would create article, and my addition of the 'inuse tag'.) Which does not seem to have been done. The article said meow. Fylbecatulous talk 20:29, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

It is unwise to put up the inuse flag if one is not working on it, but there is no need to get emotionally involved. An editor can put up the page again properly. Any deleted page can be put up again so long as it meets the usual criteria. QD does not stop any editor from doing the job better. Macdonald-ross (talk) 20:51, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

• That's a nice example. Yes, edit conflicts can be maddening, and this increases them; it is possible to completely lose one's work. I've given up sometimes rather than replicate the painful process of building material. I'm inclined to suggest that it would be nice if "new pages" were looked at in two passes, first for really offensive material, and then again for the others an hour or so after their first creation. And in case anyone suggests that the wiki would be damaged by that, I suggest that the ball is being dropped here in any case. Consider the work of this recent vandal. Their vandalism covers two pages of "contributions" and they were blocked, but their work wasn't reverted in one swoop. The first four of their changes remained for some time until I happened across one of them and cleaned up the rest. One that wasn't reverted was a massive deletion on Jessica Alba, which is linked from the main page. People, I think some priorities here are a bit amiss. The visible pages are important. Zapping a little new pages within minutes shouldn't be such a high priority. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:55, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

But I was actively working on it. I just wasn't saving along the way. I don't save as I go along, ever; because of that rapid tinkering with whatever is saved that can happen almost immediately. If an article does not land here in perfect shape, it can be altered beyond comprehension. (This appears to be part of what we are discussing here). The flag was up a little over an hour and a half. I am an editor with patroller rights and I said I was going to save the article by making it better. I probably should have marked it patrolled, but even that would not have been a guarantee. What would have been saved was 'meow'. No use whatsoever. My article was in the edit window fighting off conflicts in saving. What I have learned from this is that I am not attempting to rescue another article that I did not create. Fylbecatulous talk 21:20, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

The article at the English Wikipedia was created by a sockpuppeteer. Please see this SPI archive about it. --Bsadowski1 22:54, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

What you probably should have learned was not to edit whole articles in the edit window, either save along the way or do it on notepad. Editing large amounts in the edit window is just a very bad idea. And it is a bit silly to call that rescuing a page when it only had the word meow on it. Deleting it would have lead to no loss of content. -DJSasso (talk) 02:28, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I should also note it wasn't an admin who placed the QD tag. -DJSasso (talk) 02:46, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. So what I have actually learned is that commenting honestly on Simple in any discussion is futile. Since you are an admin, I duly accept my scolding and apologise for contributing. Fylbecatulous talk 13:23, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

You make a snotty remark about not ever saving anything again and then you act all upset when someone responds to your comment? What does my being an admin have to do with anything, you really should cool it with the Us vs. The Admins crap, we are all editors. And if you think that was a scolding you are being ridiculous. If you wanted to contribute you would have acted civilly instead of like a child. -DJSasso (talk) 18:31, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Alsatian (dog) vs German Shepherd

For what particular reason is the article named Alsatian? The article covers a topic similar to the EN article German Shepherd. On this Wikipedia, why is the article named Alsatian instead of German Shepherd? I think German Shepherd would be a better name for that Simple English Wikipedia article about a dog. Angela Maureen (talk) 22:12, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I think you're right. Go ahead and move it (or say if you'd rather someone else do the move). It's currently called "Alsatian" because that's an alternate name for the breed. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:39, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I would rather somebody else do the move Angela Maureen (talk) 01:40, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

OK, it's done. --Auntof6 (talk) 01:44, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Simplification of Notability guidelines for movies

Hi, all:

As you may recall, I have been working on simplifying the enwiki version of the notability guidelines for movies. Those are now ready for your review and comment. The draft is available at User:StevenJ81/Wikipedia:Notability (movies). Since I intend to move that page directly to Wikipedia:Notability (movies) when the time comes, I would request that you write all comments at User talk:StevenJ81/Wikipedia:Notability (movies), so that I can move that page to Wikipedia talk:Notability (movies) when the time comes. Thank you. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:45, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to create PNG thumbnails of static GIF images

The thumbnail of this gif is of really bad quality.

How a PNG thumb of this GIF would look like

There is a proposal at the Commons Village Pump requesting feedback about the thumbnails of static GIF images: It states that static GIF files should have their thumbnails created in PNG. The advantages of PNG over GIF would be visible especially with GIF images using an alpha channel. (compare the thumbnails on the side)

This change would affect all wikis, so if you support/oppose or want to give general feedback/concerns, please post them to the proposal page. Thank you. --McZusatz (talk) & MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:08, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Is "List of shows broadcast by XXX" considered to violate Wikipedia's coat rack rule if broadcast shows are syndicated and if proper references are included?

I have gone through the wiki on Wikipedia about pages that violate the coat rack rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Coatrack and the discussion on the list of shows broadcast by networks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Lists_of_programs_broadcast_by_networks.

Nowhere does discussion about list of shows state that wikipages can not exist if the network broadcasts syndicated content. I had included close to 25 references for the given article, with more to come, but the wiki admin just deleted the contents of the pages and added a redirect because they could.

Manoflogan (talk) 15:13, 27 July 2015 (UTC)ManOfLogan

1. Are you referring to something that happened on English Wikipedia, or here? This is a separate project.

   If here, could you please give an example?

2. The other rule to keep in mind about lists is this one: en:Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Stand-alone_lists#Selection_criteria. In short, a stand-alone list article where most elements of the list do not meet the notability rules, and/or lists that consist nearly entirely of red-linked articles that are not likely to be written any time soon, if ever, are not usually appropriate to keep. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:29, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

This happened on English Wikipedia. I had added close to 25 revision in the version, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_programs_broadcast_by_Zee_Zindagi&oldid=673283518. The wiki user "TheRedPenOfDoom" insists on deleting the wiki entries that others have added because it is HIS opinion that the wiki page provides no new material. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_programs_broadcast_by_Zee_Zindagi&oldid=673316739 I don't know how creating a wikipage about a list of programs broadcast by a network violates any of the aforementioned rules, even if it airs syndicated content. There are many wiki pages about networks that air syndicated content.

With respect to a standalone list criteria, most of the entries have references. See this revision as proof. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_programs_broadcast_by_Zee_Zindagi&oldid=673283518. I was going to add more but "TRPOD" has chosen to delete the entire wiki. I could revert the changes, but because the user is an admin, he/she can still lock the page making edits impossible.

If you look at TRPOD's talk page, he has been getting into edit wars with almost every body. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:TheRedPenOfDoom. I believe that this user was also banned from contributing to other topics in the past. If the "TheRedPenOfDoom" asks for more references, I can add them. I have been doing just that over time. But having him delete all the entries does not make sense.

