Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 57

Wikipedia:Requests for page protection

I think we should start up WP:RFPP/WP:RFP. MathCool10 05:46, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

BTW, can someone fully-protect (or at least semi-protect) {{-}}? It is a widely used and transparent template that a vandal can easily vandalize.

Also, can someone fully-protect {{tl}}? Thanks! MathCool10 05:48, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Full protection should only be used for templates that are incredibly visible. The tl template should, at most, be semi-protected to prevent tampering, and the same goes for {{-}}. Both are not visible enough to warrant a full protection. Cheers, Razorflame 06:36, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Also, I do not believe that we have enough requests for protection to warrant the creation of our own RFPP page yet, although, I must say that we are getting there. In a couple more months, I think that we will have grown enough to support the useage of a RFPP page, but for now, we don't have enough community members to support it at this time. Cheers, Razorflame 06:38, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

 Done, {{tl}} and {{-}} semi-protected. –Juliancolton (talk) 07:01, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

We don't get many page protection requests. Besides, we can simply use WP:AN. — RyanCross (talk) 07:16, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Help

Hey, I need help with a reference link here: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah_Burke. Thanks.--Primo (talk) 17:51, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I fixed it. Simon^KSK_{Contradict me...} 17:58, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Neat! Thanks.--Primo (talk) 18:01, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

An idea for the new path of Simple

For some time I am thinking about an idea for the new path of Simple, but I was too lazy to express it here. --Millosh (talk) 00:02, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

In brief, instead of using "simple" English, I suggest to you using controlled English. If Simple becomes to be the controlled English language Wikipedia, it would be possible to make translation engines from such English to any other language. Articles translated from such Wikipedia would be the basis for the articles on other Wikipedias. It may be similar for other simple projects. --Millosh (talk) 00:02, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

So, is the community interested in changing the path? Also, if you need more informations about my idea, feel free to ask. --Millosh (talk) 00:02, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Whilst I only ever speak for myself, I probably speak for at least a few others here when I say, I don't understand what you are asking? Do you think that you could explain it better, how does it differ from us using BE850/1000/1500 and VOA English now? fr33kman ^{t - c} 03:41, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

It is probably very difficult to do "automated translations", even with a controlled vocabulary. This is mainly because languages do not map 1:1. In English, you might speak of a pretty girl, or of something being pretty odd. In French that would become une jolie fille, and quelque chose assez étrange; so while you use the same word pretty in English, you do not in French (jolie, assez) (you also don't do that in German). So it would be good if you could shed light on how a controlled vocabulary is different from using a "wordlist-based approach". --Eptalon (talk) 09:10, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

"pretty" in "pretty girl" is an adjective, in "pretty odd" it is an adverb. Thus this particular ambiguity can be resolved with part-of-speech tagging. Of course there may be other cases where something has two meanings and we'd just like to select one to be used. For example, the preposition "about" may have many meanings including 1. "concerning, with regard to" and 2. "approximately"... "A book about words", "The cat is about five foot high." -- a controlled language would say something like "Only use the word 'about' in the first sense. For the second sense, use the word 'approximately'". The thing is not to remove all ambiguity, just to reduce it as much as possible. Probably there would need to be different style guides for various topic domains -- science, history, etc. - Francis Tyers (talk) 11:28, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Surely the important person here is the reader of the encyclopedia. Using a word such as approximately would be difficult for many readers with limited English skills. Our readers include; ESL students, children, persons with learning difficulties etc. We have to cater to them don't we, rather than make it easy for a machine to translate? fr33kman ^{t - c} 00:16, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

That was an example, during the process of establishing a standard, naturally these factors would be taken into account. On a more personal note, in second language learning I find that the problem often is in "strange" uses of existing words. For example, "banco" or "bank" -- the most frequent meaning is probably "financial institution", but then for the Spanish there are (according to the DRAE) 11 other senses -- actually I just checked and the first definition[1] is "chair" (one that I wasn't aware of until today). One could probably concoct a text which used only "frequent" words, but in infrequent senses which would be much more difficult to understand than using different words. - Francis Tyers (talk) 10:03, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

PS. I'm not necessarily advocating the change (I'll leave that to Millosh), I'm just trying to explain/make clear/elucidate some of the concepts. - Francis Tyers (talk) 10:05, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. In Spanish, you'd say "está lloviendo a cántaros", meaning "It's raining cats and dogs." However, the literal translation is "It's raining buckets." Likewise, the direct translation from English to Spanish would be "está lloviendo perros y gatos". However, it would be a bit weird for somebody to learn that cats and dogs are falling down from the sky. obentomusubi 10:19, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

A controlled language might start by regulating the use of idioms. Perhaps replacing "It's raining cats and dogs." with "It's raining heavily" or "It's raining a lot" -- or in Spanish "está lloviendo fuerte". Incidentally, in Romanian it would be "plouă cu găleata" (It's raining with the bucket) -- a less idiomatic translation might be "plouă tare" (It's raining hard). - Francis Tyers (talk) 11:28, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that most of the editors here avoid idioms by default; I know that I certainly do. Idioms, after all, only tend to make sense in one language and only then if you have a shared culture. fr33kman ^{t - c} 00:18, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually they tend to be shared among related languages / cultures. But they are still best avoided, especially in encyclopaedic writing. - Francis Tyers (talk) 10:03, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I am asking for changing the policy from simple English, which is fuzzy, to more strict way of building sentences. If there is, for example, an one-clause-one-sentence rule without metaphors, we would be able to parse such sentences by machine. If we would be able to parse it by machine, we would be able to generate those sentences in other languages. --Millosh (talk) 00:04, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

