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Standardization of oversight(er)ship request page names

Hi! I noticed that we have a slight problem where there's requests at "Wikipedia:Requests for oversightship/*" and many others at "Wikipedia:Requests for oversightership/*". Given that the two are different, one with an "er" in it, I believe some standardization is necessary. We don't really have the English Wikipedia to look to for this as they have their OSs appointed by ArbCom, where we have direct community elections. Thoughts? Vermont (talk) 04:56, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I feel like oversightership is best due to being the majority so far, and because it's easier to write and pronounce outloud. Either way, it doesn't really matter as long as we pick one and stick with it, not too difficult to create redirects from old to new. Naleksuh (talk) 05:15, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I would just use whatever the majority of them are and change the rest. -Djsasso (talk) 12:37, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
^this IWI (chat) 16:42, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Multistub isn't working

On Bulgars, I tried to use Template:Multistub and it didn't work. Naddruf (talk) 15:16, 26 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It is working, you just didn't use it correctly. You only need the stuff before the dash. You don't need to include stub. -Djsasso (talk) 15:27, 26 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thanks. Naddruf (talk) 15:28, 26 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Changing the sidebar

I propose that we redo the sidebar. I am proposing several small changes to the sidebar that I think would make a better sidebar. Interstellarity (talk) 12:59, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Change Main page to Main Page

@Thegooduser: If you don't care, wouldn't that mean you're neutral on the subject? --Auntof6 (talk) 02:27, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Auntof6 Yes, thanks for pointing that out --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 15:12, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Remove Simple talk

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.

 Not done As Interstellarity has withdrawn their request, and all other comments are in opposition, there is no consensus to make this change. Vermont (talk) 02:04, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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


Add About Simple English Wikipedia

Yeah that also seems fine. ‐‐1997kB (talk) 08:45, 1 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Add Contact us

DJSasso, could you clarify on what you mean? --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 17:44, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Nevermind I totally misread it too early in the morning. Doubt it will have the effect you hope for but can't see an issue with having it. -DJSasso (talk) 23:45, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Struck duplicate vote --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 20:38, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

General discussion

  • @Interstellarity: Can you explain the reasons you are making these proposals? What are the problems you are trying to solve? Desertborn (talk) 13:06, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hello Interstellarity, and thank you for your proposals. We are currently a small community of more or less active editors, who work with the setup of pages as it is now. YOu haven't contributed to Simple English Wikipedia for a long time, else you would not make such proposals. As an example: Simple talk is the board about general discussions. Such boards also exist on other Wikipedias. EnWP has many more editors than we are, but would you suggest they abolish the Village pump? - Probably not. Note that their village pump has sections, while our Simple talk does not have them (again a question of how many editors they have). For this reason, I would like to invite you to contribute here, and become an active editor. When you are, and you have several thousand content edits, and you have become familiar with the system you try another proposal. The proposal you make at that time will probably be much better than the one aboeve, which is born without knowing the local community and its rules and policies. --Eptalon (talk) 19:43, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hello Eptalon. I am a regular on the English Wikipedia so I am familiar with the way that particular wiki works. You're right, I haven't contributed to this wiki for a while yet and I am still learning the ropes of this wiki. I know the English Wikipedia has a village pump where editors can propose major changes to the way Wikipedia functions. I got the idea of this proposal because there is a proposal on the English Wikipedia to change the sidebar. See here. I know the English Wikipedia is a larger community than this one which is why we get faster responses there. Anyway, I hope to make this wiki a better place and please feel free to guide me if I mess up. Best, Interstellarity (talk) 20:46, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • There seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding here. Interstellarity is proposing removing the link to ST from the sidebar, not abolishing ST. It would be quite ironic to propose to abolish ST on ST, however, but that isn't the case. Vermont (talk) 04:48, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it seems to be a good time to close these and implement changes. Vermont (talk) 14:38, 30 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I would almost remove the main page from the sidebar before simple talk; it's just that important to us. Users would never find this page and wouldn't be able to ask questions. IWI (chat) 22:54, 23 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary section break

Sorry for dropping in so late, I was about to close and implement the above changes, but there are some logistical issues that require the community's input:

  1. Order of the links: I don't think it's the case that the new links are going to be appended to the bottom of the sidebar (after "Give to Wikipedia"), so this should be clarified.
  2. Localisation: ideally, contents of the sidebar should reference a relevant system message in the MediaWiki namespace so that users who have their language preferences set to another language will be able to see the relevant text in their preferred language. It so happens that the "About" and "Contact page" strings are present in the software as MediaWiki:About and MediaWiki:Contactpage respectively. I would strongly urge the use of the system messages instead. If we think that, for example, "Contact page" is not simple, we can always modify the relevant system message instead. This way, as much of the interface as possible will be available in the user's preferred interface language.
  3. Sandbox link: not really an issue per se, but it should be noted for general information that adding links to the toolbox (the tools section) cannot be done in the same way as adding a link to MediaWiki:Sidebar. This will be done by calling mw.util.addPortletLink in MediaWiki:Common.js instead.

--Chenzw  Talk  05:24, 9 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Since no one commented in a couple days I have added the Contact page and About page to the sidebar. I used the ordering that made the most sense to me per WP:BOLD but can easily be adjusted if the community decides otherwise. I have not added the sandbox link yet. -DJSasso (talk) 20:06, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Djsasso: I think Contact page should be renamed to Contact us. Would you consider doing that? Interstellarity (talk) 22:27, 15 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

When a page is not connected by WikiData to other Wikipedias, the "edit links" link is suddenly not visible. I haven't been able to connect articles easily. Anyone know what caused this? IWI (chat) 20:00, 26 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I will look to see if I can see if anyone was messing with the files involved. -Djsasso (talk) 19:45, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Djsasso: I am using the vector skin in response to your question. It was working and suddenly it stopped, and now on unlinked articles there is no option for me to edit the links. It works fine if it is already linked. I've had to link new articles I have created manually on WikiData. IWI (chat) 19:52, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah nothing locally has changed that I can see that would have caused it. Likely something on the wikidata side or a bug at the moment. I will see if its happening on en.wiki as well. Probably just have to wait and see. -Djsasso (talk) 19:54, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yep it is happening there too. It is very noticeable so I am sure someone is on top of it already. -Djsasso (talk) 19:56, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
So this is an issue that affects others and is not just me? IWI (chat) 19:59, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yep looks like it is getting everyone, and possibly on every language. -Djsasso (talk) 20:13, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'll check Wikidata noticeboards. This has been going on for a couple of days. IWI (chat) 20:42, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Djsasso: Update: it seems they are getting to the bottom of it here. Thanks, IWI (chat) 21:46, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

I am requesting some users take part in this discussion to reach a consensus on the matter. IWI (chat) 21:54, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

AutoWikiBrowser on Simple English Wikipedia

Hello, I have a question. How do I request AutoWikiBrowser rights on Simple English Wikipedia? I checked WP:PERM, but I had no luck. Any help is appreciated. Interstellarity (talk) 19:23, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If you have a valid use-case for it, make a request at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage. Note that we do things a little differently here: editors on the CheckPage are placed there temporarily, typically for defined batches. Hiàn (talk) 19:41, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Hiàn: Thank you for the link. I have AWB browser rights on the English Wikipedia. I will make a request there. Interstellarity (talk) 20:20, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wikidata