Manoflogan (talk) 21:08, 27 July 2015 (UTC)ManOfLogan

@Manoflogan, I'm afraid we can't help you here. Simple English Wikipedia is a separate project from English Wikipedia, and we don't have much influence on what happens there. StevenJ81 (talk) 21:20, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Who would you suggest that I talk to regarding this? What resources would you suggest I use? Manoflogan (talk) 22:30, 27 July 2015 (UTC)ManOfLogan

The first place to discuss such things is normally the talk page of the page in question. Otherwise, check en:WP:Administrators' Noticeboard. BUT: With pages like this, there is often a history as to whether or not such articles are acceptable. You can check on some other article of the "List of programs broadcast by XXX" type that DOES exist, and ask someone on that page's talk page. Good luck. StevenJ81 (talk) 23:37, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

English Wikipedia is extremely slow

I am writing to report that English Wikipedia is extremely slow right now (I can not access WP:VPT), and gives an error:

"This page can't be displayed

•Make sure the web address https://en.wikipedia.org is correct. •Look for the page with your search engine. •Refresh the page in a few minutes. •Make sure TLS and SSL protocols are enabled. Go to Tools > Internet Options > Advanced > Settings > Security"

Thanks, --Jax 0677 (talk) 18:11, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

wikilinking

I have added a subsection to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Wikilinking entitled "What generally should not be linked". The section as it stood was rather general, and the subsection was needed to give more specific advice. It is based on the corresponding paragraph on English wiki. Periodically we get a flood of links which tend to devalue the links which are actually needed. This is called "overlinking", but applying that idea in practice really needed more specific guidance. What I added does not cover or affect our general policy of not having direct links between wikis. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:54, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I reverted that change, Mac. Just as you tell others sometimes, changes like that should be discussed before being made. Some of the items that were included may not be good, at least not for this Wiki. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:27, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

What does a Healthy Community look like to you?

Hi,
The Community Engagement department at the Wikimedia Foundation has launched a new learning campaign. The WMF wants to record community impressions about what makes a healthy online community. Share your views and/or create a drawing and take a chance to win a Wikimania 2016 scholarship! Join the WMF as we begin a conversation about Community Health. Contribute a drawing or answer the questions on the campaign's page.

Why get involved?

The world is changing. The way we relate to knowledge is transforming. As the next billion people come online, the Wikimedia movement is working to bring more users on the wiki projects. The way we interact and collaborate online are key to building sustainable projects. How accessible are Wikimedia projects to newcomers today? Are we helping each other learn?
Share your views on this matter that affects us all!
We invite everyone to take part in this learning campaign. Wikimedia Foundation will distribute one Wikimania Scholarship 2016 among those participants who are eligible.

More information

• All participants must have a registered user of at least one month antiquity on any Wikimedia project before the starting date of the campaign.
• All eligible contributions must be done until August 23, 2015 at 23:59 UTC
• Wiki link: Community Health learning campaign
• URL https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Evaluation/Community_Health_learning_campaign
• Contact: María Cruz / Twitter: WikiEval #CommunityHealth / email: evalwikimedia · org

Happy editing!

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:43, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Racepacket's unblock request

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

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 42 months. I continue to offer my technical background, experience of wikimarkup langauge, and a spirit of good will to build the Simple English Wikipedia. I continue to participate in my local WMF chapter and work to advance the open access to knowledge movement. For example, I could help SE adapt to Lua templates. Thank you in advance for your consideration.Racepacket (talk) 21:11, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

All needed information, links etc can be found on the last discussion that was held. -Barras talk 21:58, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Racepacket I know almost nothing about the circumstances under which you were blocked. Can you please briefly answer these questions?

1. Why were you blocked?
   • I was blocked for posting an intemperate remark particularly on an edit summary, which was subsequently oversighted.
2. What are you willing to do to lower the likelihood of anyone suggesting a block for you again?
   • I had added new articles in technical and scientific subjects, from the translation of the week and from the list of "vital articles." Each article was simplified on a user page, approved by my mentor and only then copied into article space. My mentor and I both know that the reading score of the simplified articles were high because chemical terms have words with many syllables. All of the reading scores use the length of each word or the number of syllables as a factor, but in accurate scientific articles, there is no substitute from using the proper terms. I have received many emails of encouragement since I was blocked asking me to return, and they have suggested that I stay away from scientific articles. I can work on converting templates to Lua instead. I also would propose that SE tap into Wikidata. In this way, if some Wikidata information is updated (such as the population of a nation), SE will stay up to date as well.
3. Under what circumstances would you find yourself in similar circumstances to those in which you were blocked?
   • Under what circumstances would you find yourself in similar circumstances to those in which you were blocked? - What provoked the intemperate remark was a personal attack upon me and someone luring me into discussing the one editor subject to an interaction ban from another wiki. I realize now that some people on Wikipedia try to play tricks, and I will not make that mistake again. If someone makes an unfair personal attack on me or asks me a specific question about that one editor, I will walk away.
4. What nice things can you say regarding the people who participated in previous discussions about your block?
   • Most of the people have been very nice to me and have sent me encouraging emails asking me to apply again. One time, the final vote was 5 to 3, which was very close.
5. What apology, if any, are you willing to offer to anyone?
   • I have previously apologized for anyone being offended by the edit summary. Although what I have said is true, it is not good to say it on the internet.
6. What do you think should happen when the community reviews block requests like this one?
   • The blocking administrator said that the unblock should be subject to a community discussion. If he had not done that, then any administrator could just unblock without taking everyone's time. It was a "block" and not a "community ban." On English Wikipedia, there is a "standard offer" "Apologies aren't necessary, just basic courtesy and a willingness to move forward productively." I think that SE should have a similar policy. The problem with the extensive community discussion is that most people forgot the reason for the original block. Instead of moving forward, people can get caught up in an argument over the reason for the block and then say "You should not come back because you don't understand why you were blocked."
   • Thank you for copying my answers back to the questions

Thanks for coming back, and thanks for all the positive contributions you have made to develop Wikimedia projects and uplift the community of contributors. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:39, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Update - I copied and pasted this user's answers from their userpage to here. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:53, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. Although Racepacket's indefinite block on English wiki [3] and here concerns other matters, I oppose him on the grounds that his editing is completely unsuitable for this wiki. 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) 17:35, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
• Support unblock I am satisfied with the explanation given. Three years have passed. This user has made a request, given an apology, promised change, and been thoughtful about the process. This person has a history of constructive contribution. I fail to identify any examples of long standing damage to Simple Wiki by viewing this person's edit history - they seem sincere enough in attempting to contribute, and whatever else they have done, a lot seems to me like a sure benefit. I checked the link to the 2013 unblock discussion which Barras provided. In that discussion, I found no examples of harm presented.