We'd need to have an example first

There are less than 40 active editors here on seWP; and the majority of those are very busy fixing and growing mainspace. We don't have much time for new proposals very often (not many get approved) and for something like this we'd need to have some examples performed and see a real tangible benefit to the project as a whole for it to gain community consensus. I think that the lack of regular contributers chiming in on this discussion reflects this thought. If you can show us that this is the very best thing to do to help grow our project (and if auto-translation could work, I realize it could also bring us new articles from elsewhere), then it might be possible to convince people to accept it. fr33kman ^{t - c} 18:45, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

This is an ask in the sense are you interested generally in that idea. I'll give some examples below, but we (interested in this usage of the Simple) would need a lot of work to give real examples, by using machine translation tools. --Millosh (talk) 00:20, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

The main route or this idea is to build strict rules about language usage in cooperation with a possible team which would work on machine translation. The main benefit for Simple is not getting articles from elsewhere, but getting contributors (who are interested in building basic knowledge for all other languages). --Millosh (talk) 00:20, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

In general, this is not one time task, but the process. Here is a kind of algorithm: --Millosh (talk) 00:20, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

• A simple translation engine from English to Spanish is built.
• We are processing one article to see the output.
• We are getting some good and some bad translations.
• If the engine may be improved to fix bad translations, we are fixing it; if not, we are introducing the rule that a this type of the sentence shouldn't be used. And, of course, we are adding general rules to the language usage policy.

Let's use the famous sentence "Time flies like an arrow." -- which has, if I remember well, 8 different translations; of which the most famous is that "Time insects like an arrow.". It is, of course, a known example and all good machine translators will translate it correctly. However, in the primary meaning, this sentence should be expressed, for example, as "Time flies as arrow files." or similarly. And, of course, this it a very complex example, but, in general, if the sentence may have more than one meaning after the syntactic parsing, it should be expressed in some other way. --Millosh (talk) 00:20, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

A general question to the community is related to the willingness to switch to this path during the time. A question to the most active Simple Wikimedians is related to their willingness to work from Wikipedian side on this issue. --Millosh (talk) 00:20, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Collapsible box

Hi. I was wondering if anyone knew how to put the charta in the Bastide article (here) in a Collapsible box. If anyone does, could they please do it. Thanks, Yotcmdr ^{=talk to the commander=} 09:13, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Also, if someone (or some people) could help simplify the charta, it would be of great help. Thanks again, Yotcmdr ^{=talk to the commander=} 09:15, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Wiktionary template

Is there a page template for saying "This page should be moved to the Simple English Wiktionary" or something similar?--Peterdownunder (talk) 10:43, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, we have one here: {{dicdef}} Chenzw  Talk  10:48, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Importing from enWP to seWP

Hi all. I have searched for but couldn't find a guide to importing pages from enWP to seWP, so I have written a step-by-step guide and put it in my userspace at User:Fr33kman/copyenwp in case anyone wants to use it or to point new users in its direction. Feel free to edit it and correct any errors. Cheers fr33kman ^{t - c} 16:30, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Nice work! -Djsasso (talk) 16:35, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you fr33kman ^{t - c} 16:37, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I like it! Simon^KSK_{Contradict me...} 16:43, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Yep, cool. Had a look through and fixed a few minor formatting errors. :) Kennedy ^(talk) 16:44, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

@Simon, thanks

@Kennedy, yes so did I (dyslekseea a terrorble desease is ;) fr33kman ^{t - c} 16:46, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Notifying template

I've just created a notice template that people can use if they wish to point a new user to the instructions. It's based heavily on the existing {{uw-copypaste}} template. It is located at {{subst:User:Fr33kman/uw-enwpcopy1}}. It is not an official community approved template. fr33kman ^{t - c} 17:20, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Simplify it more. Simon^KSK_{Contradict me...} 17:23, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Feel free :) fr33kman ^{t - c} 17:25, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

 Done Simon^KSK_{Contradict me...} 17:40, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Confirmed sockpuppet template

Anyone interested in making a template for confirmed sockpuppets? I can't find one, and it's a bit silly putting suspected when it's confirmed by a check... Majorly ^talk 20:39, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I'll do it fr33kman ^{t - c} 20:42, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

No need to, I've found a way. Thanks anyway. Majorly ^talk 20:42, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you just have to add |confirmed when transcluding the {{Sockpuppet}} template. Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 20:43, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

No probs :) fr33kman ^{t - c} 20:53, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Defining simple

The following was originally at my talk page, but I think here it is a beter place to put it --Eptalon (talk) 10:11, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that we agree that one thing needed to keep this WP running is to reach some workable definition of Simple, and help people to stick to it. I'll quote your last comment on a thread archived from the talk page:

(<-) TV/Movie, Gutenberg, Contemporary fiction, take 5k words each; gives you 15k words worst case, clean for duplicates, and proper names (first names, place names); we will probably be left with something between 5 and 7.5k words. Take the first half of these (2.5k-4k) and we will probably have a good list. --Eptalon (talk) 11:51, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I have another proposal:

• The 1000 words of the kernel Ogden Basic. Required by all dialects of Basic.
• The 1000 Fry Instant Words. Recommended to all native readers.
• The 1000 words required by all wiktionaries. All users have access to these definitions.
• The mixed vocabularies of Special/ized English (VOA&FEBA: 1750 words). They provide working examples of "Simple English" for regular broadcasting.