Is there a bot that automatically adds Wikidata to new articles or do we have to do it manually? I've been doing it a lot recently, and I just want to make sure I'm not wasting my time. I also saw a bot like that on English wikipedia. Naddruf (talk) 05:17, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The only automated process I've seen (which may not be active any more) was one that would add articles to Wikidata (which I think is the right way to say it, since the change is made in Wikidata and not in Wikipedia) if a new article was created with a hardcoded interwiki link in it. That process left the interwiki link in the article, which of course we're not supposed to have any more.
As a side note, interested parties can look at Special:UnconnectedPages to see pages that aren't connected to Wikidata items. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:58, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Naddruf: Thank you for the effort, please continue to do so, this is vital to let other users know Simple. For some articles with only 1 other version, simple will be prominently shown at the left edge which allows other people from en to know us. This is hard work but very good work indeed. The bot Auntof6 mentioned if I remembered correctly is dead / not that active, which lead to wikidata having duplicates at times and manual merges is needed. Thanks for the effort :) Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 10:30, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I keep being logged out when I go to a new page

I have my login settings checked to remember my name and password here, and I also have cookies enabled in my browser. But I still get logged out most times I visit a page until my screen refeshes itself to show that I am logged in again. Is there anything I can do to keep this from happening? -Solace Chiere — Preceding unsigned comment added by Solace Chiere (talk • contribs) 21:25, 23 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to change timeline for CU/OS elections

Dear community, from Enfcer RFOS Crat chat there seems to be a lack of votes after 7 days. After referring to larger wikis like wikimedia commons, wikidata, OS/CU elections tend to take 14 days. Given our smaller size, I am proposing we switch RFCU/RFOS to 14 days rather than 7 days as even larger wikis are doing the full 14 days. Per global policy, there is no time limit for RFCU and OS elections, although stewards tend not to like extension for too long, I feel 14 days will be in alignment with the global policy. One alternative is 7 days minimum, if there aren't enough votes, extended automatically to end at 14 day mark. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 15:25, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • I am in favour of a fixed 14 day request duration, with the clarification that if an RFP does not meet the minimum number of support votes at the end of the 14th day, it fails automatically. I agree with what Djsasso mentioned back then in 2010 - if a candidate cannot obtain the required number of votes, then the community is either too small for the advanced permission, and/or the candidate lacks the support from the community. It would be unfair to extend arbitrarily. Chenzw  Talk  15:49, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fourteen days seems best. This wiki is small and it is very likely that there won't be enough votes after 7 days, and with larger wikis already doing the same it's a no-brainer. IWI (chat) 00:09, 29 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Both recent requests for checkusership got enough votes within seven days, I wonder what would be different about requests for oversighter. Either way, I think a static amount of days is good as the current way of extending over and over instead of just keeping it open until the desired outcome is reached. Seven seems like it would be good since two out of the three recent RFP's reached seven days, but the third didn't. Fourteen is also good though. Naleksuh (talk) 00:13, 29 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think a fixed 14 days is good, but I think I prefer the option that it runs up to 14 days, and once the threshold is achieved after 7 days then it can be closed early. -- Enfcer (talk) 00:20, 29 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This is also something I would support. IWI (chat) 00:21, 29 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would support an extension to the time period. Personally, I am not extremely active (i.e. I don't check this every day, sometimes only once per week), so I sometimes miss nominations and voting. This would allow people like me to still participate. ~Junedude433talk 02:45, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Sorry, but I think it's weird to call Simple English a "Small Wikipedia" yes, there is far less articles/pages, etc, but many times because because were a viewed as a "small wiki" it's not possible to get anything done- have caused proposals to shut down this Wikipedia, we're a pretty active Wikipedia here, and I think we can prove wrong that small does not mean nothing can't be done. This message is not meant to discourage or attack Camouflaged Mirage or any other editor for their views or proposals. It's simply my own opinion, and I mean no harm in writing this message. --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 02:25, 29 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We are a small Wikipedia compared to others. And some Wikipedias are already doing the same (14 days) that are larger than ours. IWI (chat) 18:19, 29 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
ImprovedWikiImprovement That's because there's 1000's of users there... --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 18:51, 29 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I am saying we are small compared to them, but to be honest, we aren't a large wiki, could be possibly medium sized with the 50 regular editors, although I know with CU/OS are typically large wiki stuff. To be clear, if your issue is with the term small wiki, I think I will remove that from the wording, I am of the point this wiki shouldn't be closed due to it being small. I seen the proposals, and voted against in one of them. @Thegooduser: Hope this explains. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 09:08, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Camouflaged Mirage If you remove it, I will strike this vote --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 01:15, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Seriously? You are opposing just because I refer to simple as a small wiki? I hope I read wrongly. There are users saying here that this is a small wiki, to be honest, with the regular editors (not referring to crosswiki people reverting vandalism on global queues), global renamers and etc, it doesn't reach 50 I guess. Anyway, such an oppose based on the wording not the meat of the discussion I don't think counts that much. Note consensus is not a vote. I am just suggesting the days being moved from 7 to 14 days, not at all putting the word small anywhere for clarity sake. I don't see there any need to remove the word small. However, to make this as uncontroversial as possible and prevent these technicalities hampering the proposal, I changed my wording slightly in the problem statement, small --> smaller; large-->larger. Hope this address the problems and I am happy for the feedback. @Thegooduser: Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 10:27, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Camouflaged Mirage, Well that was one of the reasons, I had more, but seeing I'm the only oppose vote here, that's why I would strike it, Please don't feel attacked by my comment/opinions, I don't want to hurt or attack anyone here, everyone has their own opinions and I respect that. I am going to strike my vote and pretend I never voted here, because I don't want to get you, or anyone else angry by my opinion. Thank You. --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 21:04, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • We are a small wiki, and one of the benefits this has is that the rules are simple, in most cases. Note that the minimum number of support votes is given by the respective policy, which we didn't define. Also: 25 support votes currently means: pretty much all regular editors support. If we change this to a longer 14 day period, I'd opt for an additional rule, of the kind: At the end of the first week, there must be at least 13 support votes, with a total of 70% support. I will also point out that both checkuser, and oversight are specialisations (in our wiki: of the administrator). In that sense, I don't expect many requests, so there's no urgent need to change the criteria we have. --Eptalon (talk) 18:36, 29 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • No harm IMO to add the additional rule, but I truly prefer it being simple. Adding rules doesn't affect the validity of CU/OS elections, as long as the rules are not more lax than the global ones, which is 25 votes min, 70% support. To be honest I am not afraid we don't have 13, is just the last 3-4 votes usually are the ones harder to get (per Enfcer RFOS etc). Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 09:08, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Redesigning our welcome templates

I think the welcome templates on the Simple English Wikipedia need to be redesigned. I was wondering on a potential design similar to what the English Wikipedia has. This is their welcome template: [[1]]. I was hoping someone could design something like that to make it more intuitive. Interstellarity (talk) 17:38, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not against redesign, but what don't you find intuitive about ours? The English one actually seems less intuitive, took me awhile to figure it out. Theirs has all kinds of parameters, whereas ours is simple and has few. Theirs is harder to read as well. I am actually surprised by how disjointed theirs looked, would have assumed it would be a lot more smooth. Ours is definitely a lot more simple and easy to understand without a lot of visual distraction and the important links all pop out in a list in the middle if they need help. -Djsasso (talk) 17:47, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Theirs has six links, three of which are easily visible buttons and the other three are relatively unimportant. Ours has thirteen links. I like EN's much better and think we should use that, or at least something similar to it. Naleksuh (talk) 20:59, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think less is more. The less links, the more likely the new user will visit them. And the less list-like and formulaic it is, the more friendly it will seem. I made my own in an attempt to be a bit more personable. I also try to modify it for people coming from enwiki, such as I did here. Overall, I think the variation is nice so it doesn't seem so copy and paste to those who are new. That being said, I would have no objection to changing the standard templates here. My only thought is to make it as friendly as possible. Desertborn (talk) 10:25, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah making your own is the best action to be honest. Definitely the best way to go when welcoming as its more personal. We have a category of such templates already for people to add theirs to or to use others. -Djsasso (talk) 13:28, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mobile version of Main Page

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T254287

From 13 July 2020 onwards, a short term fix in the MediaWiki code will be removed. This fix previously allowed wikis to format their main pages such that they will be mobile-friendly. This functionality was deprecated by TemplateStyles.