Overall - in Wikimedia projects it is difficult to damage projects and easy to block people again. Considering the time passed I would give this person another chance. I also think this should not be a community discussion, but more routine based on getting an apology, a promise to try to not transgress again, and the passing of time. If this person were blocked again for some reason, I would continue to give more chances based on the passing of time, just so long as the person's contributions were a net benefit. Other thoughts? More specifically - if anyone wishes to oppose, are there circumstances under which you would be comfortable inviting this person back? I am not in favor of making special exceptions or demands, but if someone has something more to ask of this person, then what would that be? And as Wiki contributors, on what basis should I be giving a comment here except based on what I can find to examine? Everything I see seems in order. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:12, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

• Support unblock - I know that I'm currently not the most active person around here and so I don't really feel very comfortable commenting on this like that. In my opinion the active (as in really active) community members should decide. However, as one of the oldies here it might be worth commenting. I know the situation back when Racepacket was blocked. I since then always wanted him unblocked here as I valued his work. The topic he's usually been editing is generally more complex than many other things. There are things one simply can't write easier. I think with some guidance he can do well here and help the project. I think it's worth trying to unblock him and see how he does. Remember, it's a wiki and blocking people again is damn easy if needed. -Barras talk 21:22, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
• Support unblock - I worked with Racepacket as a mentor for a long time, and I would be happy to see him given another chance. I would be happy to continue in that role, and to assist him in developing articles in Simple English. I know that we can not change the way he thinks, but I hope we can change the way he chooses to behave. He has made the comment that if faced with what he sees a personal attack he will not respond. I was very disappointed with his abusive comments which had him blocked previously. I would think that any further abusive comments would see him immediately blocked following our "one strike" guideline.Peterdownunder (talk) 22:33, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
• Support unblock - there is much that goes undone here because of lack of good contributors. I keep a list of undiscovered vandalism here and sometimes will repair one and give the article an extra kiss of love with a few improvements. The backlog for maintenance is in the thousands. This is not an easy wiki to be on sometimes, yet I stay very active. You are brave to want to come back even with restrictions; so I find that a promising quality. I once was given a requested opportunity to make amends for past wrongs in my real world and I believe you deserve the chance. Wishing you all the best and hope to see you soon. Fylbecat talk 12:28, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
• Comment –I only knew 'of him' at enwiki. He started there the same year I did. I'd feel a little uncomfortable voting against him as I didn't know all the details. If he can produce good articles, simplify them and is willing to start over with these restrictions, it seems worth a try. User:Rus793 (talk) 00:37, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
• Comment. I'm kind of with Rus on this. One strike, maybe first one or two contributions directly mentored by Peter and started in user space? Then I'm ok. There's enough history here that there needs to be a "short leash", if you will. I'd guess, though, that if he fails his one strike this time, people will be reluctant ever to consider another chance. StevenJ81 (talk) 18:17, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose as per Macdonald-ross' explanation. And, this, "I have previously apologized for anyone being offended by the edit summary. Although what I have said is true, it is not good to say it on the internet." is not an apology. Apologies recognize problems with one's own behavior, not just that others were offended. This shows RP still doesn't get it. Gotanda (talk) 08:23, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Gotanda I am Catholic and as such, got a lifetime of training on apologizing. I agree - an apology which expresses regret that other people took offense at one's actions is a weak sort of apology. A better apology would be "I had good intentions, and think I did the right thing, but still my actions were the cause of other people's unhappiness. Collaboration is easier when I am surrounded by peace so whenever possible I will try to bring contentment wherever I go, even if it is not my responsibility to do so" is a great general-purpose apology for anyone who did not go through apology training like Catholics do. Still, I am willing to accept any kind of apology because apologies come faster in the future when forgiveness is offered quickly and in a that respects all involved. The Inquisition did not work as intended and would not work here either - I favor taking the statement as the person wants to give it and going forward in collaboration. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:29, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

• Support unblock - I think it's time to give Racepacket another chance to help out here. Chemistry articles naturally abound with chemistry terms. Barras and I have worked well with him in the past, for example on thermochemistry. I'm willing to work with him on chemistry articles, though I'm not very active. As long as he doesn't go too fast, I think it might work out ok. --Thrasymedes (talk) 13:35, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

 Done It appears that there is a consensus to allow you to return. But with that being said, it is with a good deal of restrictions. The community has expressed that you be on a one strike type guideline should you violate any of our rules you will be immediately blocked again. I encourage you to reach out to a mentor such as Peterdownunder, and consult with him before making changes or even just asking general advise; you have been gone from simple due to this ban for some time, it will be best if you mentor with another user until such time you and the mentor believe you are ready to go at things solo. Best of luck. -- Enfcer (talk) 02:18, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

---

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.

Wikidata: Access to data from arbitrary items is coming

(Sorry for writing in English)

When using data from Wikidata on Wikipedia and other sister projects, there is currently a limitation in place that hinders some use cases: data can only be accessed from the corresponding item. So, for example, the Wikipedia article about Berlin can only get data from the Wikidata item about Berlin but not from the item about Germany. This had technical reasons. We are now removing this limitation. It is already done for many projects. Your project is one of the next ones. We will roll out this feature here on August 12.

We invite you to play around with this new feature if you are one of the people who have been waiting for this for a long time. If you have technical issues/questions with this you can come to d:Wikidata:Contact the development team.

A note of caution: Please be careful with how many items you use for a single page. If it is too many pages, loading might get slow. We will have to see how the feature behaves in production to see where we need to tweak and how.

How to use it, once it is enabled:

• Parser function: {{#property:P36|from=Q183}} to get the capital from the item about Germany
• Lua: see mw:Extension:Wikibase Client/Lua

Cheers Lydia Pintscher MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:46, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Navigation popups not working

The navigation popups tool is not working on the Simple English Wikipedia. From my (limited) Javascript knowledge it has something to do with MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition not being updated to use "ResourceLoader". See en:Wikipedia_talk:Tools/Navigation_popups#Anyone_else_getting_recent_breakage.3F and en:Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Legacy_gadgets_are_disabled. --I am k6ka ^{Talk to me!} _{See what I have done} 03:58, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Popups work just fine for me here. Try now? eurodyne (talk) 06:22, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Popups haven't worked for me here for some time now. I notice right now a couple of other gadgets aren't working for me, either (HotCat and Live Clock). I checked those on both Windows 8/Firefox and on the browser my table uses (Silk). I use Monobook. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:17, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Yesterday, HotCat stopped working for me too. I tried switching skins to no avail. It is totally not working under any circumstances. It is my favourite gadget. I am relieved to see it is not just me. I upgraded to Windows 10 and feared it might be a glitch related to that. Thanks ツ Fylbecat talk 13:42, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

HotCat quit for me also. Popups haven't been working for some time. Using Windows 8/Google Chrome/Vector skin. I also lost Twinkle/Warn some time ago. The warning box still appears, but is stuck in level 1 warnings no matter what level is selected (first). I can change the default level in preferences, but then is stuck at that level. A second PC (Windows 7/Google Chrome/Vector skin) has the same problem so it isn't just the one machine. I'm more concerned with losing Warn and HotCat than Popups. Anyone else having a problem with Warn? Any fix or adjustment I should try? User:Rus793 (talk) 14:44, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Plenty of gadgets are not being loaded due to MediaWiki 1.26 requiring gadgets to explicitly support ResourceLoader. I have edited the gadgets definition to migrate them to ResourceLoader. Since our gadgets here our version of popups and hotcat are just wrappers which load the latest version of the code from EN/commons, we should not be expecting any problems here.

