Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 42

Tell us about your Wikipedia

Please m:Tell us about your Wikipedia at Meta! Kind regards --Ziko (talk) 21:33, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

According to our page there is also a Simple French Wikipedia. Where? mc8 19:24, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

frp:Reçua, I believe. "Simple French" is an anomaly; "simple" doesn't translate to any word in the French language, if the free online translators are correct. Google tools also seem to have a fiendishly hard time translating the frp French into English, which I suppose should be an inidcation that "Simple" is a lot harder to write than normal. cassandra (talk) 22:07, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I know for a fact that los isn't French, so it appears to be some kind of mutant Esperantoesque lots-of-languages-merged-into-one type thing. Microchip 08:34, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

(unindenting) This is Arpetan/Arpitan; It is a language resembling French (One of three gallo-roman languages left, the other two are occitan (in the south of France, and Langue d'oïl in the north (French is a variety of langue d'oïl)) . There are about 77.000 speakers, in Switzerland, in neighboring France: Grenoble, Lyon, etc (most of Rhône-Alpes); Idaly: Aosta valley, and around. And no, its definitely not simple French.--Eptalon (talk) 09:43, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Deceived. One paragraph actually did translate well. so where is this so-called Simple French? cassandra (talk) 07:09, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The different shades of green are Arpitan

Vous devriez tous savoir que le français simple n'existe pas ;-) JurgenG (talk) 07:21, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

New UK wikimedia chapter

A plan is in the works to found a new UK chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, and we are currently gathering support from the community. If you are interested in being part of this new UK chapter as a member, a board member or as someone with a general interest in the chapter, please head over to m:Wikimedia UK v2.0 and let us know. We also welcome help in making finishing touches to the plans. An election will be held shortly for the initial board, who will oversee the process of founding the company and accepting membership applications. They will then call an AGM to formally elect a new board, which will take the chapter forward, starting to raise funds and generally supporting the Wikimedia community in the UK.

Geni (talk) 23:36, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Bot for Translation

I am relatively new to Simple English wiki. I was wondering if we could have a bot look at articles from the English wiki and see if they are 'simple enough' to be included in this wiki, otherwise 'simplify' them. Is there already any such bot? Otherwise if people agree to the idea, I am willing to program one. Amanbhatia (talk) 10:47, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

You can't make a bot that can simplify/write whole articles. That's what users do. Bots are for repetitive tasks such as adding Interwikis or Categories. Maybe you could make a bot that could simplify articles from En wiki but 1. I imagine it would be very hard to program and 2. It would make us as editors here redundant. FSM ^Noodly? 20:21, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

My plan is not to make editors redundant. Such a bot would indeed be very difficult to code. My idea of a bot is a semi-automatic bot. It may be able to identify which articles from En wiki are already 'simple enough' to be included on Simple wiki. (One definition of 'simple enough' could be articles that contain words from a subset of the Basic English 1500). The bot could assist editors in the translation from En to Simple En. With some amount of NLP, the bot might be able to break up the sentence with relative clauses etc. into separate sentences and perform more complex tasks on its own (Machine translation from English to Simple English is much more easier than translation from English to another language). Bot-created articles would then be edited/proofread by humans.
The only issue with my idea might be the complexity of the program. Regarding editors becoming redundant, that seems to me the stuff Sci-Fi movies like I, Robot are made of :D --Amanbhatia (talk) 09:01, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

A bot to identify those en.wiki articles that could be transwiki'd with little to no need for "translation"? Sounds like an excellent idea to me. Though making a bot that would automatically "translate" the articles would probably be more work than it's worth. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 19:40, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

m:Meta:Flood flag

Although still a proposal, prehaps this would be good here? mC⁸ 19:16, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we get way to many "recent change floods" here. Majorly ^talk 20:15, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Definitely. Doesn't look too complex monobook-wise and Creol will stop changing his rights. I've wanted to go over long lists doing small edits for a while now (removing tags, adding [[links]] to one word on 1,000 articles, and this'll help stop me flooding RC. --Gwib ^-(talk)- 20:18, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Sounds alright. I'd support, and I know of no admins I would worry about abusing it. -- American Eagle (talk) 20:49, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Acceptance of Wikiprojects by community?

How does a project move from user space into main space. The Wikipedia:WikiProject project page states: Until a WikiProject has been accepted by the community here and moved to the Wikipedia mainspace ... But how does the community decide when the project has been accepted? --Matilda (talk) 21:19, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I guess when we discuss them here. Cassandra ^talk 21:51, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

• At the wikiproject project page there are the following wikiprojects - and I have annotated with date of establishment and number of signed up members:

Project	Number of members	When established	Are there specific goals?	Are there discussions on the talk page on the project topic?	Number of members who are active
Adoption - to help new users get settled	7	April 2008	yes	no
Baseball	6	June 2008	yes	no
Categories	12	January 2008	yes	yes
Christianity	9	April 2008	yes	yes
Geography	6	January 2008	yes	no
Good articles	8	May 2008	yes	yes
Music	9	January 2008	yes	yes
Asian music	7	January 2008	yes	yes
Sex and Sexuality	9	August 2008	yes	yes
User warnings	7	January 2008	yes	yes
Video games	11	June 2008	yes	yes
Wikiproject Anti-Vandalism	11	May 2008	yes	yes
Wikiproject Rock music	5	23 november, 2008	yes	yes

The following projects have only one member or are not properly started yet: Chemistry, Computer Science, History, Military history, Novels, Tropical cyclones, Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oklahoma

I propose that any project that has more than 3 members signed up could be regarded as active and moved into mainspace.--Matilda (talk) 22:19, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree with Matilda. Projects like WP Pokémon or WP Anti-Vandalism aren't nearly active enough to be moved to the mainspace. I would suggest giving community consent to those projects which have:

1. A specific list of goals
2. 5+ active members
3. A few discussions on the talk page (showing interest within the project)

After these have been met, maybe we could narrow down further and discuss each project individually (not voting), and see possible outcomes of moving them. Hopefully, after the move, they will become more active. --Gwib ^-(talk)- 05:21, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

In response to Gwib's suggestion, I have modified the table above to include some extra columns (yet to be filled in). I have also removed three projects which don't fit: Pokémon and Sims have too few members and Userboxes is already in main space - thus not an issue.

How are active members defined? If they have edited in the last month (month of August) and have say more than 10 edits, how does that sound as a minimum thresh hold?

--Matilda (talk) 05:59, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

A major problem with using any number of active members as a guide to if the project is active is that while a member may be active this does not mean they are active in that project. People sign up for projects and months go by and they do nothing towards that project. They may have thousands of edits, but nothing about the project. They should not be counted towards activity. The primary judging point is activity on the project pages that deals with more than just someone signing up as a member. Are discussion points being brought up? Are they being talked about and/or dealt with? Many of the listed projects do not even have a talk page. How active can it be if no one is talking about anything? Projects Categorization, Video Games, and Gwib's sex fetishes are the only ones with real activity in their feilds and even these have little to no activity on their pages other than the occasional new member. Whether they have goals or not is immaterial. Whether they are working towards those goals is what matters. If there is a sign of noticable progress and focus is a main point. It is easy to set a goal. Following through on it is the important part. -- Creol(talk) 06:42, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I do not know how anybody else wants to categorise "active" members" so I have not filled in that column. I think for example, the anti-vandalism project has clear enough goals (given there is a policy on Vandalism and there is some discussion - although it is not very much but does it have to be? I am not sure if there is some other criteria that Gwib is looking for? This topic really needs more discussion from more editors. Please feel free to amend the table above - that is it is OK to change my comments in the table. --Matilda (talk) 06:32, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

WikIProjects are good for actual collaboration. There is collaboration here, but it's of a different kind.