Wikis can check whether they will be affected by this change by adding ?mfnolegacytransform=1&debug=1 to the URL:

As you can see, we will be affected by this change. (btw, it is rather interesting that we did not format the "Selected article" section such that it will be visible on mobile, but that's a separate problem)

As highlighted in the Phrabricator task, the simplest fix is to add a particular line of code to the existing Main Page. I have done that to the Main Page's sandbox, see Template:Main Page/minerva.css and Special:Diff/6972547. Main Page/Sandbox now looks the same regardless of URL variant:

If the community finds no issues, I will proceed to deploy this fix on to the actual Main Page.

It is worth noting that while this fix will effectively mitigate the technical issues (e.g. search engine ranking and rendering performance), it is not intended to be a long-term solution, and still poses potential problems to mobile visitors. Specifically, users who browse the site on devices/viewpoints with a width of less than 768px will find some visual elements on the Main Page jarring. Do try out for yourself.

The long-term solution would be to re-design/rewrite code elements on the Main Page so that it adopts a responsive design. Chenzw  Talk  05:11, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't notice you had this on here. The fix is already ready to go based on a thread on the main page talk page. Was going to implement it when I had time later but I can wait for this. -Djsasso (talk) 13:35, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oops, I didn't notice the existing fix on Talk:Main Page; that version of the fix is better because it more effectively addresses the problem of constrained display widths. Chenzw  Talk  15:39, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
 Done. -Djsasso (talk) 11:19, 10 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Permission error

Permission error
You do not have permission to create this page, for the following reason:
The title "Afe­sha Olton-Humphreys" has been banned from creation. It matches the following blacklist entry: .*\x{00AD}.* <casesensitive> # Soft-hyphen
could an admin please advise? is this a local blacklist, or is it global? Slowking4 (talk) 13:14, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It is local but is the same on en.wiki. You are using a soft hyphen as opposed to a regular hard hyphen. They don't look different from a sighted users perspective, but they play havoc with screen readers so are an accessibility problem. -Djsasso (talk) 15:00, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Although looking further I am not sure why its triggering in this case. If you make the page you want to make as subpage of your userpage. I can move it to that title for you. -Djsasso (talk) 15:20, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
i tried using the name without hyphen and it triggered as well, it seems to object to "Afe­sha". i have created it here Olton-Humphreys. it is not filtering on english, so it may have gotten lost in translation, you might want to test / disable this filter. Slowking4 (talk) 19:53, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've moved it for you and will look into it. It is triggering the filter on en.wiki as well by the looks of it. Certainly a weird case. -Djsasso (talk) 16:06, 14 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
thanks, i'm not surprised that english would have a filter with a false label, i.e. nothing to do with soft hyphen, rather a different character string. since no one is reviewing filters, it is the wild west. Slowking4 (talk) 12:32, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mass fixing of malformed signatures

There are some faulty signatures again that need fixing, for they are causing formatting to "overflow" onto the rest of the page. The list is at User:Chenzw/Unclosed font tags (2). They are not as bad as the previous batch, but the colours involved are a somewhat bright red and green, so the pages are not quite readable.

I will be getting my bot to start on the task some time later this week. Chenzw  Talk  07:37, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Chenzw, you may be interested in mw:New requirements for user signatures, which hopes, later this year, to reduce your workload. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:30, 16 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

is it not possible to add this link, or was there not enough votes for it? Please note I am not trying to nag someone to put it in. --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 16:26, 16 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Done, I meant to do it back then, but other things got in the way. You may need to bypass your browser's cache for the changes to be immediately visible. Chenzw  Talk  17:10, 16 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Chenzw --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 17:14, 16 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Twinkle Error

Can anyone help me fix this in Twinkle? Interstellarity (talk) 13:51, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like its happening for me too. Someone must have changed something. I will see if I can see the issue. -Djsasso (talk) 14:09, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like its an issue caused by the new version of Vector skin. We will have to back port our twinkle to be able to work on Vector again. -Djsasso (talk) 14:17, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I have the same issue. IWI (chat) 14:41, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
 (change conflict)  Done. It is worth noting that Twinkle remained functional (despite the wacky appearance), and that EN also had to deploy a fix due to changes arising from the recent MediaWiki deployment. Time permitting, we will need to find time to look into syncing up our Twinkle code with EN's, while still being able to retain the flexibility of local customizations. Chenzw  Talk  14:42, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah We really need someone that wants to sit down and dig into it. We never got it fully switched over the last time we started to try to synch with them which was like a decade ago now I think. Might be time to consider just switching over wholesale to theirs and then slowly re-customize what needs to be customized for here. But even that will be a lot of work. Or even just write our own from scratch. -Djsasso (talk) 14:50, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
 twinkle does not work for me --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 15:49, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I made a mistake earlier while migrating code, but it has been fixed now; changes should be apparent within a few minutes. As always, be sure to bypass your browser's cache. Chenzw  Talk  15:53, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Chenzw Yes, I should bypass my cache, haven't used my unit (device) for many hours because I just woke up --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 15:55, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Question about DYK

I know that I look like I’m very new here, and I am, but I have also been editing the English Wikipedia off and on since 2017 (though admittedly more off than on between late 2017 and early 2019). So, I was wondering, does DYK have the same “an article must have either been created or promoted to GA within the past week” rule here as it does at en.wp? Any feedback appreciated. Regards, --SithJarJar666 (my profile | my contribs | speak to me) 17:39, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

SithJarJar666 see Template talk:Did you know --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 17:40, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Thegooduser: Wow, very fast response. Thank you for the help! --SithJarJar666 (my profile | my contribs | speak to me) 17:45, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
SithJarJar666 No problem, reason I respond so fast is I have this page on my watchlist --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 17:47, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Editing news 2020 #2

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

Mockup of the new reply feature, showing new editing tools
The new features include a toolbar. What do you think should be in the toolbar?

This issue of the Editing newsletter includes information the Talk pages project, an effort to help contributors communicate on wiki more easily.

  • Reply tool: This is available as a Beta Feature at the four partner wikis (Arabic, Dutch, French, and Hungarian Wikipedias). The Beta Feature is called "Discussion tools". The Beta Feature will get new features soon. The new features include writing comments in a new visual editing mode and pinging other users by typing @. You can test the new features on the Beta Cluster now. Some other wikis will have a chance to try the Beta Feature in the coming months.
  • New requirements for user signatures: Soon, users will not be able to save invalid custom signatures in Special:Preferences. This will reduce signature spoofing, prevent page corruption, and make new talk page tools more reliable. Most editors will not be affected.
  • New discussion tool: The Editing team is beginning work on a simpler process for starting new discussions. You can see the initial design on the project page.
  • Research on the use of talk pages: The Editing team worked with the Wikimedia research team to study how talk pages help editors improve articles. We learned that new editors who use talk pages make more edits to the main namespace than new editors who don't use talk pages.

– Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)

20:33, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm reading one of the papers cited by the Research/Editing team and it is very good. It says that new users who receive personalized talk page messages about their reverted edits in which the sender takes responsibility for reverting the edit are less likely to quit. That could be very valuable to smaller Wikiprojects. Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:55, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That's very interesting, Darkfrog24. Do you suppose the idea is that saying "It's not you, it's us" encourages newcomers to try again? (Please ping me. I really appreciate it.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:29, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Whatamidoing (WMF): I think so, yes. But it's not so much "It's not you; it's us." As you can see at the bottom of page four of the study, they used very subtle differences in text (like active vs. passive or whatever), but I think a personal touch would do it, yes.
I have seen this attempted, but in a different context: At Wikinews, also a small project, newcomers get a lot of personalized attention, and retention remains very low. Extant Wikinewsies often post on the newcomer's talk page, explaining whatever it was they did wrong. I don't think I've ever seen a newcomer's mistake addressed with a bot. I would often take a rejected draft and finish it myself. But Wikinews also has some hurdles not in play here at Simple: The review system takes time to understand, and the time limits can be arbitrary and frustrating. The article deletion rate over there is super high just in general because content gets old enough to be not-news. Another difference is that people come to Wikinews because they're like "Hey, this one thing? I think it's important and there should be a news article about it," and it is usually just that one thing. It's hard to make the experience fun enough for them that they decide to stick around long-term.
So I guess the question is, why do most people start on Simple English? Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:35, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for pinging me.
I think personal attention is helpful. It's hard to keep the personal touch on a larger scale. (Maybe that's why the English Wikipedia gets so much value out of WikiProjects of various types.)
On the question of why people start here: People edit the English Wikipedia (and by extension, most of the others) because of some things about themselves, and some things about the site. In the first category, editors tend to be curious, educated, altruistic, and to have some time on their hands and enjoy sharing information with the world. In the second category, we tend to be curious and have some tech skills, so we are willing to click the [Edit] button and figure out how to fix a typo or small error. A lot of editors, back in the day, got started by making small edits.
I speculate that to become a dedicated editor here, you need all of those usual qualities, plus some connection to children's education or English language learners. What do you think? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:17, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I was speaking more of Simple specifically, but sure. I got started Wikignoming back when it was still called Wikignoming, but I'm new to Simple, so I don't know why people other than myself start to edit here.
I think the large number of people interested in editing Wikipedias in the aughts was because of the economy. Large numbers of millennials in Western countries had just graduated from college and found to their surprise that there was not much of a job market. So there were many highly educated, computer-adept people who had time on their hands and wanted something intellectually stimulating to do with it. After K-12 + four more years of writing essays that a professor will read once and then throw away, writing something that people will actually read feels satisfying. The dropoff in participation might be due to the toxic environment, as many departing editors cited, but it might just have been because the job market got better. Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic has damaged many economies across the world, but if there is a surge in Wiki participation, Project Wiki may make a silver lining out of it. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:38, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The decline in the number of editors at the English Wikipedia started in 2007 (before the economy fell apart) and coincided with the deployment of vandal-fighting bots. There is less need to edit when a bot reverts juvenile vandalism faster than humans can, and perhaps less reward for doing so if you figure out that it's only going to be visible on the site for two or three seconds.
Page views have been up during the pandemic, and so are the number of active editors. The analytics folks said a while ago that geolocation of page views formed interesting patterns: page views for Wikipedia articles about individual countries spiked early in each country's outbreak. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:53, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That makes sense about the page views. I didn't know about the bots. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:02, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
" Betacommandbot, who had sent "more than half of the messages categorized as aversive leadership" .... The effect of this warning was to decrease the recipients' edits by more than 10%." [2] and [3] - Slowking4 (talk) 12:30, 23 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal for creation of a certain template and its addition to Twinkle

I’m coming here for community input on an idea I have. So, my idea is creating a simple english version of en:Template:Welcometest, to welcome users that make test edits without biting them with a warning. If this is approved, I would be willing to (at least partially) create the template, but someone else would have to figure out how to put it into Twinkle. Let me know what you think of the idea below. Regards, --sithjarjar666 (my contribs | talk to me | email me | see my enwiki profile) 23:58, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This paper cited by the editing team suggests that might be a good idea. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:21, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Darkfrog24: I could probably start with the standard Template:Welcome and adapt it from there... who maintains Twinkle over here? --sithjarjar666 (my contribs | talk to me | email me | see my enwiki profile) 15:17, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Here’s what I’ve got so far: Template:Welcometest. --sithjarjar666 (my contribs | talk to me | email me | see my enwiki profile) 15:35, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Malfunctioning Infobox

The infobox on Best European Goalkeeper (and all other award pages) is malfunctioning. Two of the parameters, which are properly formatted and troubleshooted, are not displaying. I'm quite sure this is because of some error in Template:Infobox award. You can see on this template page that the small prototype of the infobox on the right-hand side is incomplete based on the syntaxes provided by "Usage" section. I think only editors with special rights can access the problem's source. ClumsyMind (talk) 15:36, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A fresh version was imported from enwiki along with new doc. Issue resolved. Operator873talkconnect 15:56, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Operator873: Can you also tell why the short description that i put on the same page isn't working? I have been facing problems with these short descriptions since a long time. ClumsyMind (talk) 16:02, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Short descriptions aren't in use here. Instead it uses the description from the wikidata item. That short description system is enwiki only. Desertborn (talk) 20:08, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Question about moving pages

I know that enwiki has a process of achieving consensus for moving the pages called Requested moves. What is the simplewiki equivalent of that process? Interstellarity (talk) 23:01, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Generally, we want our title to be the same as on the English Wikipedia unless there is a reason to believe our title would be more simple (not simple as in shorter, as were your recent page moves, but simple as in Simple English). If you believe your new title is better for some other reason, you should advocate for the English Wikipedia page to be moved. If our title is more Simple English in your opinion, you can comment on the article's talk page. Naleksuh (talk) 23:12, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, that helps. Interstellarity (talk) 23:56, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Who develops Twinkle over here?

I want to add Template:Welcometest to Twinkle’s “problem user welcomes” section under the “welcome” tab. However, I have no idea how to do that. So, I’m asking for either a link to whoever currently maintains Twinkle, or a way to add the template myself. (If it's the second, you can send it to me in an email, if only so it doesn’t end up with the LTAs learning how to screw up Twinkle...) --sithjarjar666 (my contribs | talk to me | email me | see my enwiki profile) 20:48, 23 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That template is very similar to {{welcomevandal}} (which tells the user that their changes were "not helpful"). Is it really necessary for there to be another welcome template specifically for test edits? Chenzw  Talk  02:15, 24 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
substituting welcometest for welcomevandal works also. Slowking4 (talk) 12:01, 24 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No probably not, it can't hurt to exist, but yeah the other one is essentially the same thing. -Djsasso (talk) 16:45, 24 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
why you would prefer test over vandal - i will quote the carnegie mellon paper here: "We found that ... 2) transactional leaders and person-focused leaders were effective in motivating others, whereas aversive leaders decreased other contributors’ motivations; " - Slowking4 (talk) 20:41, 24 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say I would? -Djsasso (talk) 21:10, 24 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Something wrong over at DYK?

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the DYK hooks were supposed to update once a week. However, they have literally stayed the same since my coming here. Is there something wrong at DYK? If so, how can it be fixed? --sithjarjar666 (my contribs | talk to me | email me | see my enwiki profile) 21:24, 25 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We just haven't had anyone update them - ideally it would be changed once a week, but without a new set to use they aren't updated DannyS712 (talk) 22:40, 25 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We don't yet have a full queue so not much we can do until one is filled. IWI (chat) 23:03, 25 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Historically our DYK change every couple months. Though there has been an activity surge recently which has had us change them more frequently without holding some queues back for dry times. -Djsasso (talk) 02:37, 26 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Moving George VI of the United Kingdom to George VI

I would like to move the page in the heading to a shorter title to match that on the English Wikipedia. However, I am unable to do so. I know on the English Wikipedia, there is Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests, but that does not exist on this Wikipedia. How do I request the page to be moved? Interstellarity (talk) 13:32, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 Done -Djsasso (talk) 16:39, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Issues with categories