If we provide a spellchecker for some Browsers to potential editors, all "nonsimple" words will be underlined in red, and users may act accordingly. I may send to you the sample list, if you ask me to. Lwyx (talk) 19:30, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Are we able to build a simple english checker into the browser? I know that I am always searching through a print out of the Ogden list, or cutting and pasting to another off site checker. Having it built in to where I am editing would make it so much easier. --Peterdownunder (talk) 00:52, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

There are two Ogden spellcheckers at addons.mozilla.org: one includes the VOASE word list and the other doesn't; I made them a couple of months ago, and they seem to work. Cheers, Lwyx (talk) 16:03, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

... almost forgot: you download the spellcheckers straight from within some Mozilla browser (FireFox, SeaMonkey, Camino), and when you restart the browser you may use the new spellchecker in whatever editing window you open. Cheers, Lwyx (talk) 16:33, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello there. First off: I am not a linguist, I am also not a native English speaker. We can of course always discuss how many words we take, but here is the rationale behind the choices:

• English as a language is very present in the media. It is probably very easy to get CNN or other English-speaking TV channels; also Hollywood/Bollywood produce many movies in English (India has 23 official Indic languages, plus English). Therefore taking a wordlist that reflects TV/movie scripts is probably a good idea

I went through the list of the 1000 most used words in TV/Movies to see what this would add to the A list I have made - if we left out "Ah" and "ain't" there are only two words that "ain't" (are not) there already - alright, and "absolutely", so as you have predicted there is a lot of overlap.--Peterdownunder (talk) 00:52, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

• The contemporary fiction reflects the "English-language" books of today (e.g. John Grisham). Such books are often available at airports and probably easy to get hold of.
• Gutenberg represents the "literature" category; Books read at school (eg. William Golding) will probably fall into this category.

I will do this one tonight to see if there is anything else that comes up --Peterdownunder (talk) 00:52, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Please note that I expect these lists to overlap pretty much (That is: I would be surprised to get more than like "7.5k-8k" words when taking 5k words from each of the 3 wordlists).

Some other observations:

• I don't claim my wordlists are the best choice; as I said, I am neither a linguist, not involved in language-teaching.
• My approach is open: the basic idea is: take a number of words from wordlists that the "target" audience is most likely familiar with; its also open in that we can freely chose the wordlists, and number of words from each.
• I did a Cambridge Cert. of Proficiency: Is there a way we can account for the fact that the English in India is noticeably different form that in South Africa, or that in Belize?
• The basic idea: the words from the "resulting wordlist" do not need linking, as we can expect our audience to know them. All other vocabulary is fine as well, but the words used need explaining either in the article, or as linked explanation.
• Our "wordlist" should probably be around 4-5k words.--Eptalon (talk) 21:16, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

• I concede most of the points you make. I'm not a native speaker either, but my experience in mentoring students of ESL (I teach phil for a living, but mentoring is part of my workload) is that the average intermediate reader has a vocabulary of around 2000-2500 words. That's the reading level of the Longman Simplified Series. That's why I thought about shooting for a slightly lower reading level. One advantage of these sources (Ogden, Fry, Special/ized) is that there are external resources for these word lists, so they're not "original research", so to say. In fact, Fry is recommended for the classroom and reading tests for native readers, and VOA and FEBA follow the kind of strategy you propose for ESL students: provide an online dictionary for their vocabularies, and explain on the run the newly introduced words. Links to the dictionary are even more practical on wikiprojects.--- On the other hand, I must say that writing for this lower level is extremely difficult---almost painful :-) Lwyx (talk) 00:04, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Your "wordlist" gets to a 4750 words, at best; I have no idea, but i think we will have 50% or more overlap (which means between 2k and 2.5k words, for your approach). If we fill the remainder to the 5k words (meaning 2.5k ), we could take 1000 words each from the lists I proposed. Also such a project would be ideal to collaborate with Simple English Wiktionary (making sure the words we have in the wordlist are in fact all in SEWikt).--Eptalon (talk) 08:45, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll join in the discussion as you know that readability is one of my main interests - I thought about combining word lists to see what would happen. I have experimented with the "A"s. I put together the Ogden 850, with the combined list, the VOA list, and the 1000 words from modern books. Have a look at the result here User:Peterdownunder/wordlist. Having done it I'm not totally convinced that it is going to help. If the word lists get too big we may lose the simple english. I think we do need to do something, so of the recent comments are valid. Should we get the discussion onto the Simple talk pages, or do we need a separate discussion page to talk through the issues ?--Peterdownunder (talk) 09:37, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

(<-) I have moved this to Simple talk, seems better there, for the moment. Some comments:

• Clean for "proper names" (April, August, in this case)
• Ideally all the words in the wordlist should be linked to an explanation, given either here, or on SEWikt.
• I have always had the opinion that the wordlist should not be a "limitation", but rather a "can be assumed to be known". Btw: for someone who speaks Spanish natively, adjacent is probably easier to understand than next to. (from es:Adyacente)
• Any idea how many "resulting words" there are?
• there is administration there... to go into administration does not mean what such a leraner would expect.

I still think our resulting wordlist should be about double the 2-2.5k an intermediate learner knows. This is simply since we cannot say how much overlap there is between wordlists?--Eptalon (talk) 10:31, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I've made two MySpell dictionaries for experimentation, one using my proposed 2500 ceiling, and the other with Eptalon's higher range. It was simple: I merged the 10 and 20 level word lists provided by the SCOWL project (which is in charge of the official English dictionaries for Hunspell), and munched them with the en-US.aff file to make the dictionaries. This way, I've tried to avoid charges of "original research", and guarantee that the dictionaries are in the public domain. Lwyx (talk) 00:30, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

To use these dictionaries you simply have to copy the source code of the pages and save them as the en-SE10.dic or en-SE20.dic files in your dictionaries directory (in Firefox, for instance), and make copies of en-US.aff as en-SE10.aff and en-SE20.aff in the same directory; when you restart Firefox, you'll have two new languages to spellcheck the pages: words not in the dictionaries (the alternative proposed specifications for "SE") will be underlined in red. Comments are welcome. Lwyx (talk) 00:30, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Eptalon: please protect those pages to keep vandals out. Thanks, Lwyx (talk) 00:30, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

 Done --Peterdownunder (talk) 01:07, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Book tool deployment