I have migrated popups and hotcat so far. Please bypass your browser cache for the fixes to take effect. The rest will take some time while I locate any remaining incompatibilities/locate the latest version on their EN counterparts. Chenzw  Talk  14:56, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Popups is working for me now, thank you. --I am k6ka ^{Talk to me!} _{See what I have done} 15:45, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

The issue with "stuck" warning levels in Twinkle has been fixed. Looking forward, we should make it a priority to bring our version of Twinkle forward to match the one currently in production on EN. Problems that we have as a result of adapting our installation of Twinkle (from a base version dating back years ago):

• Missing out on a few year's worth of fixes and tweaks to the code
• Files are messed up; Twinkle and its various modules are dumped into a single file, but the individual module files such as MediaWiki:Gadget-friendlytalkback.js still exist, and are probably straight from EN (i.e. without simplewiki-specific modifications)

--Chenzw  Talk  15:50, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

@Chenzw: Thank you very, very much for fixing that! --Auntof6 (talk) 06:08, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Working fine again, thank you. User:Rus793 (talk) 17:00, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not so sure. HatCat seems to work but Popups don't. eurodyne (talk) 17:45, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

The warning levels and HotCat are working again on my system. I just turned popups on and cleared my cache. Yes, they're working too. I also remember now why I turned them off. User:Rus793 (talk) 18:18, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

No popups for me. I cleared my cache (I think) using ⌘-Shift-R, but still nothing. eurodyne (talk) 21:51, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

You have already enabled popups globally, so please don't enable the gadget over here. Chenzw  Talk  02:40, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Anti-vandalism bot

Is our anti-vandalism bot still working? We seem to be getting a lot of vandalism lately. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:55, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Never knew we had one. What's the name? eurodyne (talk) 00:34, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

I think it was User:ChenzwBot, but it looks like it hasn't done anything since May. @Chenzw: am I right that you took this function over from one of Gobby's bots? --Auntof6 (talk) 02:35, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

The bot died sometime during my hiatus. I restarted it a few days ago, so it's strange that it is not doing anything at the moment. I will go take a look at it. Chenzw  Talk  02:45, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! --Auntof6 (talk) 02:46, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

WP:AN needs some protection. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:52, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

It's already move-protected. We can't permanently protect it any more than thst, because doing so would prevent IP users from editing. The user who has been vandalizing it has been blocked, so it should be OK for now. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:51, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Populated places

I'm looking for guidance on "neighborhoods" as a kind of populated place. Now we are clear that any city on the map is notable, irrespective of its population or importance (the definition of "city" can be an issue in some countries). But we get a number of new pages pages based on neighborhoods. Mission Hills, Los Angeles, California is an example, with around 18,000 inhabitants.

This sort of thing has been discussed on En wiki without reaching consensus. I would suggest we decide neighborhoods are not notable unless they make an acceptable case for notability. That puts them on the same basis as any other topic. The same thing could apply to English villages: we have a number of those pages which do not address notability at all. That might be more controversial, because they do have a (lowly!) statuary basis. On the other hand, many villages are notable, but often our pages give no hint of this. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:27, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

No, I don't think neighborhoods should automatically be notable. But why just English villages? Was that an example for villages everywhere or is there something specific that singles out English villages? User:Rus793 (talk) 18:01, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Mac, can you point us to the relevant enwiki discussions? My only comment until I can see that is that I think we have articles on many types of these where we would be just as well off having them in a list article. I'm referring to articles that say only something like "X is a place in Y", with maybe one other piece of information (usually the population). We could easily combine such articles into lists, using tables. An example of this is the many stubs on French communes, although I know you're talking about lower-level places.

The Mission Hills article should probably be deleted as a copypaste, but it at least has a good amount of referenced information, so I don't think it's a good example of something we shouldn't keep. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:11, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

I disagree with Mac. I think formally recognized populated places are something we should include.Kdammers (talk) 15:00, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Guidance on linking

Our manual of style gives some general guidance on linking inside the wiki: [4]. However, applying those general guidelines in practice can be difficult.

English wiki's Manual of Style is the default when our own version does not cover a topic adequately, so discussing it here is relevant. On one subject, overlinking, I see it has guidance which I think would be useful here.[5] I have somewhat simplified their wording:

What generally should not be linked

Unless they are quite relevant to the article, the following are not usually linked:

• everyday words understood by most readers in context;
• the names of major geographic features and locations, languages, and religions;
• common occupations;
• units of measurement which are quite common, e.g. units relating to currency, time, temperature, length, area, or volume. If both non-metric and metric equivalents are given, as in 18 °C (64 °F), usually neither unit needs to be linked. Almost all readers will understand at least one or the other unit);
• dates. Do not link to pages that redirect back to the page the link is on

The function of links is to clarify, not emphasize: Do not create links in order to draw attention to certain words or ideas.

These guidelines would help us, I think, and could be added to our section on linking. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:26, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Comments

Since some of our audience is people who are learning English or who don't know it well, I think we should be less restrictive on this. Our readers may understand what some things are, but not recognize the English words for them. For example, if you knew a city as Firenze, would you realize that's the same as Florence? For everyday words, I see no problem with linking them if there's an article to link to (or link to Wiktionary if absolutely necessary). With places and occupations I would definitely link them. Units of measure? Since our readers come from places that use different systems, linking these can be helpful. I do agree with not linking dates: in the past, dates were linked so that software could recognize them and convert their display to the user's preference, but that doesn't happen any more.