I came across this category: Category:Wikipedia and I feel that there are some things we can remove from this category that shouldn't be in the category. For example, we could remove Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Current issues and requests archive 11, User:Prahlad balaji/sandbox, and User:Vnencak.e. If someone can take a look into it, that would be great. Interstellarity (talk) 23:37, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 Done They are just pages that have categories activated that shouldn't be. Its easy enough to just deactivate them, no need to come here and post. Just deactivate the cat. -Djsasso (talk) 23:44, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Interstellarity: It can be tempting to just remove such categories with HotCat, but please check before doing that. Sometimes the problem is just that a colon was left off when wanting to display a category name. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:45, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Auntof6: Thank you. I will keep that in mind. Interstellarity (talk) 11:56, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Oxygen

I'm currently involved in dispute resolution on the talk page with Legerrich. Would like more comments. He She has taken upon himself herself to declare the discussion finished and has changed the article how he she wanted it. Won't revert due to edit warring rules. Thanks, IWI (chat) 05:39, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Then asking for more voices is the thing to do, IWI. But I am sorry; I cannot find which talk page you mean. Never mind. I see it. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:53, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Changing the names of articles

Hello Simple talk, I was just wondering whether you can change the names of articles.-Thanks! TheBlankSlate (talk) 13:44, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes article names can be changed, once you are autoconfirmed you will have a more option at the top of your page and you can select move from it. Whether or not a given article should be changed is another matter. -Djsasso (talk) 13:52, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Move error

You do not have permission to move this page, for the following reason:

"῾Eta" cannot be moved to "῾eta", because the title "῾eta" has been banned from creation. It matches the following blacklist entry: (?!(User|Wikipedia)( talk)?:|Talk:)\P{L}*\p{Greek}.*[^\p{Greek}\P{L}].* <moveonly> # Greek + non-Greek


Anyone can edit the filter as such? Naleksuh (talk) 18:18, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Naleksuh: Same thing happened to me when I tried just now... --sithjarjar666 (my contribs | talk to me | email me | see my enwiki profile) 18:28, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Annual contest Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos

Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos (WPWP)
Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos (WPWP)

This is to invite you to join the Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos (WPWP) campaign to help improve Wikipedia articles with photos and win prizes. The campaign starts today 1st July 2020 and closes 31st August 2020.

The campaign primarily aims at using images from Wikimedia Commons on Wikipedia articles that are lacking images. Participants will choose among Wikipedia pages without photo images, then add a suitable file from among the many thousands of photos in the Wikimedia Commons, especially those uploaded from thematic contests (Wiki Loves Africa, Wiki Loves Earth, Wiki Loves Folklore, etc.) over the years.

Please visit the campaign page to learn more about the WPWP Campaign.

With kind regards,

Thank you,

Deborah Schwartz Jacobs, Communities Liaison, On behalf of the Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos Organizing Team - 08:24, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

feel free to translate this message to your local language when this helps your community

Wikipedia:Introduction

This page seems to be a second sandbox, but should not be for several reasons.
1) Many users confuse edits to this page as vandalism, not aware it is a second sandbox
2) There is no reason to have two sandboxes to begin with
3)It could be confusing for people attempting to read this page to see random tests below it.
I will propose to retire this page as a sandbox, fully protect it and link to Wikipedia:Sandbox instead. Thoughts? Naleksuh (talk) 05:17, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This was talked about in a section a few weeks back, this is the first page of an interactive tutorial, it is not a stand alone page. Also it gets reset like the other sandbox so the random edits are only there for a few minutes until the bot reverts. -Djsasso (talk) 13:22, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support We should redirect that page to the sandbox, to avoid confusion, I removed that page from my watchlist to avoid confusion, I thought the edits were vandalism, but then saw it was a sandbox. --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 16:19, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the introduction page is good for new users; I see no reason from that standpoint to retire the page. IWI (chat) 13:30, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
comment i was going to say add a link, but it is there Do you want your own sandbox? Create a user subpage. maybe you want that large, bold and highlighted? Slowking4 (talk) 13:08, 23 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This page should not be redirected to the sandbox. This page is part of a sequence of tutorials, and needs to keep the current content. --Auntof6 (talk) 05:38, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Auntof6. Desertborn (talk) 16:01, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Change in software may affect signatures

User WhatAmIDoing asked me to inform everyone that there's about to be a change in WikiMedia technology that may affect custom signatures. Anyone who has made their name extra shiny might want to check it out. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:52, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah they mentioned that in a discussion on the admin noticeboard. Interesting to see. -Djsasso (talk) 15:26, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback on movement names

Hello. Apologies if you are not reading this message in your native language. Please help translate to your language if necessary. Thank you!

There are a lot of conversations happening about the future of our movement names. We hope that you are part of these discussions and that your community is represented.

Since 16 June, the Foundation Brand Team has been running a survey in 7 languages about 3 naming options. There are also community members sharing concerns about renaming in a Community Open Letter.

Our goal in this call for feedback is to hear from across the community, so we encourage you to participate in the survey, the open letter, or both. The survey will go through 7 July in all timezones. Input from the survey and discussions will be analyzed and published on Meta-Wiki.

Thanks for thinking about the future of the movement, --The Brand Project team, 19:42, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Note: The survey is conducted via a third-party service, which may subject it to additional terms. For more information on privacy and data-handling, see the survey privacy statement.

Blocked enquiry

Please unblock me - I understand my mistake and it was done accidentally perhaps because I misunderstood the nai caste source.

Please unblock me earlier. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sam.Johnanderson (talk • contribs)

@Sam.Johnanderson: You're on the wrong project. This is the Simple English Wikipedia on which you're not currently blocked. You're probably trying to edit this page. I will draw your attention to our WP:ONESTRIKE rule here, however. Operator873talkconnect 13:04, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting page mover rights

I would like to get page mover rights here on Simple English Wikipedia. I often come across pages that should be shortened to match the title on English Wikipedia. I more specifically want to do round-robin page moves. I don't have this right on the English Wikipedia because I don't often come across pages that need to be moved. My question is where is the correct place to request page mover rights for this wiki? Pings are appreciated. Interstellarity (talk) 18:26, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, we don't have 'page mover' rights. As soon as you are autoconfirmed (shouldn't be an issue when I look at the number of your edits), you can move pages (except for a few 'move-protected' ones). --Eptalon (talk) 18:34, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You are autoconfirmed, see Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed users for what that means.--Eptalon (talk) 18:37, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Eptalon, I think they're referring to the English Wikipedia userright "extendedmover", often called simply page mover, which permits a user to move a page without leaving a redirect. On this project, only administrators can currently do that. Vermont (talk) 18:43, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Page mover hasn't been unbundled from the admin toolset here (or on many other Wikipedias) like it has on the English Wikipedia. I'd support unbundling it, there's definitely cases (like this one, potentially) when it could be useful. Vermont (talk) 18:41, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I don't see why we couldn't do that here too. IWI (chat) 18:47, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Just another 'hat' for the 'hat-collecting community'...--Eptalon (talk) 18:53, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
But some people would make good use of it. Many moves I have wanted to do I have simply left because I didn't want to go through the bother of asking admins every 5 minutes. IWI (chat) 18:57, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Almost no one would make good use of it. It pretty much never comes up. It would 100% be for hat collecting. Its generally why en.wiki users end up here a lot of the time. To grab hats here to make their case for them better on en.wiki or elsewhere. It gets tiring to people who have been here awhile and seen it happen over and over again. -Djsasso (talk) 22:07, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You have a point that some enwiki folk are going to try to get the right here to justify requesting the right on enwiki, but that isn't warrant to prevent people who could legitimately use it from doing so. Like what happens with rollback, if someome comes here who is hat collecting, we just decline it. Vermont (talk) 22:44, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The bar should be very high. Users with a history of page moves here and at least a few months should be allowed it. New users or blatant hat collectors can be declined. IWI (chat) 22:54, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The bar I would want to see set would be essentially the same as that for admin so at that point I would say why not become admin. -Djsasso (talk) 23:02, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(ec)You could make that argument if not having it prevented anyone from doing anything. But it doesn't. They just slap a QD tag on and a little while later they can make their move. Moves are not time sensitive. You could also make that argument if we prevented people from hat collecting here. We don't. We almost always see this wiki pile on yes in discussions without thinking about consequences. -Djsasso (talk) 23:02, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Because there has been some support for unbundling the page mover right, I am going to create a proposal to do that. I could request admin rights if I really need it, however, I don't think I've been here long enough to get the tools just yet. Interstellarity (talk) 18:58, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Interstellarity: What are round-robin page moves? Would that be switching the names of pages with each other (for example, if there are articles here like "Foo" for a book and "Foo (movie)" for the related movie, but on enwiki it's "Foo" for the movie and "Foo (book)" for the book)? --Auntof6 (talk) 19:24, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Auntof6: If you go to this page [4] on the English Wikipedia, that explains how they work. Does this answer your question? Interstellarity (talk) 19:42, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Such page swaps are very rare, I don't think I've needed to do them even once, and even so, suppressredirect isn't necessary to perform them, due to the ability to overwrite redirects. Just repeat the same procedure and G7 the leftover scraps. Naleksuh (talk) 03:46, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
 (change conflict) @Interstellarity: Yes, thanks. I imagine you'd need to reconcile links to both pages, since the moves wouldn't do that. --Auntof6 (talk) 03:50, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, the "pagemover" group includes these four rights.