• The English CVU probably gets a lot of discussion because of concentrated efforts to vandalize the English Wikipedia and a need to sysetmatically fight back against these. Since becoming an administrator, I regularly fight vandalism by watching Special:RecentChanges, warning, and blocking users, but have never needed to join a WikiProject to do that.
• I created the Pokemon WikiProject in hopes of capturing some members from en to work on the species articles. As that's never been panned out, and I had little interst in doing the work entirely by myself, that project is largely abanoned.
• Most of what the Video Games project does it create stubs; A Link to the Past has been the most major force behind that. Behind him I flesh out plot and gameplay details and such. But my best work with video games was proper categorization and cleanup of some really horirbly written prose on other related articles even before the VG project was started; and ALTTP and I worked independently of each other on that.
• Collaboration usually happens when someone works hard on a WP:PGA OR WP:PVGA and solicits input from us on WP:ST. I've regularly looked over articles and made comments on them. I used to be annoyed at people not editing my editing and checking my articles, but now i'm used to it.

With that in mind, I think that WikiProjects are good at coalescing information together for people to look at, but not necessary have much discussion on it. cassandra (talk) 06:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Hello, I think the aim of a wikiproject is to help the collaboration by its members, towards a well-defined goal; With that in mind, I have seen activity on Gwibs Wikiproject, there has also been some activity on the "Christianity" wikiproject (though it has lessened to some extent). To reach the goal, it is in my opinion irrelevant if the project page is located in Userspace, or in mainspace. I think that with current activity levels, we need more active user (read: more users that are active, not users that are more active). Wikiprojects should in my opinion continue in Userspace. --Eptalon (talk) 11:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

The Adoption/Coaching project should exist in the project space since it's much more of a help forum than an actual WikiProject. As for the other projects, I agree with Eptalon that currently user activity levels are too low for there to merit a need for Wikiprojects.--TBC 21:01, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I second (or third?) that. WikiProjects are fine in userspace at the moment. They only need to be moved into project namespace when we have more users (or when WP:TASER becomes a policy...) Chenzw  Talk  12:41, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I think that there should at least be a link on the main page so that users who are new or don't know about the Wikiprojects will have a way to find them. Its hard to get new members when people don't know they exist. --CPacker (talk) 00:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Prof.Carlos Nemer (please take your time to read it before ... you think of running trhough)

I wrote this file but you decided to purge, I was not finished yet and still...

<NOTE: Content from deleted article Carlos Nemer removed. Should not be here.>

— This unsigned comment was added by 201.19.96.55 (talk • changes) on 1 September 2008.

• I assume this is an issue of notability. The same article topic was discussed at English wikipedia - see en:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Carlos E. Nemer and also at en:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Carlos Nemer - both times the debate was inclonclusive but the article was deleted as notability did not pass the threshhold. --Matilda (talk) 04:22, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Dear Matilda, you did not let me finish the article, and the deabte was inconclusive, congratulations for your high class idea of justice. Let me finish the article with the proper justification, this is a non English speaking person. best regards, — This unsigned comment was added by 201.19.82.96 (talk • changes).

Please, do not take it out on Matilda. The deletion discussion was here, Majorly (talk · contribs) was the one that decided to delete it fast. Go after him if you so desire, but Matilda is innocent of this. cassandra (talk) 07:27, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Hello, and welcome to Simple English Wikipedia (I am also not a native English speaker, btw). If the article was deleted on the grounds of notability (on En as well), I fear that there is little we can do (If that person is not notable, he or she will not be notable, no matter how much you write about them). If you insist, you could of course r-ecreate the article, and once you are done re-creating, we could run it through a regular deletion process, which of course would give all of us more work. So before we start down that route, are there any pointers you can give (unrelated to WP) why this person might be notable? --Eptalon (talk) 11:39, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I reckon Eptalon is lying about the fact that he isn't a native. He knows more words than everyone in my local community... for instance abiogenesis... [/off topic] mc8 16:47, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I am new to Simple English Wikipedia and did not know where the deletion debates were. I had nothing to do with deleting the article here or on English wikipedia. To consider whether there should be an article on Carlos Nemer on this wikipedia, you should read the policy at Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, specifically point 17: You should only make articles about people who have made important achievements. A good way to find out if someone is important enough for an article is to see if they are mentioned somewhere else. If there is an article about something and someone has been involved with it, this person can be mentioned in the article. As User:Eptalon suggests, it would help if you could explain why Mr Nemer is notable with a link to an article published elsewhere. Regards --Matilda (talk) 22:14, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

(Complete side point: I am a non-native English language speaker; my mother tongue is German; the second language was French, the third Latin, the 4th English, the 5th Spanish. Abiogenesis is a word constructed from Greek roots; it has nothing to do with the languages I know. Like many scientific words it is completely made up. - So please write slowly, as I might not understand it, otherwise). --Eptalon (talk) 23:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

If you are going to take some time to work on an article and do not want to have it deleted prematurely, you may want to work on it in a sandbox first. To create your own sandbox, create a user name and start a page called "simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:YOUR USER NAME/sandbox". (Instead of "YOUR USER NAME", type the user name you have chosen.) After you have finished work on the article in the sandbox, create a new article with the article's proper name, type "{{subst:User:YOUR USER NAME/sandbox}}" and save the article. What you have typed in your sandbox will be transferred over to the article page. — Cheers, Truth's Out There ^–talk– 06:55, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Balance on the most wanted page

Please keep in mind that the article listed in the most wanted (new changes) box should keep a kind of balance. They should come from different "fields of interest". Currently, we'd have enough slots to completely fill them with Bible/Christianity-related or Sports-related entries. It is in my opinion important to include articles there from different fields of interest (not everyone is interested in Bible-related or sports-related stub creation only). --Eptalon (talk) 11:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll keep that in mind when updating the blue links to reds. --Gwib ^-(talk)- 16:39, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually... striked links and red links would be a better description. mc8 16:44, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Greek symbols

Hi all,

I just found out that if I want to put greek symbols on this wiki, this does not work. Most wikis have an "symbol input bar" (don't know how it's called, I'm just making up this term right now), but this one hasn't. So I guessed that I could type in some Greek symbols in word, and then copy-paste them into the wiki. But now I get this kind of blocks for every symbol. I think it's Unicode, but I don't know for sure. (Here's an example with the word "kai": ). How come this? Japanese and Chinese symbols do work even when copy-pasted (example: 学生 がくせい), so why won't Greek work?

Tenth Plague (talk) 21:57, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

The article on Pi does have the Greek letter included and the article on the Greek alphabet has a template with the Greek letters: Template:Greek alphabet. Maybe it is something to do with the font, but you could try copying and pasting from there. I have had a try using the word "Kai" (I don't know any Greek so I am guessing is Kappa Alpha Iota) and thus would be written as Και - I copied these letters from the template and it seems to work. I noted though that the template was coded with Template:Polytonic so may be using the template to write Και - ie {{polytonic|Και}} - is better. I am not sure but am just guessing - somebody may have a better answer. It seems to show up OK on my screen. Regards --Matilda (talk) 06:22, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

In the article on pi, the symbol is produced with & p i ; (without the spaces but the nowiki formatting didn't work!) giving π --Matilda (talk) 06:31, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

For some reason, the table for inserting symbols is turned off by default in Simple English Wikipedia. (Can someone who knows how please turn it on by default?) As a helpful editor previously advised me, to make the table appear when you edit, create a page called "simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:YOUR USERNAME/monobook.js", add the following line to it, and save the page:

#editpage-specialchars {display:block}

— Cheers, Truth's Out There ^–talk– 06:47, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

It is now a gadget. Just go to your preferences and click the gadgets tab. Under Interface Gadgets is the entry for Edittools. Click it and follow the note at the bottom of the page and the complete Special characters toolbar is shown on your edit screens. -- Creol(talk) 07:40, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

New VGA and GA proposals

Hey there. I've added two more proposals, one for WP:VGA and the other for WP:GA (Baseball uniform at WP:PVGA and Green Day at WP:PGA). They could really use some comments, opinions and reviews. Thanks, RyanCross (talk) 03:24, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

template:TOC with nav

I've created this for Wikipedia pages. What it will do is right align the table of contents, with a link to the talk page if there is one, a link to the archive (if you use the archive parameter) and a link to the header, if you use the header. See WP:RFD for an example. Feedback, please! Microchip 10:11, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