This doesn't mean we would need an effort to find and link all such words. However, I think we serve our particular readership better if we link most of the things you list. --Auntof6 (talk) 17:49, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm pretty close to Auntof6 on this. The key is the first point: "everyday words understood by most readers in context." By the rules of this Wikipedia, I generally assume that if a word is not on at least one of the Simple English word lists, it is not understood by most readers in context. (I use the less restrictive lists like VOA to guide me here, but that's a different discussion.) I either need to rewrite to avoid words not on a list or I need to link to either an article here or a definition at SE Wiktionary.

Similarly, major geographic features/locations where we generally use Anglicized versions of names (Florence) need to be linked, and so do most occupations. Dates don't. Units of measure probably don't need to be if English and metric are both included, but I'm more agnostic on that. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:22, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Issue with "Cite This Page" Feature

Hello, I have noticed that the Cite This Page feature is showing references where a bit of information is missing:

• Wikipedia contributors, 'Conway Twitty', Wikipedia, , 20 January 2015, 05:04 UTC, <https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Conway_Twitty&oldid=4989336> [accessed 10 August 2015]

Notice that after "Wikipedia" there are 2 commas, so some information is missing. This is so for every page in the Simple English Wikipedia I have tested. Some other languages, such as Afrikaans, also have this problem: Link to an Afrikaans article

On the English Wikipedia, this says: "Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia". Some other languages, such as Russian, also have this working OK. Link to a Russian article

I suggest that either some text be added between the commas, or one of the commas be removed. Any ideas? — This unsigned comment was added by Ontytoom (talk • changes) at 16:51, 9 August 2015 (UTC).

Ontytoom (talk)

It is working now. -DJSasso (talk) 22:42, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata: Access to data from arbitrary items is here

(Sorry for writing in English)

Hi everyone,

As I have previously announced here we have now enabled the arbitrary access feature here. This means from now on you can make use of data from any Wikidata item in any article here. Before you could for example only access data about Berlin in the article about Berlin. If you want to find out more or have questions please come to d:Wikidata:Arbitrary access. I hope this will open up great possibilities for you and make your work easier. Cheers Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) 13:32, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #4—2015

Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Did you know?

You can add quotations marks before and after a title or phrase with a single click.

Select the relevant text. Find the correct quotations marks in the special character inserter tool (marked as Ω in the toolbar).

Click the button. VisualEditor will add the quotation marks on either side of the text you selected.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team have been working on mobile phone support. They have fixed many bugs and improved language support. They post weekly status reports on mediawiki.org. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving language support and functionality on mobile devices.

Wikimania

The team attended Wikimania 2015 in Mexico City. There they participated in the Hackathon and met with individuals and groups of users. They also made several presentations about VisualEditor and the future of editing.

Following Wikimania, we announced winners for the VisualEditor 2015 Translathon. Our thanks and congratulations to users Halan-tul, Renessaince, जनक राज भट्ट (Janak Bhatta), Vahe Gharakhanyan, Warrakkk, and Eduardogobi.

For interface messages (translated at translatewiki.net), we saw the initiative affecting 42 languages. The average progress in translations across all languages was 56.5% before the translathon, and 78.2% after (+21.7%). In particular, Sakha improved from 12.2% to 94.2%; Brazilian Portuguese went from 50.6% to 100%; Taraškievica went from 44.9% to 85.3%; Doteli went from 1.3% to 41.2%. Also, while 1.7% of the messages were outdated across all languages before the translathon, the percentage dropped to 0.8% afterwards (-0.9%).

For documentation messages (on mediawiki.org), we saw the initiative affecting 24 languages. The average progress in translations across all languages was 26.6% before translathon, and 46.9% after (+20.3%). There were particularly notable achievements for three languages. Armenian improved from 1% to 99%; Swedish, from 21% to 99%, and Brazilian Portuguese, from 34% to 83%. Outdated translations across all languages were reduced from 8.4% before translathon to 4.8% afterwards (-3.6%).

We published some graphs showing the effect of the event on the Translathon page. We thank the translators for participating and the translatewiki.net staff for facilitating this initiative.

Recent improvements

Auto-fill features for citations can be enabled on each Wikipedia. The tool uses the citoid service to convert a URL or DOI into a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. You can see an animated GIF of the quick, simple process at mediawiki.org. So far, about a dozen Wikipedias have enabled the auto-citation tool. To enable it for your wiki, follow the instructions at mediawiki.org.

Your wiki can customize the first section of the special character inserter in VisualEditor. Please follow the instructions at mediawiki.org to put the characters you want at the top. In other changes, if you need to fill in a CAPTCHA and get it wrong, then you can click to get a new one to complete. VisualEditor can now display and edit Vega-based graphs. If you use the Monobook skin, VisualEditor's appearance is now more consistent with other software.

Future changes

The team will be changing the appearance of selected links inside VisualEditor. The purpose is to make it easy to see whether your cursor is inside or outside the link. When you select a link, the link label (the words shown on the page) will be enclosed in a faint box. If you place your cursor inside the box, then your changes to the link label will be part of the link. If you place your cursor outside the box, then it will not. This will make it easy to know when new characters will be added to the link and when they will not.

On the English Wikipedia, 10% of newly created accounts are now offered both the visual and the wikitext editors. A recent controlled trial showed no significant difference in survival or productivity for new users in the short term. New users with access to VisualEditor were very slightly less likely to produce results that needed reverting. You can learn more about this by watching a video of the July 2015 Wikimedia Research Showcase. The proportion of new accounts with access to both editing environments will be gradually increased over time. Eventually all new users have the choice between the two editing environments.

Let's work together

• Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback. This feedback page is now using Flow instead of LiquidThreads.
• Can you read and type in Korean or Japanese? Language engineer David Chan needs people who know which tools people use to type in some languages. If you speak Japanese or Korean, you can help him test support for these languages. Please see the instructions at mediawiki.org if you can help.
• If your wiki would like VisualEditor enabled on another namespace, you can file a request in Phabricator. Please include a link to a community discussion about the requested change.
• Please file requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the styling menu in Phabricator.
• The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
• The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, usually on Tuesdays at 12:00 (noon) PDT (19:00 UTC). Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q1 blocker, though. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the main VisualEditor project with the bug.

If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

—Elitre (WMF), 22:28, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata

If you're not already familiar with how to use Wikidata, I'd like to suggest that you look into learning about it. Here is some of what it can do for us:

• Interwiki language links: Any time you create an article, category or template that also exists on another Wikipedia, you can (and probably should) create an interwiki language link for it in Wikidata (but only if it's an exact match). These links used to be stored in individual pages on each Wikipedia, but now they need to be in Wikidata. If you see any of these links in articles, categories, or templates, it's a good idea to migrate them to Wikidata. Feel free to ask for help with that if you need it.
• Retrieving basic data: Wikidata stores basic information about many different kinds of things. The information for most fields in infoboxes can be stored in Wikidata and retrieved from there. For a person, the information can include birthdate, awards the person has received, their spouse and children, schools they attended, and lots more. For each different kind of thing (person, city, company, etc.), there are different kinds of information that Wikidata can store. References for each item can also be stored.
  Getting information from Wikidata (instead of hardcoding it here) can help us keep our articles updated when it comes to information that changes over time. You can see an example of retrieving information from Wikidata in two templates that are used by our article Ramelteon. Template:Wikidata chemical formula retrieves the chemical formula from the Wikidata entry for Ramelteon. Template:Significant drug interaction retrieves information about drug interactions. If new drug interactions are discovered and entered in Wikidata, the new information will appear here without anyone having to change the article. Cool, huh? You can look at the Wikidata item for Ramelteon to see how that information is stored.