  • suppressredirect (move a page without creating a redirect)
  • move-subpages (move a page and all its subpages in a single action)
  • move-categorypages (moves pages in the Category namespace)
  • tboverride (override the Title Blacklist)

The vote below is for these, nothing else. IWI (chat) 22:09, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, I don't think there was any confusion. None of this should be done by a non-admin. Especially the last one. -Djsasso (talk) 22:11, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Djsasso: This post is in response to me needing a page to be deleted in order to perform a move and one particular admin (not trying to name-and-shame) being stubborn about deleting it. This would require giving Page Movers the ability to delete pages, which I disagree with. I also do not think a new user group is necessary. What I might support is allowing all autoconfirmed users to suppressredirect - I don't see why it was required to create one in the first place. Can you say more on why this should be admins-only in this particular case? Naleksuh (talk) 22:19, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Because it allows editors to move a page without a redirect and then put another potentially bad article in its place with all the old incoming links now pointing to that page. While this wouldn't be as big a deal if we had a page mover right, it would definitely be a nono for just autoconfirmed users. It would also allow them to move templates to new names without redirects which could theoretically break thousands of pages all at once. Generally I am of the same opinion as Dearborn below. We are a small wiki, less flags the better. -Djsasso (talk) 22:23, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Letting all autoconfirmed users not leave redirects would be dangerous. It's pretty easy to get autoconfirmed if you're a determined LTA. IWI (chat) 22:34, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Editing news 2020 #3

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

A gold star with a blue ribbon, and the text 50m
More than 50 million edits have been made using the visual editor on desktop.

Seven years ago this month, the Editing team offered the visual editor to most Wikipedia editors. Since then, editors have achieved many milestones:

  • More than 50 million edits have been made using the visual editor on desktop.
  • More than 2 million new articles have been created in the visual editor. More than 600,000 of these new articles were created during 2019.
  • The visual editor is increasingly popular. The proportion of all edits made using the visual editor has increased every year since its introduction.
  • In 2019, 35% of the edits by newcomers (logged-in editors with ≤99 edits) used the visual editor. This percentage has increased every year.
  • Almost 5 million edits on the mobile site have been made with the visual editor. Most of these edits have been made since the Editing team started improving the mobile visual editor in 2018.
  • On 17 November 2019, the first edit from outer space was made in the mobile visual editor. 🚀 👩‍🚀
  • Editors have made more than 7 million edits in the 2017 wikitext editor, including starting 600,000 new articles in it. The 2017 wikitext editor is VisualEditor's built-in wikitext mode. You can enable it in your preferences.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)

12:55, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Announcing a new wiki project! Welcome, Abstract Wikipedia

Hi all,

It is my honor to introduce Abstract Wikipedia, a new project that has been unanimously approved by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. Abstract Wikipedia proposes a new way to generate baseline encyclopedic content in a multilingual fashion, allowing more contributors and more readers to share more knowledge in more languages. It is an approach that aims to make cross-lingual cooperation easier on our projects, increase the sustainability of our movement through expanding access to participation, improve the user experience for readers of all languages, and innovate in free knowledge by connecting some of the strengths of our movement to create something new.

This is our first new project in over seven years. Abstract Wikipedia was submitted as a project proposal by Denny Vrandečić in May 2020 [1] after years of preparation and research, leading to a detailed plan and lively discussions in the Wikimedia communities. We know that the energy and the creativity of the community often runs up against language barriers, and information that is available in one language may not make it to other language Wikipedias. Abstract Wikipedia intends to look and feel like a Wikipedia, but build on the powerful, language-independent conceptual models of Wikidata, with the goal of letting volunteers create and maintain Wikipedia articles across our polyglot Wikimedia world.

The project will allow volunteers to assemble the fundamentals of an article using words and entities from Wikidata. Because Wikidata uses conceptual models that are meant to be universal across languages, it should be possible to use and extend these building blocks of knowledge to create models for articles that also have universal value. Using code, volunteers will be able to translate these abstract “articles” into their own languages. If successful, this could eventually allow everyone to read about any topic in Wikidata in their own language.

As you can imagine, this work will require a lot of software development, and a lot of cooperation among Wikimedians. In order to make this effort possible, Denny will join the Foundation as a staff member in July and lead this initiative. You may know Denny as the creator of Wikidata, a long-time community member, a former staff member at Wikimedia Deutschland, and a former Trustee at the Wikimedia Foundation [2]. We are very excited that Denny will bring his skills and expertise to work on this project alongside the Foundation’s product, technology, and community liaison teams.

It is important to acknowledge that this is an experimental project, and that every Wikipedia community has different needs. This project may offer some communities great advantages. Other communities may engage less. Every language Wikipedia community will be free to choose and moderate whether or how they would use content from this project.

We are excited that this new wiki-project has the possibility to advance knowledge equity through increased access to knowledge. It also invites us to consider and engage with critical questions about how and by whom knowledge is constructed. We look forward to working in cooperation with the communities to think through these important questions.

There is much to do as we begin designing a plan for Abstract Wikipedia in close collaboration with our communities. I encourage you to get involved by going to the project page and joining the new mailing list [3]. We recognize that Abstract Wikipedia is ambitious, but we also recognize its potential. We invite you all to join us on a new, unexplored path.

Yours,

Katherine Maher (Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation)

  1. ↑ Abstract Wikipedia
  2. ↑ User:Denny
  3. ↑ Abstract Wikipedia mailing list

Sent by m:User:Elitre (WMF) 20:10, 9 July 2020 (UTC) - m:Special:MyLanguage/Abstract Wikipedia/July 2020 announcement [reply]

Big Reference Weekend 2020

Hello everyone, I just want to bring to your attention the Big Reference Weekend 2020, which will run from Thursday 16 July 2020 - 11AM UTC until Tuesday 21 July 2020 - 11PM UTC. The objective of this project is to work through the backlog of articles with unsourced statement or lacking sources. The Big Weekend project was a fun way to improve articles, but has not run since 2016. I have started a discussion on the Big Weekend talk page. Feel free to join the conversation over there, and sign up to the Big Reference Weekend 2020! --Yottie =talk= 17:14, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, could be fun. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:15, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I am taking part in this. Should be good. IWI (chat) 02:31, 10 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Manchester United article

Hello, I have spent the past four days simplifying the Manchester United F.C. article in my user space. I used the English Wikipedia article, which is a Featured Article (Very Good Article) over there. I tried to keep all of the content, hence the article is about the same size (about 2,000 bytes larger due to simplifying).