That change was enough to force me to turn off the entire header section on that page as it made it unreadable for me. The entire first RfD and part of the second got squeezed into just a small column. It is better to not have a TOC at all than one that totally screws up much of the screen. What settings did you check this on before implementing it? -- Creol(talk) 10:51, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah. Sorry; I mistakenly assumed that it would work on all settings. Apologies. mC⁸ 11:54, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Also, could you please fill in this page? We could prehaps move it into WPspace, so people can be contacted if need be? That way you can be sure to message people who will be online shortly, and get a quicker response. Microchip 10:20, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

REMINDER

I want to remind everyone I have a current editor review. Please comment for those who haven...and for those who have I appreciate it. My editor review.--  † ChristianMan16  20:43, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Welcome Template

On another Wikipedia (arabic, prehaps?), I added an interwiki link to an article. I was then welcomed, not with a standard welcome template that most editors would get, but a special English language one with links pertaining to those about translations and interwikis. Would this be an idea to port over here? We welcome many people with links they have no interest in, as all they are doing is adding an interwiki. We could outline, prehaps, the way we do interwikis (if we do it differently from standard), a short summary of Simple English, and maybe a note to say that it is a good place to go if you want to learn English. After all, this is an oppotunity to 'sell' our Wikipedia on 'passers by'; it's probably rather like big signs in shop windows: people walk past, prehaps look at the items on sale, but never quite go in. Can we change that? Regards, Microchip (vtdc) 10:27, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Err... tell them the way we do interwikis? Aren't they standard? How are our interwikis different from the others? :O Chenzw  Talk  11:24, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I think they are standard, but there was a discussion on having English Wikipedia at the top, which prehaps we could implement? Anyways, they may be standard, but there are other things we can add. Microchip • talk 11:30, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Our interwikis are standard. Unfortunately, there are at least two standards for interwiki linking. Our standard may not be the same as their standard. One standard is alphabetically by link code (el:, en:, eo:, es:), the other is alphabetically by language name in the native tongue (Ελληνικά (Greek-el:), English (en), Español (es:), Esperanto (eo:)). Our standard is easier for a user to read and locate their native langage alphabetically, but a bit tougher for the writer as fi: goes in the S's not in the F's (fi=Suomi) and non-Romanized names are harder to alphabetize when you can't read the letters (Japanese is in the N's - 日本語 = Nihongo ). Somewhere, on Meta I think, there is a page which lists which wiki's use which standard. Most IWBots make their changes based in which standard is in use. -- Creol(talk) 14:34, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Page protections (US presidential campaigns)

Hello all, the articles about the contestants in the upcoming US presidential election (Obama, Biden / McCain, Pallin) have been semi-protected; This means that anonymous or new users talk about changes on the respective talk pages, because they can no longer change the page itself. Note that talking about changes on the article talk page is generally a good idea.

For those of you interested in politics, can we get the following for these candidates:

• Background (What have they done, what ideas do they want to realize)
• Political position (Palin is against abortion, but thinks contraception is a good thing, for example)
• Relevant scandals/gossip

Please provide links where possible. Just wanted to let you know.--Eptalon (talk) 10:42, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I just want to go on record as saying that I never think pre-emptive protection is a good idea. Protecting pages that have not been vandalized goes completely against the main ideas that Wikipedia is based upon: "anyone can make changes" and "assume good faith". I'm disappointed to see these pages protected and would like them un-protected until such a time as they need it (if they need it at all). · Tygrrr... 16:20, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The only page I actually protected was Biden; Creol protected the other pages. AGF is a good think to have. Nevertheless I think that certain pages should really be protected; High-visibility figures are a big target for vandalism. Others like Abortion and World History are protected more for practical reasons; given the size of WH, it is hard to spot non-obvious vandalism. As to abortion, I know it is a controversial subject, and I think those new editors can really discuss the issues on the talk page; I also want to avoid a pro-life, pro-choice edit-warring.Our mission here is to inform. Providing a playground for vandals is left to the others.--Eptalon (talk) 01:12, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

"McCain is the father of: Sarah Palin's retarted baby (the reason its retarted) that shoulda been aborted. Her teenage dotr's unborn(n probably retarted) baby" - I kind of feel that statements like that are vandalism. "He was held in prison for several years and tortured and sexualy molested.." - pretty certain that last part should realy be verified but "JOHN mCain is such a hottie, i mean have you seen his dick?? it is so huge and it tastes delicious. i am his unknown gay partner." might be vandalism. "my names barack obama and i suck dick" - Now I guess that might not be vandalism (although I am pretty certain it is). It could just be original research and a COI situtation. "He's half honkey, all donkey.", "Hella gay", "i love me some brack obama.", "Barack Obama is a man who loves his fried chicken, afterll he is African American.".. and the list goes on - Pretty certain that page got vandalised occassionally during the campaign with Clinton. Biden got off lucky with just a "hi from mexican fo shizzle"

I realy would not say this is a case of pre-emptive protection of unvandalised articles. Retarted babies (how did he get tarted the first time anyway?), sexual molestation, a ton of homosexual and racist attacks.. and the Mexican popping in to say hi.. on people who are drawing 37-39 million viewers when they speak. Pre-emptive in the fact that we are stopping vandalism that already exists on 3 1/2 targets (I think Biden gets it just so he doesn't feel left out) before it gets way out of hand, that I can see. Don't think it is a bad thing. -- Creol(talk) 01:58, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Advertising or not?

Hi, can someone have a look at Mobile Technology Academy? I don't want to put it as QD immediately but it seems to be advertising to me (or at least not NPOV). What do you 'experts' think? JurgenG (talk) 16:11, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Why don't you put it up for Request for Deletion. Thats what you should usually do if you not sure about the QD. There it can be discussed/voted on etc. FSM ^Noodly? 16:13, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh well Tholly has now QD'd it anyway, which in this case was probably better. FSM ^Noodly? 16:14, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it would require a lot of rescue (effectively scrapping most of it) and the company was probably pretty non-notable too. The writing on the article wasn't great, and you'd be better starting from scratch if someone wanted to create it. - tholly ^--Talk-- 16:17, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

This would definitely seem to agree with you on it being an advert. -- Creol(talk) 16:18, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Massive Simple English Phrase book

Do we have one? I have been trying to simplify many words, and putting them in an excel document. (Reminds me of 1984 Newspeak LOL)

Wikitionary? Microchip 08:44, Wednesday, June 18 2008 Utc

Category:Basic English contains all the appropriate word lists. The main focus would be BE 850 and BE 1500. -- Creol(talk) 23:06, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Wiktionary is a multilingual dictionary explaining all words in every language in Simple English. We don't have a Simple English word list there. Minor or Prime 07:25, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah but we do have a Simple English wiktionary and it is different to the English wikitionary --Matilda (talk) 07:42, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

SE WKT can be found here. We are a very small, friendly community and welcome anyone to come check us out and perhaps join us. To date, we have 4.5k entries and are growing quickly despite our small number of active editors. Ideally, the 2 projects (SE WP and SE WKT)will continue to grow to be interdependent on each other and cross-reference each other frequently to help increase understanding of concepts. It's an important component of SE WP and a worthy project. I'd love to see any of you over there and think you'll also find it to be a fun, necessary wiki! · Tygrrr... 14:10, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

New VGA proposed

Hi, I have added the article Oklahoma to the voting section of WP:VGA. Please vote on it and the other articles needing votes on the page. Thanks, --CPacker (talk) 07:35, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, what a beautiful mornin', / Oh, what a beautiful day. / I got a beautiful feelin' / Ev'rything's goin' my way. cassandra (talk) 07:44, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

That was great, im still laughing.--CPacker (talk) 03:50, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Project

I would like to propose that we move all active Wikiprojects to one main page at User:Project. This way, we keep everything unified, and everyone can easily find out if there are any new Wikiprojects. It eliminates the need for Category:Wikiproject, that not everyone adds their Project to, and thus makes sure everyone knows. And anyway, User:Project/Good articles is a lot easier to remember than User:American Eagle/Wikiproject Good Articles. Shorter, too. Project (talk) a.k.a. Microchip08 10:56, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

So you're suggesting we move every Wikiproject from lots of username space to one unified username? What about the lists of templates, custom barnstars, userboxes, lists of goals and redesigns needed to fit them all under one roof?