The book tool will be deployed on simple within the next days. I will setup some pages that are required or useful in conjunction with this function. Please don't hesitate to contact if there are questions. --He!ko (talk) 11:27, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Done :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by He!ko (talk • contribs)

Great! Barras (talk) 14:08, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I forgot to mention that all pages in category Wikipedia:Book tool require some proof reading. --He!ko (talk) 17:24, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Help by an Administrator needed: MediaWiki:Coll-bookscategory needs to be changed to "Wikipedia:Books" in order to have stored books in Category:Wikipedia:Books. Currently it points to Category:Books. --He!ko (talk) 10:38, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

That page doesn't exist. Sorry I have no knowledge of how this works, first time I have heard of the books tool. If you could give me exactly what should be in that page I will be happy to help. Kennedy ^(talk) 15:46, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Strike that, noticed there was text in the page. I have made the change:  Done Kennedy ^(talk) 15:48, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Banned/socking influx

Has anyone noticed that over the past few days, we've received an influx of users blocked indef on EN (Kalajan, A1a2s) who have socked after being banned here. I think that it's because there's been word spread around on EN (which may have been inspired in part by the thread on EN's admin noticeboard started by Dylan620) that Simple is just a place where people blocked on EN can go and do whatever they want. What are everyone's thoughts? Shapiros10 21:05, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

The future of block/ban coordination between Simple and EN is unclear, but certainly the current system seems contradictory:

1. A user's block/ban at EN is not supposed to affect that user's situation on any other language wikipedia.
2. Simple considers itself independent from EN, but blocks/bans seem to be seeing transferral between the two lately, contradicting point 1.

   I think this is because they only can edit in English. fr33kman ^{t - c} 21:41, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

3. All these new proposals I see of "trials" etc, don't take into account that most of the time, users who come over here from EN, won't actually disclose their EN name, so it would be impossible to know they were banned there in the first place. Then there are the users who claim that if a banned editor works with another account non-disruptively, it's fine - but this is a direct contradiction of what a "ban" is - so I think that the very workings of blocks and bans are long from sorted and stable. That's just my 2 cents worth, anyway. Lingamondo (talk) 21:16, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Only was around that is that all new users whould be given a probation period regardless. Seems really unfriendly though! :-( fr33kman ^{t - c} 21:44, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I think those trials are obviously only for known banned people. And to be honest for alot of banned editors its a badge of honour. We never used to have bans/blocks transfer over because we were seperate, however over the last year its pretty much proven that we couldn't keep going as ignoring if a user has a ban or block over at en. Simple is different from other language wiki's as its very easy for an editor who knows english to also edit at simple, as opposed to a banned editor at en trying to edit at the itallian wiki. So we have to be more in line with en's blocks/bans than other languages. -Djsasso (talk) 22:47, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Kalajan is my fault. I invited him over, because I thought he could change like CM16 did. Kalajan told Sinofdreams to come here (Don't know why) Simon^KSK_{Contradict me...} 21:27, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

And they told two friends, who each told two friends :) fr33kman ^{t - c} 21:41, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Rez to fr33k: Quacking all the way home :) Simon^KSK_{Contradict me...} 21:50, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that banned users coming over from en can be both good and bad. A banned user from en myself, I think coming over to Simple after being banned from en can be beneficial, but it really depends on the reason why they were banned. Users who were banned for socking or vandalism, I feel its unlikely they'd change here, but perhaps edit warring (which I despise), incivility, or other circumstances (like mine), users can find the error in their ways and change. I think it might be wise to set up an adoption program of some sort, to help editors change their ways. While the fact we are kinda a place for banned/blocked en users to come, and thats not exactly tasteful, its a fact, and we have to deal with it. We might as well do something good about it. Steve^Talk 22:30, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that the problems with an adoption program are; too few users, they're too busy and it works only rarely. I'm all for the one strike and you're out proposal now. fr33kman ^{t - c} 22:44, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, it works for some people. I did a rather structured adoption program at en, I'd be happy to do it here. It's rather easy to run, and we don't need many people to do it. Worth a shot. Steve^Talk 22:47, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it can work (I even offered to adopt Kalajan myself) but perhaps it needs to be only offered to people who make it through some time period without being a problem first? What about something like that? There are a lot of the active editors here that have never been blocked anywhere let alone banned and I think the point some of them seem to have reached is that the project's need of protection comes before helping banned users change. That's certainly now my opinion; which saddens me greatly! fr33kman ^{t - c} 22:53, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

You offered to adopt him? Really? You should have at least consult me I mean, the orginial adopter about it. ;) I have to agree with Djsasso on this. Banned en users come here, because they can understand the language. I agree with a one-strike rule. Simon^KSK_{Contradict me...} 22:58, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I had no idea you had adopted him before when I offered; in his defense, he did tell me about it after I offered adoption but he was banned before I could talk to you about it. :) I think it's really sad that we've gotten to this point where we are on the defensive rather than on the welcome! (sigh) fr33kman ^{t - c} 23:01, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I think we are at where we are because for a year or two this wiki was soft on disruption. If we had been strict awhile back we wouldn't be seen as the haven we are. There will be growing pains like we have had lately, but good editors on other wikis have noticed our cleaning efforts so I believe in the end we will come out stronger for it with new good editors joining us instead of just rehab cases. -Djsasso (talk)