I hope we will use the information in Wikidata more and more.

There's a newsletter that gives information about Wikidata news. If you'd like to subscribe to it, go to m:Global message delivery/Targets/Wikidata (that's on Meta-Wiki) and add yourself to the list. The newsletter will be added to your talk page (or other page you specify) each time it comes out.

I now return you to your previously scheduled editing. Let me know if you have any questions. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:18, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Wiki labels & Revision Scoring as a Service for Simple English Wikipedia

Hello Simple English Wikipedia,

I apologize for my complete lack of Simple English skills. I would most welcome if my post is translated to Simple English.

So computers are very good at crunching numbers. Your average calculator can out smart you in arithmetic. However computers are terrible at pretty much in everything else. Programming computers to under take any task no matter how simple beyond computing tends to be very difficult. This is where Artificial Intelligence comes in. With Artificial Intelligence we teach computers how to solve problems without explicit programming for the solution. This is what we are doing.

We are working on a project called m:Research:Revision scoring as a service which aims to provide quality control Artificial Intelligence infrastructure for Mediawiki and Wikimedia projects. We already have our system implemented and running on Azerbaijani, English, French, Simple English, Persian, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish and Vietnamese editions on Wikipedia. We are hoping to adapt our tool to serve Simple English language as well as a number of other languages.

We are currently mainly focusing on vandalism detection where we provide an API (m:ORES) that provides scores. We have made an effort to keep our system robust.

The examples I'll provide are based on a machine learning algorithm that was trained to use 20,000 reverted edits. This is kind of modelling is problematic for two reasons. First is, there are non-vandalism related reasons for edits to be reverted such as mistakes from new users, this would develop such an unproductive bias. Second problem would be it lacks the ability to distinguish good faith users from malicious ones. To demonstrate our system I will give three examples from English wikipedia. I have picked these three semi-random.

• Score of 90% diff en:Moncef Mezghanni
  • As visible in the diff, it is clearly something that shouldn't be welcome on English wikipedia. Algorithms confidence also matches my human assessment.
• Score of 75% diff en:Monin
  • When I look at the diff it isn't immediately clear to me if this should be reverted. Detailed look reveals that prior version had more neutral information, but new version at a glance isn't exactly clear cut vandalism, albeit spammy. Algorithms confidence drops just as my human assessment.
• Score of 19% diff en:Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back
  • As visible in the diff this edit clearly improves the article. The algorithms confidence plummets as well. Algorithm is more confident that this edit should NOT be reveted.

We are also working towards a system for article quality where we use existing assessment by en:Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Teamto train our system. We only have this system on English wikipedia at the moment but we would be more than happy to expand to other language editions. I am uncertain if Simple English Wikipedia has a similar quality assessment scale. I have picked 5 random articles to demonstrate this.

• Predicted: Start class (not even assessed) Perm link en:Maidenhead Advertiser
• Predicted: Stub class (actually marked Stub class) Perm link en:Joel Turrill
• Predicted: C class (actually marked stub class) Perm link en:Kajaanin Haka
• Predicted: C class (actually marked C class) Perm link en:Castell Arnallt
• Predicted: Featured class (actually marked Featured article) Perm link en:Hurricane Diane

Typical problem is that humans typically do not re-asses articles over time or articles are never assessed in the first place. Our system circumvents this problem by automating this.

We have already gathered some language features such as bad words and informal words.

We need a localization of en:Wikipedia:Labels serving as our local landing page. After this is done, we would like to start an edit quality campaign where we request the local community to hand code/label ~2000 revisions labeling them productive/damaging and good faith/bad faith. This would be similar to the campaign on English Wikipedia en:Wikipedia:Labels/Edit quality.

After this we will be able to generate scores for revisions that is usable by gadgets such as ScoredRevisions as well as (potentially) tools like huggle. If community desires it, it can even be used to create a local vandalism reversion bot.

So in a nutshell our algorithm relies on community input to support the community. Feel free to ask any questions. Either here, on meta or on IRC on the freenode server and #wikimedia-ai channel where we hang out. You can also reach us at https://github.com/wiki-ai

-- とある白い猫 ^chi? 11:46, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Dealing with vandalism

There is an editor who keeps vandalising Triangular number. What can be done about it?Kdammers (talk) 13:15, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

How can we improve Wikimedia grants to support you better?

My apologies for posting this message in English. Please help translate it if you can.

Hello,

The Wikimedia Foundation would like your feedback about how we can reimagine Wikimedia Foundation grants, to better support people and ideas in your Wikimedia project. Ways to participate:

• Respond to questions on the discussion page of the idea.
• Join a small group conversation.
• Learn more about this consultation.

Feedback is welcome in any language.

With thanks,

I JethroBT (WMF), Community Resources, Wikimedia Foundation.

(Opt-out Instructions) This message was sent by I JethroBT (WMF) through MediaWiki message delivery. 23:08, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Patrol backlog

Calling all patrollers: we have a backlog in the article and template areas. Help would be appreciated. Please remember that before marking something as patrolled, it should be checked to be sure it's in decent shape: written in simple language, has appropriate references, is properly categorized, isn't a copyvio, etc. Whatever you do, please don't mark a page patrolled just to get it done: if you don't want to do the checking, that's OK, just leave it for someone else. Thanks! --Auntof6 (talk) 06:26, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Dubious categories, e.g. "Model"

Under what conditions should a category be added to a biography? The problem occurs most with show-biz/media type biogs, often puffed up by PR agents and fans. We should not allow an elastic term like "model" to be used unless there is evidence a person was notable or at least significantly employed as one. This is just one example of a widespread problem. Categories lose their point if they are full of entries added for trivial reasons or, in some cases, for no reason at all. Category entries not supported by evidence should be removed, IMO. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:46, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Can we come up with a set of rules: Probably no one would object if I said Marilyn Monroe was a model, but If I spoke about Paris Hilton, the debate problably starts... Note, that Henry Ford, and Carl Benz (both pinoneering engineers when it comes to automobiles) were probably also role-models for other people (as in: If you want to become a good engineer look at those people...). In the context of this Wikipedia, it probably does not make sense to talk about "model" without further classifying the term. Much as I despise, some people look up to Machiavelli, Stalin, or Hitler, because they were able to reach their goals better than other people (If those goals were morally acceptable is another discussion)....--Eptalon (talk) 16:10, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

The way our page model (person) uses the term, it omits role models. Models for artists and for clothes advertisements are both paid professions, and that's probably wide enough. I think almost anyone could be a role model for anybody! One would have to show that there was some meaningful connection between the the role model and the "apprentice". How would one do that? Hmmm, well, anyway, I just wanted to raise the question of evidence for membership of a category. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:29, 30 August 2015 (UTC).