I'd be happy to do the work, but we'd need permission of every creator to move their project, since some will need to be tweaked slightly. There also might be unforseen problems in moving them all, although I can't think of any atm. --Gwib ^-(talk)- 11:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

We could have a User:UBX like on enwiki for userboxes, but there aren't that many are there? - tholly ^--Talk-- 11:17, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

True, there are not many, but there is a significant number of boxes in each user's userspace that will make a considerable collection. Chenzw  Talk  11:19, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

All projects would need to be set up fairly similar. All would have to use a User:<someone>/<project name>/<project pages> format and I somehow doubt all do. Many are likely using User/page instead of User/project/page for many parts. This would cause issues if two pages had the same name. -- Creol(talk) 11:42, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

To answer Creol's comment: That may be so, but it is relatively easy to use the move tab. Just because they aren't doing it now doesn't mean they can't do it after the migration. To Gwib: what sort of thing would you mean by 'tweaking'? I don't see any problem with moving the barnstars &c, as long as it was moved into a User:Project/Project Name/Project Pages type heirachy. And not all Projects need to be moved. For instance, the Wikiproject Military History only has one member: does that need moving? I'll move my Project, so that we can see what it works out like. Microchip • talk 12:20, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

• I'm not really involved in WikiProjects either way (I find just writing articles is easier!), but this seems like an OK idea. Giggy (talk) 12:25, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Why aren't WikiProjects in the Wikipedia namespace (i.e., "Wikipedia:WikiProject XYZ")? — Cheers, Truth's Out There ^–talk– 15:31, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Truth's Out There: Here's the guideline. Microchip • talk 16:35, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I see, so the present proposal is to move all WikiProjects that have not yet been moved to the Wikipedia: namespace to a single User: namespace. I would support this proposal, since by placing a WikiProject within someone's own user space seems inconsistent with the policy that editors should not make edits to other people's user pages. — Cheers, Truth's Out There ^–talk– 07:40, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Spoilers

{{hidespoilers-start}} Actually there are no spoilers in here, but it serves as a good example of what the post is about.

I created a new spoiler tag. The old ones mark the top and bottoms of spoiler sections but with the information sitting right there, it is not very effective. These tags automatically hide the content of the section unless the reader choses to click the [ show ] button. The old spoiler tags got redirected already, and this is going to cause issues until they can all be sorted out. The main issue would be with tags marking the start of spoiler sections but none closing them. I never intended to redirect.. Gwib jump the gun on the situation but that can be cleaned up. The problem was there anyway, so adding closing tags needed to be done sometime anyway. Now is as good as later.

The tags are fairly simple to remember {{hidespoilers-start}} and {{hidespoilers-end}}. One additional issue that could occur is that they use table formating so pipe characters ("|") floating free inside them could cause issues. Most pipes are already part of a tag or link and would not cause problems, but there could be free ones out there somewhere. -- Creol(talk) 11:42, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Is there any way of making an Imdb style roll-over spoiler tag? The big red ones don't look very good. Oh, and there's {{!}} for in-template pipes; not sure if that would work. Microchip • talk 12:07, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

It's grey now, but still looks a bit odd. I've also changed the top text. Comments? - tholly ^--Talk-- 12:18, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

That text doesn't draw attention to the "Show" icon; it just looks like a banner. Microchip • talk 12:22, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

It's got a color? What is with you people and liking colors which are too close to white to show up on my laptop? -- Creol(talk) 12:30, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

To do something like IMDb's tags would basically require a bit of javascripting which I can't do and a subpage containing the spoiler. Template with a warning, a button. Click the button, include the subpage.

The pipe template I know ; the problem would be that it is not likely being used and would need to be inserted in cases where this problem does exist. I haven't found any, but I am just preparing for possible problems on that one.

The major issue I am getting right now is white space caused by having to clear before the table to prevent it from getting stuck behind things floating right (images and infoboxes mainly). The java use could end that problem. -- Creol(talk) 12:24, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Creol: We like those colours because it's more wikt:subtle. Microchip • talk 12:37, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Invisible is certainly subtle. -- Creol(talk) 12:40, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Doing something thzt requires a lot of javascript would seriously hamper accessibility for people with disabilities. cassandra (talk) 14:45, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Has any thought been given to doing away with spoiler warnings altogether? "en:Wikipedia:Spoiler" reads: "Wikipedia has previously included such warnings in some articles on works of fiction. However, since it is generally expected that the subjects of our articles will be covered in detail, such warnings are largely considered unnecessary. Therefore, Wikipedia no longer carries spoiler warnings, except for the Content disclaimer and section headings (such as "Plot" or "Ending") which imply the presence of spoilers." — Cheers, Truth's Out There ^–talk– 15:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with User:Truth'soutthere: I also think spoiler warnings are not necessary. If somebody is looking at an article on a book or film then they expect to find out information on that book or film, including plot details. If they don't want the plot to be spoiled for them, then they shouldn't be reading an article on the book or film. Wikipedia is not a book or film review service and while I think a reviewer has an obligation not to spoil the plot if the element of surprise is critical to the enjoyment, wikipedia has no such obligations. The coding complications add to the reason why such templates should be deprecated. --Matilda (talk) 21:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

This doesn't appear to be working on Google Chrome. Microchip • talk 23:23, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

What doesn't appear to be working? I'm on Chrome right now and the javascript works perfectly fine for me.. click the button, it opens. click it again, it closes. -- Creol(talk) 23:36, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

The box simply is stuck in the open position, with no [show]/[hide] link. I'll try cache clearing &c. Microchip • talk 23:39, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

It works now I've &action=purge -d it. Microchip • talk 23:41, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Now I've saved and it has stopped working again. Microchip • talk 23:42, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Odd.. there was the width issue when using it with anything floating right (like infoboxes) after the clear all was removed, but a slight change eliminated that problem. Im doing the fixes on Chrome (annoying as this thing is at times.. not a fan of this beta, but it has a nice size to it) and the basic functionality is as fine here as it did when it was first tested on Safari (as it should with Chrome being a Safari clone).

I'm viewing it on Firefox and it's stuck open. But what about doing away with unnecessary spoiler warnings altogether? — Cheers, Truth's Out There ^–talk– 06:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

IP address revamp

What do you think? Microchip 19:47, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

The picture should be a little bigger. The text is also a bit complex. Try to rephrase it. Minor or Prime 05:29, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

What to? mC⁸ 15:17, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I've moved this down the page because it isn't getting any attention way up the top. If I could, I'd have been bold. But I can't. This is the current text. Microchip • talk 12:33, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Hrm. That link actually goes to a third version of the text. What's going on? Microchip • talk 12:38, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

The link is to the correct text, what were you expecting? As to the revamp, writing it in Simple English would be nice. Getting the bottom line to fit all on a single line would help also. (it breaks between "Latin" and "American" for me. In addition, why should we need to look up rangeblocks on en:wp for our IP pages? And an invisible box. -- Creol(talk) 12:52, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, the link goes to one version of the text, but when I go to an IP's talk page, there's another version that doesn't have a box. As for the links, sorry, I just copied it from en:Template:IPtools. Out of interest, what's your resolution? You seem to be zoomed in 20% more than me, and I can't think of any other way to make sure all is on one line without shrinking the text, which is pretty small already. Microchip • talk 13:56, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

OK. This revision is with Siimple text, and this revision has the links on two rows. This, however, in my opinion, doesn't look as good. Microchip • talk 13:59, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

(unindenting) I think the icon should be made a bit smaller. Anon talk pages usually consist of just a few lines of warnings. It doesn't look nice having the banner taking up most of the page, IMO. Chenzw  Talk  03:48, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Changing the icon doesn't make anything smaller. Any other ideas? Do we even need the IP tools box? Microchip • talk 13:10, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Manual of Style: Pronunciation

"Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Pronunciation" currently states: "Pronunciations of words should be written using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)." I'd like to suggest that this be changed to: "Pronunciations of words should be written using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), a respelled pronunciation, or both." I think the option of using a respelled pronuncation should be included because many editors and readers are unfamiliar with the IPA. — Cheers, Truth's Out There ^–talk– 15:49, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

IPA is as easy to learn as your Pronunciation "Respelling" Key (what does "respelling" mean in this context?). Also, I find your description of voicelessness strange and confusing, in the [ð] column, likewise with your description of the [θ] sound (voiceless inderdental fricative). "Gently" is not needed, and I actually say the sound between my upper teeth and my bottom lip. IPA just has terms that aren't automatically known, such as "voiceless velar fricative", and it's not very hard to learn them, unless you're [username redacted - phonetics editor on English WP], who still doesn't understand that [r] does not represent the alveolar approximant. — Jonas Rand · ^(talk) 18:47, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I have nothing against the use of IPA – certainly it can render the pronunciations of words very accurately – but I'd disagree that the IPA is as easy to learn as a respelled pronunciation. "Respelling" in this context means using the letters of the alphabet to indicate how words should be pronounced rather than using a set of different symbols. I would say that in many cases readers should be able to work out how a word is pronounced by looking at the respelled pronunciation without consulting "Help:Pronunciation respelling key". On the other hand, the majority of readers would almost certainly have to look up a chart (such as "en:Wikipedia:IPA", which doesn't yet exist at Simple English Wikipedia) to figure out an IPA transcription. I'm therefore suggesting that the Manual of Style be amended so editors are given the option of using a respelled pronunciation if they wish to. Feel free to help improve "Help:Pronunciation respelling key". — Cheers, Truth's Out There ^–talk– 07:30, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

As part of learning English I had to learn (passively recognising) IPA, not writing it. IIIRC IPA suffers a little from the fact that sometimes there may be more than one way to correctly transliterate a word. Also note, that certain words are pronounced differently depending on where on the globe you are; British and American English are probably the best-known of these, but keep in mind that people from South Africa (Afrikaans is basically a dialect of Dutch, and the people from India/Pakistan/Bangladesh (which are heavily influenced by the myriads of languages there) are among the most difficult to underrstand for someone who has learnt English as a foreign language. One of the benefits of IPA is that is has its own set of characters, this makes it independent of the "Latin alphabet" -so someone from China, Japan, Korea (etc) will probably have a much easier time reading IPA that reading some transliterated spelling. And how do you explain that the "o-sound" in "donut" is not the same than in "do" (without knowing that other spellings of that word are "doughnought" and "doughnut"; If someone does not know how to pronounce the word, they'd probably pronounce it like "do nut")? - In very short, I prefer an IPA transliteration to a "pronounciation help" in English letters. --Eptalon (talk) 13:09, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, doughnut rendered according to "Help:Pronunciation respelling key" would be DOH-nut or DOE-nut, which seem quite clear to me. — Cheers, Truth's Out There ^–talk– 16:55, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, one disputed part would be the silent E (which is only familiar for English speakers), which may be pronounced (without looking at your key) as [e], [i], or [ɛ]. The "OH" or "O" is another thing that may catch some people, as it can be pronounced many ways in different languages, and likewise with U and N (the french Nasal Vowel). The IPA, on the other hand, was designed so that all of the sounds of the languages of the world had a different symbol. Remember, TOT, SEW was meant to be for people whose native language is not English and who are learning the language. — Jonas Rand · ^(talk) 18:23, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not saying that we should do away with the use of IPA transcriptions, but that respelled pronunciations should also be permitted as they can be helpful. Would Simple English editors support the following change, then: "Pronunciations of words should be written using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), with or without a respelled pronunciation."? The amended guideline would then suggest that an IPA transcription should always be given, but that a respelled pronunciation may optionally be provided as well. Also, what silent 'E' in doughnut are we referring to? (On a side point, I'm getting confused by some abbreviations. What do "IIIRC" in Eptalon's comment and "TOT" in Jonas's comment mean?) — Cheers, Truth's Out There ^–talk– 05:37, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

IIRC -> If I remember correctly --Eptalon (talk) 12:36, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah! :-) — Cheers, Truth's Out There ^–talk– 16:03, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Something else: Do we also want pronounciation help for all those words that are pronounced as expected, or should we just add it to those pronounced differently; I remember some geographical place in England with a name that was written completely differently from its pronounciation - Worcester and Rochester (As in the Worchester(shire) sauce) are pronounced differently (The Americans tend to prounce the -chester; the British don't). --Eptalon (talk) 12:43, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that a pronunciation transcription is generally only necessary if the word in question is pronounced in an unexpected way. (Worcester is pronounced WOOS-tə; other UK place names that are not spelled the way they are pronounced include Bicester, Leicester, Harwich (HA-rich), Norwich and Southwark in London (believe it or not, SUTH-ək!). But Rochester is pronounced as spelt.) — Cheers, Truth's Out There ^–talk– 16:03, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

So should Woolfardisworthy (no, not Wulf ardis wothy, but Woolsery) get a pronounciation key?  :) --Eptalon (talk) 12:52, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Definitely! So, back to my suggestion on updating the Manual of Style – how's this?

When a word is pronounced (said) differently from the way it is spelled, a guide to the pronunciation of the word should be set out. Pronunciations of words should be written using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), with or without a respelled pronunciation.

— Cheers, Truth's Out There ^–talk– 20:04, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

So, does anyone object to the above proposed change to the guideline? — Cheers, Truth's Out There ^–talk– 06:56, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Tip of the day?

Here's something I made to replace Mediawiki:Loginsuccess. Click here to view it all... what do you think? Nanochip08 ^Microchip08 on_WHEELS  Lol! Random colour! 07:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

not bad...but I think the writing is a bit small. And for the tip of the day there should be a wikiproject. The life of brian (talk) 12:06, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Can I please revive discussion on this? Just to clarify, here is the toolbar linking the various pages required, and clicking "see template" will take you to the actual replacement. Nanochip08 ^Microchip08 on_WHEELS  Lol! Random colour! 10:14, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Resurrected from the archives... Microchip • talk 19:53, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding HotCat

Wikipedia editors,

Please do not use HotCat to increase your edit count so you can be administrators. Using an automatic or semi-automatic tool is not a personal contribution to the encyclopedia. If you want to be trusted by the community, you should work on articles more, without your automatic tools. A helpful contributor to the encyclopedia doesn't need HC to blow up their mainspace editcount so that someone who has seen their editcount as far as mainspace edits (but not the edits themselves) can blindly support. I am not saying that I know this is happening, I am saying that it might be, and if so, stop it. A question: Is there a way that HotCat can run on a bot account to prevent users from using it to make their mainspace count 10000? — Jonas Rand · ^(talk) 21:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I can't speak for others, but when I use Hotcat, I may also make other edits to the article, or add/remove/modify other cats so it is usually only one edit. I just use Hotcat to do part of it for me more quickly. I think some people do do several consecutive HC edits to the same article, but unless they've made a mistake or forgotten something first time (as I think I might have done before), I agree with you in that this is wrong. - tholly ^--Talk-- 21:15, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There is nothing wrong with using hotcat. Basically I do the same job using hotcat as I would manually. I still need to find the cat, only difference being I don't need to type [[Category:Whatever]]. And I don't believe anyone is trying to fool their way through an RfA based on adding cats. This is a small wikipedia, we know everyone, we know what they do, we know if they will do a good job. Edit count is not such an important criteria. Kennedy ^(talk) 21:18, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

(ecx2)::If the bot thing is not possible, there should be a way to categorize (in the edit count tools) HC edits, in addition to the namespace categories on the EC tools, to measure the amount of HC edits and non-HC edits.