But that's kinda how things are here. We are somewhat becoming a rehab centre for EN. Shouldn't we make the most of it, actually help the people that can be helped, then people at en could say "Hey, look at this user, they were reformed at Simple" or something, I dunno. Steve^Talk 00:31, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that almost no decent editors from en come here because they don't want to deal with the crap that happens here because of being lax with these sorts of editors. Our wiki could be 10x the size it is and 10x more active and 10x more simple, if we had just a small number of decent editors come over here from en. And once the ball starts rolling more and more will edit here hopefully. At which point things could be reconsidered. -Djsasso (talk) 00:44, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Banned enWP vandals and disruptive users are migrating to simple wiki to start their second round of terror. Most of these incidents have been a significant distraction to us. Fortunately with the handful of active admins and checkusers, most of these disruptions have been taken care of. In the past, there were several debates as of how to handle such users (i.e., Benninguy, Jonas, ChristianMan, Turbo, Kimberly, etc.) and most of them consumed time for unnecessary arguements when we could have been making encyclopedic articles and contributing furthur to make this wiki a better online encyclopedia. To those who think we should allow banned enWP users here, it is likely to create more issues here since 70% of the time, these users don't fix or change their old habits. (Based from what I've seen or experienced in the past in this wiki.) This wiki already has enough problems to deal with and I don't think we need any more problems. --§ Snake311 _{(I'm Not Okay!)} 00:36, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

We could, like, set up a small group of users who could deal with these people/issues. People experienced in either adoption or mentorship would be ideal. Thoughts? Steve^Talk 00:53, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. Shapiros10 00:58, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I have experience in adoption, so I would not mind helping out in this area. Also, good idea Steve. Cheers, Razorflame 02:10, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

A one strike proposal is quite frankly, unworkable. Firstly, users like ChristianMan would be long gone if we were to use such a system, and secondly, it would violate many policies if you did not apply this rule to every user - not just EN-banned ones. Lingamondo (talk) 11:09, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

What policies would it violate? I don't see any that it violates, secondly a community can create new policies. we aren't held to the policies that en has created. Other languages completely transfer over bans/blocks without even giving a single chance. So if they can do that I am sure us giving one chance isn't an issue when it comes to the foundation. Personally I would sacrafice the very rare vandalizer/socker etc that could be reformed to make sure that the wiki itself survives. This wiki will be closed if it continues down the path of trying to rehab everyone. That I am sure of. -Djsasso (talk) 13:32, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

The main reasons why our rehab plans fail are: too small a community and banned users simply not interested in all this rehab business. Those kind of users can be settled very easily (indef, that's it), but the problem is when the rehabs will work in theory, but the community is too small to ensure that this works successfully. When they fail, the users wreck havoc; we can't make them reform, EN will continue to have the impression that we are a "dumping ground", and no one will be interested in coming to simple, thus coming back to the same problem: we have a small community. Confusing, eh? We need some kind of on-wiki coordination area or this cycle may continue indefinitely. Chenzw  Talk  13:40, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Amazing how I get people all the time saying I've changed but when I try for an unban I get the opposite, why that is, I don't know, but I'm happy just to be here.-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 19:03, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

What words to hyperlink

At the Greenwood, Indiana article the word city (describing Greenwood) is hyperlinked. "City" is one of the words on our combined word list Wikipedia:Basic_English_combined_wordlist#C. Which is better, hyper link basic English words, or not ? Terryeo (talk) 03:39, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I prefer to link only those words not on the list unless the context is ambiguous. If that is the case I link it. I also take advantage of wikt: links quite a bit. fr33kman ^{t - c} 06:34, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay. Well, is there a standard, some basic, bottom line? As a reader goes along, he is getting significances from his read. For example: Paris is a city in France. If we hyperlink Paris we suggest there is more data (and significance) to be found under the link. If we link city, then we suggest there is some special, additional significance under the hyperlink. So too, with France. The goal of an author is to present the reader with appropriate significances, isn't it? And if we link "city" then we suggest that his understanding of "city" is not complete. That Paris, France has some additional significance, unknown to the common reader. This gives the reader an additional task. He must find out if "city" has a special significance when its meaning refers to Paris, France. This question of appropriate significances is why we authors minimize the use of hyperlinks, I think. Terryeo (talk) 15:39, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Subpage help

Hello, I need help. I am not sure why this isn't working. What I have done is, create a subpage of Scottish Football League at Scottish Football League/SPL where I will put the table. I then put {{Scottish Football League/SPL}} at the SFL page. Why is it showing as a red link template? It works the same way for WP:RFA, why isn't it working here? Kennedy ^(talk) 19:08, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Cause it assumes it's a template, under the namespace of Template. You may have to put it as a template then use it.-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 19:13, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeh. Theres a difference with the RFA as you put WP: before it. I have moved it to a template instead. Thanks. :) Kennedy ^(talk) 19:16, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Your welcome.-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 19:18, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

For anyone interested. A list of who plays in the SPL and SFD is now listed at Template:SFL/SPL and Template:SFL/SFD respectively. That means that we only need to update the one table when a manager moves. Well, two, as Template:SPL and Template:SFD would also need to be changed. :) Kennedy ^(talk) 19:23, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Just a note, if you put {{:Scottish Football League/SPL}} on the article, it would've formatted correctly. But, the page is a template and shouldn't be in the mainspace, so the move was good. TheAE talk 19:24, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Awww really? Damn. Ah well, its all fixed now anyway :) Thanks though. Kennedy ^(talk) 19:28, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Well you learn something new everyday.-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 19:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

RfX

Hi. As Chris G has retired, there is no longer a bot to run the RfX report. Would anybody be interested in adding this task to their bot? Shapiros10 18:09, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

• Well, my bot is rather inactive, but if Chris would give me the code, I'd add it as a task. Steve^Talk 22:33, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
  • He still has email enabled. I think you can email him for the source code. Chenzw  Talk  11:06, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
    • The bot is up and running again (as well as his owner), so we can consider this solved. Chenzw  Talk  01:57, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Song Names: Italicized, or in Quotes?