I have tried to be thorough with the simplification, but of course things can always be improved. For those familiar with readability tools (see Peterdownunder's userpage for more info), the results are as follows (scores are approximate, of course, as they are from a copy/paste of the text):

Flesch-Kincaid reading ease score (0 to 100, higher is better) Flesch-Kincaid grade level Gunning Fog index (average is 12, lower is better) Coleman-Liau index (lower is better) SMOG index (lower is better) Automated Readability Index (lower is better)
English Wikipedia Article 50.7 11.8th grade 12.2 11 10.8 11.2
Article simplified in my User space 67.8 6.9th grade 7.2 9.8 7.4 5.4

I know there are still a lot of red links, my next job will be to create these. I think the article is now better (and definitely more up to date) than the article we have on this Wiki (Manchester United F.C.). Would anyone object to the article I simplified being moved to the article space to replace the one we have now? --Yottie =talk= 17:30, 10 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Good work.Peterdownunder (talk) 04:09, 13 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Looks great to me. Great work Yottie. IWI (chat) 13:28, 14 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Very Good Articles

Hello, I have looked through our Very Good Articles, and see that a lot of them need some work to ensure they keep their status. Of the 34 VGAs, the following have issues:

28 articles. I don't mean to seem harsh, but that is more than half our VGAs. I realise that some of these issues are only minor, and won't take too long to fix. Others are more concerning. I can see SOFIXIT being thrown around in response, but it is our collective responsibility to look into these issues further. --Yottie =talk= 18:45, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try to go through some of them. These should be our very best work. IWI (chat) 18:51, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Leaving another comment so that this doesn't disappear into the archive: I have previously gone through some of the lower-hanging fruit shortly after this thread was originally started, and just recently went to look at The Lightning Thief - the article has had subtle external link vandalism since March 2019, and a factual error that went unnoticed for nearly a decade. Definitely would be good to have more eyes on this. Chenzw  Talk  13:39, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Yottie and Chenzw: When I get time I will spend a day where I go through every one line-by-line. The fact that our VGAs have so many problems should be top priority IMO. IWI (chat) 19:36, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@ImprovedWikiImprovment: Thanks. I think we should probably review the VGAs properly when we have fixed the issues above. I am also keen to start a discussion about the GA/VGA process, but that's one for another day! --Yottie =talk= 21:08, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Big Reference Weekend 2020 starts today

Proposal: Unbundle page mover from the administrator toolset

I think this right would make things easier for some people to move pages without having to request admin rights.

Support
  1. As proposer, Interstellarity (talk) 19:00, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support - as stated above, having to annoy admins about so many moves is a pain for people who like to move pages. IWI (chat) 19:05, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Support Why not? We can always put it back if it doesn't work out. Anyone for trying this out for six months? Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:47, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Strong support I usually create articles in userspace, and then move them to mainspace. I would find these rights very helpful, as I get the feeling that the admins are tired of deleting all my redirects. Note that if I got this right, that would be the only thing I use it for-moving articles from userspace to mainspace, but without a redirect. --sithjarjar666 (my contribs | talk to me | email me | see my enwiki profile) 20:57, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Support Allowing some non-admins to move pages without leaving behind redirects should create less work for admins. Miraclepine 15:17, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. Oppose - I tend to agree with Eptalon, further up. I think it's easy enough to move a page and tag a redirect for QD if necessary. There is rarely a backlog, and this gets done promptly by the admin team. --Yottie =talk= 20:39, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I myself have moved 87 pages, a good chunk of which have required the assistance of an administrator due to the target already existing. However, this would require giving page movers the ability to delete all pages (in cases where redirect overwrites are not sufficient), which is far too powerful of an ability. Overall if there were hundreds of pages being moved a day this could be useful, but it's not. Purpose of administrators is to help the wiki (although I am a large advocate of WP:DEAL per both deleting pages can easily be restored, it is best to only give it out for all deleting pages). The other use case of not leaving redirects...there's no harm in having the redirect up for a couple hours or whatever. In fact this is arguably better, as EN generally waits several *days* before deleting (intentionally, not due to backlog) Naleksuh (talk) 21:44, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    @Naleksuh: The "pagemover" group does not include this. It doesn't let users overwrite. IWI (chat) 22:10, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    It does just not in the way you are thinking. It allows you to do a round robin move. ie. Move the page to a 3rd location then move the 1st to the 2nd. and the 3rd to the 1st because of redirect suppression. -Djsasso (talk) 22:15, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure, but that doesn't give the ability to actually delete a page, only move it around to circumvent it. IWI (chat) 22:21, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Depends on how you look at it. The old redirect is effectively gone and a page moved that perhaps shouldn't have been. -Djsasso (talk) 22:24, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Oppose for much of what has been said already including what Eptalon has said. This so very rarely comes up that having another flag for this would actually be more trouble than the two seconds it takes for an admin to do the delete when it shows up in the QD list. Hat collecting is a huge problem here and this very much is what this would end up, even the request feels like a request to hat collect. (not that it wasn't done in good faith). We are such a small community that we should have less flags not more for the very reasons suggested to split this out. I would be surprised if we have it even happen 10 times in a year beyond a single instance of a person doing a bunch at once. -Djsasso (talk) 22:01, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Oppose per the discussion above. Chenzw  Talk  02:39, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Oppose without more data demonstrating a current bottleneck that this would solve. It does not appear a significant issue with sysops not able to care for these in a timely manner. And on a small wiki I think a simpler permission scheme is better. Desertborn (talk) 16:00, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Discuss
  • The way I see it, we only have a relatively small number of admins here. Why should their workload involve something as trivial as that, when trusted users can just not leave a redirect and save time. The hat collecting issue is true, some users are hat collectors. I don't see that as a reason to not unbundle the right. Obvious hat collectors simply shouldn't be given the right without a history of page moving. IWI (chat) 20:57, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Just to put things into perspective: Cleaning out the 'QD log', and going over the 'Requests for deletion' is among the most common things admins do. And it doen't make much difference, if you have the usual 'graffitti' to clean; or the usual graffitti plus a few old redirects. People: This project is about buliding an encyclopedia, about being able to contribute to articles, perhaps to ask oneself if a given person or concept deserves to be included. Its not about hat collecting. Its about doing work that is useful to the community.--Eptalon (talk) 21:37, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Of course it's not difficult for admins to clear these, but it does strike me as unnecessary when we could allow a few trusted users to be able to do it themselves. IWI (chat) 22:48, 1 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Oppose - IMHO a solution looking for a problem - If you don't want the redirect existing just CSD it. –Davey2010Talk 22:00, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Creating the page WP:Contents and adding it to the sidebar

I think this page should be created like the English Wikipedia has on its sidebar. We could make it simpler than what enwiki has. Also, when it comes to the most important articles WP should have, should we use the enwiki's Vital article list or meta's List of articles every Wikipedia should have? Interstellarity (talk) 14:03, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We already use meta's list. It is what goes into our most wanted list on the recent changes page, our copy is here Wikipedia:List of articles all languages should have. THough now we are mostly working off Wikipedia:List of articles all languages should have/Expanded as the other was filled awhile back. -Djsasso (talk) 13:25, 14 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Djsasso: Do you think we should switch to enwiki's Vital Articles list or stick with meta's list? Interstellarity (talk) 22:45, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Harrasment

I have just started editing and it appears that I am already being harassed, can you please help? ReedBlower (talk) 09:00, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@ReedBlower: Sorry that you’ve had to experience this. I have warned the user and if they continue, they will be blocked by an administrator. IWI (chat) 09:05, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above user has since been blocked indefinitely after a check user investigation. IWI (chat) 09:08, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2020-30

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

Recent changes

  • A temporary fix helped wikis make their main pages more mobile friendly. This was in 2012. It has not been recommended since 2017. The mobile main page special casing stopped working 14 July. 60 wikis now have main pages that don't work well on mobile. You can see which ones, how to fix it and how to get help in Phabricator. This is the same problem that was reported in Tech News 2020/24 and 2020/26.