Editcountitis is bad, and the practice should be discouraged. A common comment on RFA's and Editor Reviews is to increase the subject's mainspace edits. mdash; Jonas Rand · ^(talk) 21:25, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we want someone to have a lot of edits so that we know who we can trust, who we know understands the rules. Getting rid of hotcat won't change anything. People will still make small changes, which will count towards their 'editcount' - All you would be doing is making it slightly harder. Kennedy ^(talk) 21:55, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware...on most recent RFAs...edit counts was never an issue. It's usually been about how the prospective admin has acted. TRM was trusted from the English Wikipedia; AE had done excellent work over a period of months; Razorflame was weighed down by owernship issues; my refusal to identify my en account became a major issue, with up to three new opposes that were later struck; so and and so forth. cassandra (talk) 22:48, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Templates

I have created the Wikiversity and Wikijunior templates on my own, but there are still problems with them, so they cannot be used yet. For the Wikiversity template, it links to http://simple.wikiversity.org/, which does not exist. I'm not sure how to make it link to the English Wikiversity instead. I need help to fix that before we can use it. For the Wikijunior template, the text is "Wikibooks Wikijunior has more about this subject". I'm not sure how to change it to "Wikijunior has more about this subject". I need help to fix these problems, then we can use them. Linking articles to Wikijunior is important, since we are building a Simple English Wikipedia. Minor or Prime 12:57, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

 Done for both - tholly ^--Talk-- 13:40, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Wow! Thanks, that's great. Now I can link more articles to Wikijunior easily. I'm glad I started the template. Minor or Prime 14:02, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Wiki Project Heavy Metal

Hello, I just re-started and re-invigorated the Heavy metal Wiki Project, with a little help from Gwib. The project includes all types of heavy metal from classic blues influenced heavy metal such as Cream and Led Zeppelin to more modern metal such as Slipknot and Linkin Park. If you are interested in any form please sign up, as there is now a big to do list of articles to be made and improved. Cheers, FSM ^Noodly? 20:59, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Political positons of candidates of next US elections

I dont knmow, but wouldn't it be a good idea to get the candidates of the next US presidential elections (i.e. 2008) inot shape? - In my opinion, each of the articles should provide answers to the following questions:

• What is the background of the candidate?
• What are their main political positions? (Which of them are shared by the party, which are their own?)

Personally, I do not have time to fill in the info for Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John McCain and Sarah Palin but I think getting some very basic info in these articles (in the appropriate languag,e with references) might give us more visibility. --Eptalon (talk) 12:31, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

American politics is so much more interesting than British (or Scottish) politics :( Kennedy ^(talk) 11:57, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

RAID as a VGA?

Hello all, I have spent considerable time getting RAID ready for VGA, yet there seem to be no votes so far. I am aware that the subject of the article is technical. Normal users outside the computer science field will likely not get in toch with a RAID system (Certain varieties are gainining popularity in desktop systems though) - Can I therefore ask you to look at the article, and leave comments or votes on the respective page? - Thanks. --Eptalon (talk) 13:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Welcome

Can anyone tell me a welcome template that works? I tried using {{Welcome}} a while ago, but the name part doesn't work. Thanks Kennedy ^(talk) 08:36, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Welcome is one of the templates that needs subst-ing, so it is {{subst:welcome}}--Eptalon (talk) 09:37, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Thanks. Kennedy ^(talk) 10:41, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Peer review

Remember now, peer review is just as important than GA and VGA, if not more! - A Link to the Past (talk) 17:37, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I've done the best I can, but I simply do not have the eye like The Rambling Man for picking out problematic wording. cassandra (talk) 17:52, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate your help on articles I've made, but seeing Peer review is a sad sight, with no one really doing anything on it, be it adding articles or adding comments. - A Link to the Past (talk) 18:03, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Did You Mean?

I was thinking of a "Did You Mean" addon to the wikipedia search to help me and those who can't speak English properly or spell words Daemontools (talk) 17:52, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

English help

I'm trying to find subject and verbs in this sentence: "The window fan made a clanking sound durig the night and kept us from sleeping."

I'm doing an english assignment. " "

I don't want to do your homework, especially as this isn't the place. But think, verb is a doing word, so what is happening in the sentence? Kennedy ^(talk) 19:10, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

"The window fan made a clanking sound during the night and kept us from sleeping."

Verb: made (main verb), other verbs = sleeping and kept

Subject: fan. --Gwib ^-(talk)- 20:03, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

VGA updates

Oklahoma is our newest VGA, well done to CPacker. Unfortunately, RAID's PVGA was unsuccessful. Please pitch in and help out so it can get over the line next time!

There are currently two articles up for voting at WP:PVGA; Baseball uniform (ends 17 September) and Red Hot Chili Peppers (ends 20 September). Please comment/vote! Giggy (talk) 05:23, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

See below - Oklahoma, while good, is not ready to be a VGA in my opinion. Nothing personal to anyone, but please contribute to the discussion two sections hereafter. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:00, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

GA/VGA image question

Hello. I was wondering, do WP:VGAs/WP:GAs need images in them for articles to be promoted to those levels? Since we only use images from commons, some articles may not have images but are well-written enough to become a GA/VGA. So again, are images needed in articles to become a GA/VGA? -- RyanCross (talk) 07:44, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Images always help. Remember that old, overused quote: "a picture is worth a thousand words"? You could describe and describe but a picture is usually better. Uploading an image to Commons isn't hard, and sorting out the copyrights sounds tough, but it isn't. So whenever possible, get an image.

However, the lack of an image shouldn't impede an article getting to GA or VGA. If it's well written, one shouldn't need a picture to show what they're describing. --Gwib ^-(talk)- 07:50, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

PVGA process (again)

Last night, Oklahoma was yesterday as VGA as it met the current criteria for WP:VGA, i.e. that "Within one week of being listed under the voting section, 80% of named editors must agree that the article is indeed very good. There is a required minimum of 6 named voters." Nothing personal, but I had about 20 outstanding comments about the article, a lot of them breaches of the WP:MOS (the misuse or lack of hyphens where appropriate, problems with the references date formats and missing access dates, full stops on captions which are sentence fragments), which need to be fixed. My biggest fear is that this article will be upheld as a "model" article and thus render instruction from the MOS as optional which would then cause a slow but inevitable degradation in the quality of our "finest work". The over-prescriptive nature of when to pass a PVGA to VGA means that this article has been promoted prematurely. It's another example of this current process failing to work. I would advise that, before promoting articles from PVGA to VGA, all comments are addressed, either by fixing issues or having satisfactory agreement that suggests, at the very least, the comments have been read. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:00, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I and many other users feel that the article is worthy of vga. I did fix a lot of your concerns during the voting process. I will still fix your other concerns, but now that it has passed I hope you might help also. You brought up "Full Stops" but I have no idea what that means. It’s linked but there is nothing there. Get back to me about fixing the problems. Thanks--CPacker (talk) 18:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi CPacker. Hopefully you understand this is nothing personal, in my opinion it's a good example of another flaw in the process. Anyway, for sure, I'll help with fixing the problems I see. As a matter of interest, full stop is linked (I messed up above by including an 's' in the link) - for US readers, a full stop is a period. I have to link it all the time on en-wiki... So, to summarise - I'm happy to help fix the outstanding issues, but I do not believe articles should be promoted when there are a number of outstanding issues, many of which had not been responded to. Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:17, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Its cool, thanks for agreeing to help.--CPacker (talk) 19:45, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

SPL

Hello folks. The Scottish Premier League, the 14th best league in the world, is ready for voting: WP:PGA - Can you please take a look and !vote or leave some comments? Thanks Kennedy ^(talk) 10:50, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Simple purpose?

Hello community, in Simple English Wikipedia I can currently read, among other things:

The encyclopedia is supposed to be used by children, who might not understand the complicated articles in the English Wikipedia, and other people who are still learning English. Many articles are shorter than the same article in the English Wikipedia. It was started in 2004.

I think we should re-focus the project a little, giving it better aims:

• Wikipedia is for people learning English, and to help translators (which may not be fluent in it)
• I think for the sake of clarity, we should not mention children. If we say SEWP is for Children, some people will claim that we also provide subjects that might make some parents feel uncomfortable if they know their children can see them; We have had that censorship debate many times; WP is not censored. In order not to have to lead these debates in the future, I think we should not mention Children explicitly.