I was working on the M.I.A. article earlier today. Song names appeared in quotations, for example the article said "the most popular track off the album is "Galang." It appeared..." I changed all song names to italics instead. Is this in order? Is there a proper way to show song names? LIAM / LIAM ^mailbox 13:38, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Coming from a musician, I've worked on music pages on the regular English Wikipedia. Their Manual of Style (which I wholeheartedly agree with) states that songs are in quotes ("Love Song", "Rainy Days and Mondays"), but albums are italicized (Dark Side of the Moon, A Night at the Opera, Abbey Road). Hope that helps, obentomusubi 07:07, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Interesting, I will have to remember that TOM :) Kennedy ^(talk) 08:59, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Glad to have helped! obentomusubi 06:15, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

It's in our own Manual of Style, so I have added The Obento Musubi's examples to make it clearer. I had forgotten it was there.--Peterdownunder (talk) 08:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you guys, and I apologize for the mis-edits. LIAM / LIAM ^mailbox 19:17, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Just to add on to this, song titles are put in quotes across almost all style guides. The general rule of thumb is that larger works (books, albums, newspapers, magazines) are in italics, and pieces of them would in quotes (poems, songs, article titles). Either way (talk) 13:27, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Straw Poll

Who here believes the Wikicup should be killed? (figuratively, of course) I personally want the Wikicup to live on, and I would like to someday see my proposal put into effect. obentomusubi 22:16, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Comment - Your idea of 3 or 4 Wikicups is too often. 2 would be better. The Wikicup is fine as it is. Simon^KSK 22:23, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, you seem to be standing alone on that idea based on the thread below this. As for your proposal Obento, if we can't keep interest in one WikiCup, I doubt several a year will survive. Either way (talk) 13:22, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Images etc.

Hi all. I have need for a quite a few fair-use images for articles I'm in the middle of writing. Unfortunatly commons: doesn't permit the upload of fair-use images and seWP doesn't allow the upload of images at all (to the best of my knowledge). So, therefore, the question is left as to what to do. Could someone give a suggestion? If not, could we start discussion on adding the ability to upoad images directly to seWP and allowing fair-use (unless, of course it has already been discussed and decided)? Comments? fr33kman ^{t - c} 03:51, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

This is a proposal that Da Punk created in the past. It never left the ground though. You might want to take a look at it. Chenzw  Talk  03:59, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I think the idea is that being simple they didn't feel there were any topics that would require a picture where a free one could not be found. In other words the articles you are writing that you need images for, do you actually need images ie would your topic be incomprehensible without them? I think being such a small community it was decided that they didn't want to get bogged down in the swamp that is fair use. I know we purposefully don't allow uploads so we don't have to deal with it. But everything in wikiland is always up for rediscussing. -Djsasso (talk) 04:13, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Articles about TV programs and movies would be a need. Wonder Woman (the TV series), the A-Team (the van for instance), and many others would be much better illustrated with screen shots. How do you have an article on Robbie the Robot without a picture of him, or Data from Star Trek? Software would be better understood also, Windows XP/Vista/MacOS could all be better expanded with pictures. Any where that they exist in other projects would be a place where they would be needed here. For people with limited English, too much text can be intimidating, after all "A picture speaks a thousand words." I understand that there would be concerns of all kinds of images being uploaded, but surely there would be some way to deal with that, perhaps a list of people who are allowed to upload such as we have for AWB? fr33kman ^{t - c} 04:54, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I suggested a user right for that months ago, but it was opposed.-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 05:04, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Opinions can change. Let's see what the community thinks this time. Chenzw  Talk  05:26, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Fair-use can be a problem with different laws in different countries, but as much as I think there should be an image on every page, copyright is an area where I don't have the legal expertise. Let's leave it to the Commons.--Peterdownunder (talk) 07:24, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

You don't want to even try to see if someone else has the expertise here first?!-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 08:15, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

This is a big problem - the Commons won't take fair use images ...because fair use laws vary from country to country—thus, content deemed acceptable under, for instance, US fair use concepts (which are very broad) is not usable in the majority of other countries... Do we have the time and expertise to decide what is legal all over the world? The Commons doesn't. Do we? Peterdownunder (talk) 08:45, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

How does enWP do it? Can't we base our policy on theirs? fr33kman ^{t - c} 18:05, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Commons does, Peter, they're just lazy. I say they do cause that's all they do...images. It wouldn't kill them to impliment some fair use, or us, if it was sooo much trouble, en wouldn't allow it.-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 18:50, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

The German Wikipedia is alive and thriving without fair use images. It's generally considered one of, if not, the top wiki. Either way (talk) 18:57, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that thing I'd say is it is not about how good a place can be/or is without images; but how much better it can be with them. The readers of deWP tend to have good German skills; our readers could benefit from images more. We only have to do the work to develop the policy once, and if we have a user right or list of users who can upload, we'd cut down on the work deciding Non-free-use issues also. fr33kman ^{t - c} 19:07, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Couldn't have said it better, Fr33kman.-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 19:13, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject redirects

I created WP:PW as a redirect to my Professional wrestling project a couple of weeks ago and AE deleted it, and I was wondering if there is a exception (i think thats the word) to QD R2 for WikiProjects in Userspace? If not, I think one should be included.-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 20:50, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

In deWP and I think also here, is a rule: no links between different namespaces. So I think QD#R2 should be correct. Regards, Barras (talk) 21:17, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I really think we need to discuss this cause without redirect at least to Wikiprojects in userspace, it makes it harder to find them and access them easier.-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 00:20, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Having a link from wikispace to userspace defeats the purpose of us making users put the project in userspace. -Djsasso (talk) 02:24, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

How? If you can prove it to me that it "kinda defeats the purpose" I'll eat my baseball. These redirects are just shortcust for ease of access, any other redirect (ie.: ChristianMan16 to User:ChristianMan16) I would understand but these are just shortcuts, thus an exception should be made.-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 08:25, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