These are good points. We have some rules already, Help:Categories and Wikipedia:Categories. Both could use some updating, but specifically categories used for BLPs would be a very good addition to the guideline. It might also be appropriate to add to the BLP guideline. User:Rus793 (talk) 17:05, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Introducing the Wikimedia public policy site

Hi all,

We are excited to introduce a new Wikimedia Public Policy site. The site includes resources and position statements on access, copyright, censorship, intermediary liability, and privacy. The site explains how good public policy supports the Wikimedia projects, editors, and mission.

Visit the public policy portal: https://policy.wikimedia.org/

Please help translate the statements on Meta Wiki. You can read more on the Wikimedia blog.

Thanks,

Yana and Stephen (Talk) 18:12, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

(Sent with the Global message delivery system)

Open call for Individual Engagement Grants

My apologies for posting this message in English. Please help translate it if you can.

Greetings! The Individual Engagement Grants program is accepting proposals until September 29th to fund new tools, community-building processes, and other experimental ideas that enhance the work of Wikimedia volunteers. Whether you need a small or large amount of funds (up to $30,000 USD), Individual Engagement Grants can support you and your team’s project development time in addition to project expenses such as materials, travel, and rental space.

• Submit a grant request
• Get help with your proposal in IdeaLab or an upcoming Hangout session
• Learn from examples of completed Individual Engagement Grants

Thanks,

I JethroBT (WMF), Community Resources, Wikimedia Foundation. 20:52, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

(Opt-out Instructions) This message was sent by I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) through MediaWiki message delivery.

I a small wiki mod. How should I deal with ESL editors who can't write coherent English?

Someone from the wiki ref desk suggested I crosspost here. Here is the original post made on Sep 09, 2015.

Me. I confess. (;-) Thanks for taking me up on it. StevenJ81 (talk) 13:45, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Summary: How should mods diplomatically deal with editors whose English is so poor that their good faith edits aren't constructive.

I moderate a small English-language wiki that gets maybe 20-150 edits a day. The website is one of the few wikis on its particular topic in any language, and the only one thriving in English. It's pretty common to get editors who speak English as a second language (ESL). Most ESLers contribute at a level appropriate for their English skill; however, we have some editors who can't write intelligible prose yet contribute long paragraphs. To give you an idea, imagine sentences like "When Mike show ask Sarah told Mike to examine the puzzle he consider the puzzle irreverent to the mystery where John note that the puzzle somehow usually with to a buried treasure" that run on for whole paragraphs. The problem is serious, not just a few tense mistakes or poor word choices that detract from the experience but not the comprehension.

I have two feelings about this. It's good because they are filling in gaps, but it's bad because it simply isn't usable by English speakers who are the wiki's audience. I tried regularly correcting some of these sections, but to be honest I'm afraid I was just encouraging the incomprehensible editors to write more. (I can't say for sure because it's normal for people to edit in bursts.) It's also incredibly time consuming and demotivating.

The admin and the mod team have modded most of the regular editors who are sociable and levelheaded, so there aren't more mods to be had in the short term. None of the mods (or regular editors) likes fixing extremely bad English. I have monitored the progression of several of these bad-English sections over several years hoping they would eventually be fixed, but for every one that was overwritten or fixed, 5+ remain uncorrected or were outright deleted by passing IPs. I suspect that it is simply too much work for a casual editor to deal with. I'm worried that blocks of incomprehensible English might actually be worse than a stub with blank sections when it comes to attracting passerby edits.

At this point, I use whatever legitimate excuse I can to delete or comment out what can't be easily salvaged, without informing the user why their section was removed. It gets the job done quickly. I don't want to keep doing that. It's not transparent or kind to these ESL editors; they deserve that much for making long good faith edits.

I suspect this isn't a problem isolated to the wiki I mod. What has worked for you all? Should the group strategy be to let the incomprehensible English stand as is, or should mods delete it as it appears? How do you diplomatically get the point across that maybe a user should focus on other areas that are more suited to their English skill level? 45.37.108.163 (talk) 02:55, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

One remedy I have used is to have less-proficient editors work in their userspace, usually on a subpage, and have their work checked before moving it to mainspace. Here, only registered users can have subpages, so unregistered editors can't use this method (unless a registered editor allows the use of their userspace). English Wikipedia has a "Draft" namespace for this purpose, and both registered and unregistered editors can use it. If the issue is with a new page, the page can just be moved to userspace. If the issue is with changes to an existing page, the page can be copied to userspace, with the "live" article left behind.

I don't think there's a way to ensure well-written articles without leaving some editors feeling angry, discouraged, or embarrassed. If you use the method I described above, you might have people arguing, "Who are you to decide whether my English is good enough?" ESL editors sometimes think their English is better than it actually is. It's often pretty good, but not at the level needed for technical or encyclopedic writing. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:05, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

@45.37.108.163: I gather from the discussions in both places that you are moderating a wiki, perhaps even running the MediaWiki platform, but that is not one of the Wikimedia projects. Is that right?

If so, you have a lot of flexibility with tools. Especially: consider creating that "Draft" namespace. This way, IP/unregistered users can work there, even if they do not have User space pages to work in.

I'd also encourage people to write in more simple English if possible, consistent with the core topic of the wiki. The less involved and intricate the language is, the less likely it is that people will be confused. There's a tradeoff to that: you can lose the ability to capture some subtlety of expression. But overall: if people can capture the same idea with two straightforward sentences as with one complicated sentence, two straightforward sentences is probably better. And if many people on your wiki are not native English speakers, then don't use 3-4 syllable words when 1-2 syllable words work just as well. (Again, they don't always "work just as well". I'm talking specifically about times that they do.)