Are there any other things that you think we should mention? --Eptalon (talk) 22:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi - As a relative newbie to this project - can you please point me to the debate we have had here at WP:Simple on censorship? Thanks --Matilda (talk) 23:06, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Censorship debate, Parents control -There are about two others, but I don't find them now. Have fun reading. --Eptalon (talk) 23:19, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the links to earlier discussions.

I think the scope of Simple English wikipedia indicates to my mind that some subjects and illustrations are out of bounds. I do not see the need for them here. The purpose of Simple English wikipedia is not to be a mirror of English wikipedia.

I note that at Wikipedia:About there is a content disclaimer: Wikipedia contains content that some people think is mean, vulgar or bad. See the content disclaimer for more information with a link to the English wikipedia page en:Wikipedia:Content disclaimer.

At Wikipedia:Simple English Wikipedia we say Welcome to the Simple English Wikipedia, an easy-to-read online encyclopedia for people who are learning English. The Simple English Wikipedia's articles can be used to help with school homework or just for the fun of learning about new ideas. Non-English Wikipedias can also translate from the articles here. If you are talking about homework - in general you are referring to children's schoolwork.

At Wikipedia:How to write Simple English articles we say First, think about your readers. Many readers of Simple English are people whose mother language is not English. Other readers may be young (they may be children who don't have much knowledge of English) or have learning difficulties. The language is simple, but the ideas don't have to be. Moreover we do know that there are readers who are children who have disabilities - there are editors here specifically creating content for that audience.

I think the purpose of Simple English wikipedia has always included children in its scope. I cannot understand the justification for writing that audience out of the scope. Once you have them within scope, you do indeed need to think about content.

I think there is no reason why this wikipedia should not be censored somewhat (and that is a careful qualification - ) - not sure where we draw the line but I would suggest there are articles on English wikipedia that do not need to be mirrored here but say the article on sexual intercourse is appropriate. This is notwithstanding the content disclaimer. The content disclaimer is from En and may be appropriate for there but I think we need to consider an appropriate disclaimer for here along with policy.

This may not necessarily be a question for the few active contributors here but rather one we may wish to escalate to the Foundation for some help with developing an appropriate policy.

For any editor who feels like adding content that perhaps might offend some readers, perhaps they could be pointed to another wikipedia - ie the one in their mother-tongue. In my view, this is not the place to practice rude words and rude concepts. Even adults who are learning English don't "need" these sort of articles - they can practice with the real English wikipedia if they want. --Matilda (talk) 00:37, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

(unindenting) There are certain reasons why articles get deleted; them being unsuitable for certain audiences is not one. If I was Muslim, I could say that I am offended by pictures of women who do not wear a burqa ( A burqa leaves a slit for the eyes, but covers the rest of the body) - Should simple therefore remove all images showing women (or the faces of women)? - I do not want to re-ignite the censorship debate, see the links above. Its all there. All I want to try to avoid is that from us saying this content is "suitable for Children and others", some people say that we need to censor all the content (because certain parents are incapable or unwilling to install software that does this). Wikipedia is not censored --Eptalon (talk) 00:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

see Submission (movie) for content that you probably consider inappropriate (Footnote 2 has the movie); I suggest you watch it, before commenting. --Eptalon (talk) 01:03, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

No - I do not find that article inappropriate. I chose not to view the movie - I am an adult and I make choices. However, I don't think the footnote is promoting the link particularly either so I don't think anything needs changing there. --Matilda (talk) 01:10, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict so I haven't considered the above comment)

I think the Muslim argument is distracting, the readership of Simple wikipedia is obviously broader than any specific religious group. Moreover not all Muslims are indeed offended by women who are not fully covered ... So leave Muslimes (or any other religious group out of the debate).

Let us deal with the intended readership - it is quite clear from multiple places that this wikipedia's intended audience includes children as a significant component of that audience - it is different from English wikipedia which does not cater to - or pander to - children.

Talking about the topic in abstract is not helpful - those other debates were also dealing with the abstract.

Software as a censoring tool does not generally work - hence the point certain parents are incapable or unwilling to install software that does this is not useful.

If the scope of this wikipedia includes content for children, then I can imagine there may be articles (and images) that are not appropriate. They may not exist here, nor may anybody have tried to create them. They do exist on English wikipedia. Editors and readers who are interested can go there.

I do not think the answer is to change the scope. English wikipedia is not censored - it does not automatically follow that this wikipedia is not censored unless you can point me to some directive from the Foundation or Jimmy Wales to the contrary. --Matilda (talk) 01:08, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

What Wikipedia is not, Item 6: Wikipedia is not censored. Censorship hides facts. - Official policy, by the way.

As to the example with the burqa: Suppose I was a Muslim parent, and I would not like that my adolescent son is distracted by pictures or descriptions of women without burqas (This argument is exactly the same as saying that certain images/content are considered inappropriate). Since the above is policy, I am therefore (hypothetically) left with client-side filtering of the images. Something that is far more effective is talking to the child,though. As I wrote (in the archive above), there are far greater risks for young people using the Internet than them seeing images that are considered inappropriate.--Eptalon (talk) 01:29, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

You state that SE: is obviously broader than any regligious group - it is also broader than any age group. This is not wikijunior. We are not focused on a specific group. We provide information for all groups. Going beyond that - To limit the information based on what "someone" feels is safe for children sets us up as the morality police. Who is to decide what is safe to include? Different parents have different opinions on what is safe for their children. Certain parents say sex is bad (US puritanicals top the list along with the more militant muslims), others point to movies, television, video games, evolution, intelligent design, any religion which is not their "correct" one, drugs (both legal and illegal), psychology, psychiatry, etc. Certain parents would even fight against general history (holocost deniers are a perfect example) and geography (flat earth, moon landing conspiracy). Who is to draw a line and say what is safe for children? What you would chose as safe for children is likely vastly different than what I would think is safe for my children. Why should one person or group of people be in a position to say their limits are the correct ones. The only limit that is truely neutral is no limit. It imposes nothing on no one and makes everyone decide for themselves what it correct. -- Creol(talk) 02:21, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I am not proposing that this wikipedia is wikijunior. I am saying though that you should write for an audience. The solution is not to deny your audience as per the proposal above. This wikipedia has always (I think) had children as its audience. Nor would I propose to censor the example given - so perhaps I am more tolerant than others - even if not excessively tolerant.

To put it another way, the newspapers obviously have to deal with this idea all the time. They manage. I think we can too. I suspect the articles that I have in mind on English wikipedia would fail because of reliable sources. I note we have no guideline here on reliable sources. They do of course at English wikipedia ( Wikipedia:Reliable sources ) and moreover it is a fundamental guideline when it comes to supporting the policies of no original research and verifiability. I think if we stick to applying that guideline - ie

articles should use reliable, third-party, published sources. Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand.

then we won't have problems. I would not support the viewing of a film as a reliable source - and that has been held up at Englsih wikipedia as justification for at least one article (totally unsuitable in my view and which could not be verified by written sources!) that I can think of.