If something falls under the quick deletion rules, imho, that should mean that it is able to be quick deleted. I do not think that a user should be allowed to created a redirect to their own Wikiproject in the Wikipedia namespace if it isn't a successfully propsed Wikiproject. I am inclined to agree with Djsasso here. Cheers, Razorflame 21:56, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

That makes it harder for people to find thus discourages to them to participate, and BTW, successfully proposed? We don't proposed WikiProjects her (last I checked)!-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 01:38, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

And it's only a shortcut, not a typical redirect.-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 01:39, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

WikiProjects are usually in userspace due to their inactivity. This also means that there should be no redirects in Wikipedia namespace to prevent usage of redirects that could possibly be used for other pages. If you can, however, make the WikiProject very active, the community can consider moving it to Wikipedia namespace and creating a WP: redirect for it. For now, the only means of promoting the project is to list it on Wikipedia:WikiProjects. Chenzw  Talk  01:44, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

It's not a promotion, it's a shortcut.-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 01:49, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Would you be OK if I created U:PW and UT:PW as redirects/shortcuts?-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 01:55, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

We don't have a U: or Ut: space, do we? So, essentially, creating those would be creating article space articles. Either way (talk) 01:58, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

No but I still would doubt we would ever need those for articles.-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 02:00, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

The solution to solving the problem of creating cross-space redirects is to create...cross-space redirects? I don't follow the logic, Either way (talk) 02:02, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't know how to explain it, it's just an Idea that come to me. Al I can say is that obviously, that U = User; and UT= User talk.-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 02:05, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Which would make sense if we have a U: or a UT: space. But, we don't. So a U:Whatever would be an article named U:Whatever. Not a U space page named Whatever. So, that would be a cross namespace redirect (from article to user page) instead of a shortcut. Either way (talk) 02:11, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Before we made WP part of the Wikipedia name space stuff like WP:RFD was in article space. There weren't any complaints then.-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 02:23, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out that this time spent arguing could've been used to actually write articles...Steve^Talk 02:27, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes I know, I just had to get this address so it really wasn't spent wasting time.-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 02:30, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Proposed good articles

I hope no one suddenly forgot about it. There is 10 proposed articles up for GA, and four articles that can now be voted on. A little more community participation would help.
--§ Snake311 _{(I'm Not Okay!)} 21:39, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Don't forget about the PVGA page, either. There are several articles that have been proposed and one currently in voting. Cheers, Razorflame 21:54, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Question

Is this edit good? Is the article Car about the term in general or about cars specifically?-- † CM16 ^{t _c r} 08:01, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

This seems like a fine enough comment. It does state a fact, and although slightly obvious it should be mentioned. Only my opinion of course. Kidiot (talk) 09:54, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

The word "disambiguation" should be struck

It's not a simple word. How about "other meanings"? — This unsigned comment was added by 24.22.87.176 (talk • changes).

This has been suggested before. I think we could never settle on what a better options would be. Other meanings is a good option. -Djsasso (talk) 18:20, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

You'll find that Disambiguation is linked. No need for it to be simple if there isn't a simpler word ;) . Yotcmdr ^{=talk to the commander=} 18:23, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Yup, I think that was our solution. Have a definition page. -Djsasso (talk) 18:24, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Deleting pages

I come across this problem so often. What is the community's opinion of deleting pages like Carnegie Mellon University, Occupy and Puzzle quest, which have a little info, but, as I've written in deletion logs, "is better to start from scratch." I have tried cleaning pages like this, adding categories, the infobox, interwikis, and re-writing, but it would be easier to just delete the page and let the article be created properly. In my opinion, these type of pages don't help the project right now, especially because we have so much vandalism and it takes too much time to fix. Is deletion fine? TheAE talk 18:59, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Personally I don't think so. I have always subscribed to the belief that a stub is better than no article. Cause a fly by editor is more likely to expand an article than they are to create one. So if article X is there as a one sentence stub we are more likely to capitalize on the single edit of a fly by editor than if there is no article there. And in fact this is the exact time we don't want to discourage these editors we want to possibly capture them. This assumes the article is notable. -Djsasso (talk) 19:01, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree that a stub is better than nothing at all; however, it all depends on the stub. Occupy would tend not to qualify, but Carnegie Mellon University would. The reason that Occupy would probably get deleted would be that it is close to a dictionary definition and doesn't really add much to the project goals. You could try an AFD for both and see what the precedent would become? 2p worth fr33kman ^{t - c} 19:13, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

edit conflicted with me...was just about to say occupy should be transwikied to simple.witionary -Djsasso (talk) 19:14, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, Occupy should definitely be deleted -- It's content isn't even good enough to justify a move to wikt in my opinion. Cmelbye (talk) 21:58, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposal: request for mediation...

Hello,

Sometimes there are users that do not get along well with each other; while there are probably not many such cases, I think we should set up a panel to help them deal with their problems relating to each other. This would be similar to an Arbitration Committee like it exists on other Wikipedias. As this is very much about trust, I propose the panel to be made of:

• All CheckUsers
• All Bureaucrats

In general, I think that it should be possible to appeal against the decisions of this committee, this should be doable at another such committee; hoever given the relatiobnnship to en, I dont think enwp abcom would be a good one. Ideas? --Eptalon (talk) 14:12, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't see enough conflict around here to justify opening and creating such a panel. Either way (talk) 14:41, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

But if such a conflict (or sock attack) does happen, our current community is too small to handle this quickly. Chenzw  Talk  14:44, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

What does a sock attack have to do with mediation though? Additionally, how would such a panel help solve these conflicts more quickly? Generally these cases become drawn out processes. Either way (talk) 14:47, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe I should reword: what I mean are cases when this user accuses someone of socking and we have circumstances that indicate so (or whatever, see my talk page for details). Regardless of whether we need an arbcom or not, I have dedicated a part of the AN to settle such cases at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Disputes as such cases seem to be more common. Feel free to revert, but please move the discussion somewhere on AN or ST before reverting. Chenzw  Talk  14:58, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