Problems

  • There is a problem with the interlanguage links. The interlanguage links are the links that help you find a specific page in a different language. The sorting is broken. The developers are working on a solution. [5]
  • Some users keep getting the notifications for the same event. Some of these are old events. [6]
  • Some users have trouble logging in. This is probably a browser cookie problem. The developers are working on understanding the problem. If you have trouble logging in you can see the details on Phabricator. [7]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 July. It will be on all wikis from 23 July (calendar).

Future changes

  • There is a Page for printing link. This will disappear. That is because web browsers today can create a printable version or show how it will look in print anyway. [8]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

19:13, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Twinkle

Hi greetings, I'd like to inform you that the tool Twinkle is not working correctly in simple wiki. It doesn't show options for tagging, stub sort, etc. I'm not sure if this is just a problem with my interface. Would you mind fixing the problem? Thank you.--Path slopu (Talk) 05:48, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There was an issue last month that was caused by changes to the Vector skin. If you have not done so yet, please clear/bypass the browser cache; if the problem persists, can you take a screenshot of your Twinkle tabs/links (upload to imgur or somewhere similar)? Chenzw  Talk  10:05, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Chenzw: Hi greetings, thank you for considering my request. I bypasses the cache, but it still persists. Can we report it in phabricator? Please help.--Path slopu (Talk) 12:19, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure if this is reportable in phabricator, because the relevant options are showing up for me. Do you see the other twinkle options that show up in articles, and do those other options work? Chenzw  Talk  12:25, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Chenzw: Hi, in my interface, only QD option are available (in TW menu). No other links are appearing. Regards.--Path slopu (Talk) 12:30, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Path slopu: I had the same problem. I fixed it by disabling a few gadgets. You should try doing this as well. IWI (chat) 12:31, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Please try what IWI said above; disable every other gadget/userscript that is not Twinkle, and re-enable them one by one to determine the conflicting script. Please be sure to clear the cache in between re-enables. Chenzw  Talk  12:37, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@ImprovedWikiImprovment and Chenzw: Hi, thanks. I shall do so.--Path slopu (Talk) 12:40, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@ImprovedWikiImprovment and Chenzw: I have fixed the issue. It was a problem due to an interface gadget
  • Add a "0" tab to the top of the page which lets you change the first section of the page.

I've disable it and twinkle seems working normal. Thanks a lot for your helps. Thank you.--Path slopu (Talk) 12:45, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Request for comments

...at Talk:Labour Party (UK). An editor has changed the page where it describes the Conservative Party's victory in the 2019 United Kingdom general election as a "landslide" to instead describe it as a "majority". Both the anonymous editor and Chenzw disagree with this claim. IWI (chat) 17:04, 24 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: Change the tagline that appears below the title on every page

The motivation for this proposal is that there is not currently enough visual distinction between pages here and pages on the non-simple English Wikipedia, which can lead to confusion. (A few times in the past, when Google has taken me to a page here rather than one at en-WP, it has taken me a minute to realize where I am.) The only way for someone to tell currently (assuming desktop; I have no clue what's happening on mobile) is to notice the slightly different logo in the upper left, or (even less likely for non-editing readers) to notice the different sidebar/UI elements like "change" instead of "edit".

The best way to address this, I think, would be to change the tagline that appears under the title of every page. It's currently From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, the same as en-WP. I think the best alternative would be From the Simple English Wikipedia. This keeps the language short, and replaces "the free encyclopedia" (something people can be expected to know at this point; it's no longer 2005) with an indication that you are here rather than at en-WP and a link in case you don't know what the Simple English Wikipedia is (a more likely scenario) and want to learn. How does this sound? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 20:54, 16 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I like it. By now "Wikipedia" is a bit famous. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:33, 16 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't disagree. However, I have never ever Googled something that actually showed me the Simple English Wikipedia page before the standard English Wikipedia page. The only way I can have that happen is if I specifically type the Simple English Wikipedia in my search query. Google even has a special cutout for what is basically the lead to a Wikipedia article with the link to that article. I can't say I can sympathize with this problem because I've never personally seen it happen. ~Junedude433talk 02:44, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen it a few times myself. It's rare, but sometimes Google seems to rank Simple higher than Enwiki. Maybe when we have a more complete article than Enwiki? (Also rare, but it does happen). Desertborn (talk) 18:21, 24 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have strong feelings one way or the other. I will say that I have addressed this problem for myself by using a different skin on the two projects. --Auntof6 (talk) 03:41, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Everyday readers will just use the standard skin, and both enwiki and simplewiki appear idenctical on mobile. This could be helpful in preventing confusion, and even somewhat reducing cases of new users changing simple words to complex words, not realising they are in fact on the SEWP. IWI (chat) 17:15, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Not really sure how you wouldn't notice as right next to the article title in Google it says "Simple English Wikipedia". -Djsasso (talk) 18:32, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
While on the page however, it is not clear. I feel IPs would be at least somewhat less likely to hit edit and start making the article complex on their mobile devices if it was clearer. IWI (chat) 21:21, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I was testing this on my own mobile device, and it doesn't seem like MediaWiki:Tagline is visible on the mobile interface at all. I think differentiating the tagline will be useful, nevertheless. Chenzw  Talk  16:05, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, it's not. I don't use the mobile view but I've just tested it myself. Still could be useful either way. IWI (chat) 16:27, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Personally I've never paid any attention to the tagline here or at EN - Both sites are easy to differentiate from however not everyone may find it easy to know which one's which, If it helps our readers then sure. Support. –Davey2010Talk 21:55, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think I agree with the proposal and my opinions are in line with Davey's above so support.-BRP ever 23:28, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
or you could change the default skin to timeless, which also works better on mobile, no one could mistake that for english. Slowking4 (talk) 19:25, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Slowking4: But this is no good for the everyday reader. IWI (chat) 19:28, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
can you not change the default for not logged in readers? because readability is better for small screens, with the left menu out of the way. Slowking4 (talk) 19:31, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That's a whole other discussion. Not something I would support personally. IWI (chat) 19:40, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
well, the problem statement is: "not enough visual distinction". is the tagline visual? or is it branding, most new users will not notice? i agree, a skin change, would be a more contentious discussion. i would suggest that timeless is an improvement, that would provide a clear visual distinction. Slowking4 (talk) 20:11, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2020-31

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

Recent changes

  • The Starter kit is now available for wiki communities. This page lists technical resources, tools, and recommendations. These are essential to operate a wiki project. This is mostly useful for smaller wikis where the community has limited experience with this. [9]
  • The first features of the Desktop Improvements project are available for logged-in users on all wikis. In order to use them, uncheck Use Legacy Vector in your local or global preferences in section Skin preferences. More improvements are planned. Feedback is welcome.
  • Advanced item On multiple wikis, a UTCLiveClock gadget is available. For wikis that import the gadget directly from mediawiki.org, end users can now choose a different timezone to show instead of UTC.

Problems

  • Advanced item The deployment train for MediaWiki has been blocked this week. [10][11]
  • Translation Notification Bot was sending the same message multiple times to every translator. This has been fixed. [12]
  • Some users were receiving the same notification multiple times. This has been fixed. [13]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from July 28. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from July 29. It will be on all wikis from JUly 30 (calendar).

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

13:51, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

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