I am very confused as to why this matter has been raised but I do not endorse the rescoping of the project. --Matilda (talk) 03:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Question

Is Simple English for kids to understand Wikipedia articles, or is it designed for foreigners to understand? The reason I ask is because the "F-bomb" is mentioned on the SpongeBob SquarePants article. It's not vandalism, either. It's a good faith edit (I think), because supposedly there was a movie in 2005 with the above mentioned swear word as a title. I personally think it should be removed. I'm wondering if it should be removed in case it wouldn't be good for kids to see. It's a really trivial mention, so it doesn't seem to have a place. I ask here because I'm not too sure anyone would see it on the SpongeBob Squarepants Talk page. Any insight would be appreciated. 98.202.38.225 (talk) 06:28, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

The reason it has been removed [1] along with other material is because there were no references supporting the material's inclusion. If it were a fact and could be supported by a reference to a reliable source - eg it was mentioned in an article in a notable newspaper, then it could be included. If the fact cannot be supported by a reference, it doesn't have a place in wikipedia. Inclusion or not doesn't have anything to do with the fact that children might read it - it has to do with whether it is true and whether it can be shown to be true. Hope this helps. --Matilda (talk) 06:47, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

This discussion is going on right above, at the moment our target audience does include children, but please understand that we do not provide censorship:

• Articles will not have their language modified to blank out what is considered bad language by some.
• Our aim is to provide (sourced) information. This includes information on controversial topics. No topic is taboo, provided it can be sourced.
• Images are there because they can help explain. It is always possible to replace an image with one that fits better or is considered more tasteful, but do not expect us to remove the image of a woman's breast on the respective page, based on the argument that showing images of bare breasts is bad. If you find an article with what you consider an inappropriate image, please use the article's talk page to propose a different, more fitting one.--Eptalon (talk) 12:19, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Selected article

What's the time-frame for the Selected Article? Wikipedia's is once a day; what about Simple English? My purpose isn't to change the current time-frame; no way in heck. This is 100% curiosity. 98.202.38.225 (talk) 06:45, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I think it's supposed to be every week. At 18 articles, each article will be shown twice a year. cassandra (talk) 07:28, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

It's weekly, see Wikipedia:Very good articles/by date. Giggy (talk) 09:14, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

How to make friends all over the world

I just want to make the friends coming from different countries,but I get no idea of how to do it ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hancy1314 (talk • contribs)

Try joining a social networking site like Bebo or Facebook or MySpace or something. This isn't a social networking site, this is an encyclopedia. Also, when you post a message, could you put ~~~~ at the end, so we know who wrote it? Thanks Kennedy ^(talk) 08:21, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Closure overdue

Hello. The proposed very good article of baseball uniform was supposed to be closed at around 3:00 (UTC) yesterday. It is now overdue. Could someone who hasn't participated in the discussion close the proposed very good article? Thanks, RyanCross (talk) 01:57, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I will close since nobody else has actioned yet. Please bear with me as a newbie - it will take me some time to learn the steps and action. If I make a mistake please let me know. --Matilda (talk) 03:37, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Very well. Thank you. -- RyanCross (talk) 03:41, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Is there anything else I should do? --Matilda (talk) 03:57, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Everything looks properly done. Though, I know something has to be done here, I just don't know how to do it. Anyone care to add baseball uniform at Wikipedia:Very good articles/by date? -- RyanCross (talk) 04:03, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I am just doing now - copyoing what Giggy did for Oklahoma - just a bit tricky in working out the main page stuff --Matilda (talk) 04:05, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I haven't got time right now to write up Main Page/Article 14 :-( - will return to it later if nobody else gets to it first. --Matilda (talk) 04:13, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Can somebody please check Main Page/Article 14 and the other actions I have done in closing this? Thanks --Matilda (talk) 04:21, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

If it is at Main Page/Article 14, checking it is realy not needed as it will never be shown. -- Creol(talk) 04:46, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest that the formula needs to be changed since the main page is stuck on violin and it isn't me that doesn't know what they are doing - see Talk main page. --Matilda (talk) 04:51, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

The current week is #38 ({{CURRENTWEEK}} = 52). On the 1-13 scale we are using that is 13, not 1 (12 on a 0-12 scale with a +1 for ease in numbering - no zero). Any way about it, 14 is impossible on a 13 point scale. I have read Talk:Main page, and my talk, and this is still week 38. The numbering system is working fine. The dating on /by date was wrong last week and caused a forced move of article 13 to article 12. This caused future numbers based off it to also have issues. Last week (9/11 week) was AA11, Article 12. This week is Violin, Article 13. Screwing with the counter only leads to more issues as the thing works perfectly fine all by itself. As to the new article 14, it should replace the oldest article in rotation. Currently that would be Article 7, Kamakazi - not a new article which can never be in the rotation nor one which some new rotation would place it before articles selected before it. -- Creol(talk) 05:05, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

This does not reconcile with the schedule at Wikipedia:Very good articles/by date --Matilda (talk) 05:07, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) "The dating on /by date was wrong last week and caused a forced move of article 13 to article 12. This caused future numbers based off it to also have issues. Last week (9/11 week) was AA11, Article 12. This week is Violin, Article 13" ... The /by date page is wrong. This was noted last week when TRM wondered why AA11 wasnt the 9/11 article. All dates after that one were based on it and are wrong. The markup is fine - it counts from 1 to 13 and then goes back to 1 and repeats. This is quarter 3, week 13. Article 13 is violin. The listing needs fixed, not the markup. -- Creol(talk) 05:22, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I have requested speedy deleion of the article 14 as apparently it cannot fit within the sequence - suggest somebody else writes the main article page for this article and works out the sequencing. I suggest the lack of instructions about promoting VGA means that Wikipedia:Very good articles/by date is totally inaccurate when it comes to display dates - not just one or two articles - all of them! So if the sequencing code is right the page of VGA by date is not. --Matilda (talk) 05:26, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

Seeing as the result of the debate on whether or not Simple English Wikipedia is to be censored ruled in favor of those who don't want it censored, I'd like to make a proposal that hopefully won't be harmful to the growth of the Simple English version of Wikipedia.

I think it would be good if we had a tab/radio button/ribbon/something else that I will now go into more detail about: Perhaps buttons like these could be incorporated into a design that makes a "family-friendly" version of a given page or the entirety of Simple English. This could feature omitted/rephrased text, and omitted or altered images, and maybe(or maybe not) have a variety of versions of a given page. And you can toggle this "ON" or "OFF" at will, with the "DEFAULT" setting being "UNCENSORED". (Original setup of Wikipedia)

Therefore, if such a design was implemented, it could still be argued that despite such a design, the "DEFAULT" would always be there at start-up, unless a logged-in member chose to start-up as a preset on "FAMILY-FRIENDLY".

Not only that, but a parent who is logged in could determine for his/her kids & family what they would deem as "FAMILY FRIENDLY". If it was granted to the user to determine "Acceptable versus Unacceptable", there wouldn't be constant, nonstop edit-wars and the like. (At least not concerning the "Acceptable vs Unacceptable template" {if it was implemented}).

I don't know, just throwing out an idea that I'll let others accept, tweak, or discard. Let the will of the people be made known! Thanks for reading this.

 : )

98.202.38.225 (talk) 04:08, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

An interesting idea - maybe want to get a developer opinion. I think usually the issue is with images - that is they are too graphic. One option is for people to hide images and I htink that is about already but not quite sure how it would work. Otherwise I think an option worth starting to explore. The trouble with censorship is what is OK for one person is not OK for others. We have had some suggestions above. Another I can think of is evolution - from the safety of Australia we can look at the debate and say "only in America" - but of course it is a serious issue. I don't think anybody is proposing to censor evolution as a topic - just not teach it in schools or teach it alonside creationism ... but if they don't teach it in schools? ... --Matilda (talk) 04:26, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

You two are way behind schedule :P. Microchip08 has already created an addon feature to your monobook.js called WP:IMGSCRIPT. It automatically hides any images on any page you wish to add.

Need help with monobook? Ask anyone! There is even a "monobook for dummies" style page somewhere on the internet. --Gwib ^-(talk)- 05:22, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't need help with monobook and I am not interested in hiding images. The point is for images to be hidden for impressionable kiddies and their conscientious parents - this should be at first interaction - not by the time they have set themselves up with relatively sophisticated scripting - even if that scripting can be copied and pasted. --Matilda (talk) 05:48, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

(un) Regarding evolution: This is the current view of natural sciences at the moment, together with Mendelian inheritance it is the basis on which biology currently functions. In the US, and possibly other states, religion may not be taught in schools. Creationism is a way that allows to teach "something like religion" in schools, that's why there is this bitter fight there. As to the proposal by the IP (please create an account, thanks :)), I think Creol pointed it out above: Who are we to judge that a certain article/image is inappropriate? - Also, given our current editor base (a bit under 30 regulars), I do not think we have the resources to adapt articles in that way; client-side filtering works far better here. --Eptalon (talk) 10:45, 18 September 2008 (UTC)