But Auntof6 is right. There is no way to do this without someone's feelings being hurt. So, again, you'll have to find the right balance. Encourage better English. Be warm and encouraging to well-meaning participants, even in the process of reverting their edits (or moving them to Draft or User space). As far as you can be accommodating, be accommodating. But at the end of the day, don't be afraid to revert someone if you need to. After all, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. StevenJ81 (talk) 19:00, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

You deduced correctly. The wiki in question is not Wikimedia-related, but is on the MediaWiki platform. I am not the admin, just one of the most active mods who keep things running and patrolled day to day. The draft idea is not a bad one, but it isn't something I want to enforce on registered users or anons. Only a couple of registered ESL users would benefit from the drafts system, and there is no guarantee they would stay after implementing this system for them. I also have a strong incentive not to make editing more difficult for anons. Most anons make helpful edits because the wiki is a niche topic that attracts a slightly older and more mature audience. I will see what I can do to encourage both simpler and better-written contributions. Thanks for your insights and suggestions, Auntof6 and StevenJ81. 45.37.108.163 (talk) 21:44, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Good luck, 45. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:29, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

List of people from X

I don't think we need these pages, or do we? We do have categories for our biogs. These pages are being brought over en masse from En wiki, so we need opinions. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:54, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

So you're saying that "List of people from X" pages should be deleted? Or they just shouldn't be created anymore? eurodyne (talk) 15:12, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Historically, we have not had pages like this and, personally, I don't think we need them. But this is a genuinely open question. Admins will probably leave them alone unless they consider them to be "Complex articles from another wiki, little sign of simplification/conversion". Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:25, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

In most cases they are of little use. We have another (ongoing) dump of these pages currently from enwiki. Most of these are merely collections of red links. Currently QD:A2 No Content includes any article consisting only of links (including hyperlinks, category tags and "see also" sections)... Most of the current crop have little or no text to accompany the lists. Some lists have value but lists of "people from..." should be deleted. User:Rus793 (talk) 16:02, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

"Change source"

I know this has a long-standing use, but to me "change source" (no caps!) is far from simple English in the context of simply adding a comment. I would like a simpler tab name. Kdammers (talk) 12:30, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Well its main use is for changing the source of articles. I can't think of a word that appropriately captures its main use while remaining simple. -DJSasso (talk) 13:38, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Maybe "Change text"? eurodyne (talk) 13:47, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that that button is to specifically change the source and not use the wisiwig editor, so Change text could mean either. -DJSasso (talk) 14:01, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

New Wikipedia Library Database Access (September 2015)

Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL OWL says sign up today!

The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for free, full-access accounts to published research as part of our Publisher Donation Program. You can sign up for new accounts and research materials from:

• EBSCOHost - this is one of our largest access donations so far: access to a wide variety of academic, newspaper and magazine sources through their Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete and MasterFILE Complete
• Newspaperarchive.com - historical newspapers from the United States, Canada, UK and 20 other countries, and includes an Open Access "clipping" feature (1000 accounts)
• IMF Elibary- a digital collection of the IMF's reports, studies and research on global economics and development (50 accounts)
• Sabinet - one of the largest African digital publishers, based in South Africa, with a wide range of content in English and other European and African languages (10 accounts)
• Numérique Premium - a French language social science and humanities ebook database, with topical collections on a wide range of topics (100)
• Al Manhal - an Arabic and English database with a wide range of sources, largely focused on or published in the Middle East (60 accounts)
• Jamalon - an Arabic book distributor, who is providing targeted book delivery to volunteers (50 editors)

Many other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page, including expanded accounts for Elsevier ScienceDirect, British Medical Journal and Dynamed and additional accounts for Project MUSE, DeGruyter, Newspapers.com, Highbeam and HeinOnline. Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team 19:42, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

We need help! Help us coordinate Wikipedia Library's distribution of accounts, communication of access opportunities and more! Please join our team at our new coordinator signup.

This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List.

"Simple" ClueBot NG

I notice just as much vandalism takes place here as on Wikipedia, so I've got a solution.

What we would need is something similar to ClueBot but changed for here.
A few of those would be: Detecting if new article are directly from the English Wikipedia
Users blocked there are *this* close to a block, but ones who are not get the normal procedure. Krett12 (talk) 03:54, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

We already have ChenzwBot, but it doesn't catch everything. IMO, we don't need anything more than ChenzwBot. eurodyne (talk) 05:12, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

As mentioned we already have a bot that handles this, as well what happens on en does not effect here, except in the case of blocked/banned users continuing the same behaviour here that got them blocked that. You can be a vandal there and never vandalize here and we won't block. -DJSasso (talk) 14:05, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Only one week left for Individual Engagement Grant proposals!

(Apologies for using English below, please help translate if you are able.)

There is still one week left to submit Individual Engagement Grant (IEG) proposals before the September 29th deadline. If you have ideas for new tools, community-building processes, and other experimental projects that enhance the work of Wikimedia volunteers, start your proposal today! Please encourage others who have great ideas to apply as well. Support is available if you want help turning your idea into a grant request.

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I JethroBT (WMF), Community Resources 21:01, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Links to English Wikipedia or Wikidata

Is it ever proper to link to the English Wikipedia or Wikidata until a simple English version of an article is created? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:19, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

I think opinions differ on that. I prefer not linking to English Wikipedia ("enwiki") for a couple of reasons. First, if someone is looking for simple text, the text at enwiki could be too complex for them. Second, leaving a link red helps us see what articles would be good to create (see Special:WantedPages). If we link to enwiki, we usually don't ever go back to see what enwiki links could be changed to point to articles that have been created here.

As for Wikidata, I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean Wiktionary? I prefer not linking there, either, for the same as my second reason above. I only link there when the word to be linked has little or no potential for an article to be created. If you're thinking of linking to Wiktionary, consider explaining the term instead.

Does that answer your question? --Auntof6 (talk) 00:50, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

No you should never link to en.wiki because a redlink is preferable here to encourage article creation. -DJSasso (talk) 14:23, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree on English Wikipedia, except with respect to pages in the Wikipedia or Help spaces where we don't have separately written rules.

Wiktionary? I'm not sure I fully agree with @Auntof6 on that one. It depends how much of an explanation would be required in place, and how likely it is that a substantive article will be created soon. I'm not fond of creating stubs that are only barely more than dicdefs, and don't think people necessarily have to create subsidiary articles all the time in order to use a word not on the Simple English word lists. If a wikt link will do the job, I'm ok with that.

We should always link to Wikidata, as all Wikipedias do. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:53, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

We should never link direct to En wiki. Not only does it lose redlinks, all users know it exists, and have often gone there first. They know where to find it. I am a supporter of Simple wiktionary, which was created for our benefit. English wikt is more complex than ours, and so less suitable. Regular editors here often add words to it, and at this stage it has many useful words which are not suitable as Simple pages. The secret is not to rush when editing a new page. Take time and add a couple of new words in wikt if they are needed by your new page. That is the constructive thing to do. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:45, 26 September 2015 (UTC)