(<-) While I expect 10 cases or fewer a year (fewer is definitely better), we need a way to deal with such cases, they should not end up at an Admin/Crat/CU talk page, as was the case before. Therefore we have created this "board". Moving/renaming later is easy. --Eptalon (talk) 15:10, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Why do these need a separate board, though? What's wrong with having one more thread a month on this page or simple talk? Either way (talk) 15:14, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

At enWP I provide mediation and dispute resolution services quite often; I also provide formal mediation of medical malpractice cases in real-life. On enWP, I'm involved with WP:MEDCAB and Third Opinion, both of which are informal mediation processes. Together these processes help solve the majority of disputes that happen, and they must be tried by the disputing parties before formal mediation or arbitration can go forwards. In my experience, the vast majority of issues needing our help involve users editing articles and almost always involve issues of WP:V, WP:RS and WP:OWN; very few boil down to WP:NPA or WP:AGF. I'd recommend that something along these lines be tried here, perhaps third opinion. Formal mediation and arbitration procedures rarely solve the issues and tend to be more interested in stopping the disruption that disputes cause projects. At times formal mediation can make things worse. A volunteer mediator tends to engender a better response from the disputing parties due to very fact that they are volunteers. If such an informal process failed, the case could be brought in front of the community via WP:RFC (which we don't have here) or in front of admins or the crats. I really think that an informal procedure should be started as it would very likely prove more successful in the long run than formal procedures. If a formal procedure were to be used instead, it would very likely be used by editors as a way of punishing the other party, or else threatening them. Informal DR can't be used that way! In addition, a thread on WP:ST would invite the whole community to get involved and that would end up polarizing, distrupting and distracting the whole community. It's much better to keep these things small and informal. Thoughts? fr33kman ^{t - c} 17:50, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

If anyone is interested in how effective these can be they can review my case log at: [3rd opinion log. fr33kman ^{t - c} 18:01, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

(<-) Please note that I am trying to "establish" a way that such things can be handled; I am very far away from it being a "formalized process"; This is new to us, and given the suspected 10 cases a year, we need to find something that is appropriate; note also that I am not proposing the Crats/CUs do this because they are Crats/CUs, but because they are the users most trusted by the community; I am also fine with "electing" a few (named) users into such a position. Ideally we want the "most skilled" ones, the ones most able to resolve such situations. --Eptalon (talk) 21:47, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd agree with that. Both MEDCAB and third opinion on enWP have admins, crats, CUs and I think one steward as well as many normal users. The main point I have is that in the first instance, it should be an informal process. The thing I've noticed about informal mediation at enWP is that users with extra rights, don't use them to influence the process. The solutions I've found are most helpful are based on talking and compromise. fr33kman ^{t - c} 21:52, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I feel I'm pretty skilled with DR (my cases and stuff from en). I'd be happy to help. Steve^Talk 02:48, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea and should be implemented, but it should start out informal. Basically, anyone who wants to volunteer. More sensitive cases would be given to admins. Shapiros10 21:38, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Glad to see the discussion has started again. But I think difficult cases should be given to the more experienced mediators. I do feel that Simple lacks users/admins with adequate DR experience, basically because Simple has no DR, so all experience will either come from En.Wiki or real life. So, er, is anything going to happen from this discussion, or will it just stall for ages? Steve^Talk 22:25, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

It won't stall; maybe we can get into action now :). As pointed out above, most of us don't have DR experience, so you will have to help us with the beginning parts, such as creating a DR page first? ;) Chenzw  Talk  12:46, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I would of course be very interested in helping out in this. Its something that I think is very important to help this project run smoothly. Kennedy ^(talk) 13:36, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, it really all depends on how we want to have things done. Personally, I think a medcab like structure might work, but may be too complicated. A noticeboard (i.e. Wikipedia:Solving disputes noticeboard with subpages for "cases", could work just as well, if not better. I'm undeciced. What do other people think of this? Steve^Talk 03:15, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree that a MEDCAB like structure would be most useful. The problem I have with escalating to admins is that this is often seen as a formalizing of the process and is very often used to punish one party. I've had a fair amount of success in DR over at enWP and firmly believe in an informal process. It is true that there has to be a formalized backup for those few times that the informal processes do not work. I think that the initial mediators should be those who can show they have wiki experience in DR and/or those who undergo some form of DR apprentiship or schooling. On enWP I tried to propose a mediator school that would instruct people in the aspects of DR. In my experience it is about not taking sides; respecting all opinions; seeking compromise; ensuring respectful communication; sticking to the issues and not the behaviour of the editors and in insisting on adherance to policy and the consideration of guidelines but at the same time respecting both WP:BOLD and WP:IAR. fr33kman ^{t - c} 03:49, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, I've made a page. Wikipedia:Solving disputes noticeboard. Thoughts? Steve^Talk 23:03, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't notice this as it was up the top of the page. Looks good, had a test with it. Support it being implemented. Kennedy ^(talk) 09:06, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikileaks as a RS

What does the community think of using wikileaks as a reliable source? The documents that they house are often secret or top-secret government documents (but may have a copyright issue). Comments? fr33kman ^{t - c} 03:55, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I am not a legal expert on this, but I remember that publication of sensitive government information (or something like that) can be subjected to legal persecution. Ask the WMF's legal counsel about this. Chenzw  Talk  13:21, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I have sought, via email, the advice of Mike Godwin (en:User:MGodwin) (who is General Legal Counsel for Wikimedia Foundation) and his official advice is "I wouldn't cite directly to Wikileaks, but I would cite to mainstream news sources that cite or (even better) confirm publications on Wikileaks." I think this should clear up any questions I, or other editors have regarding using this source. fr33kman ^{t - c} 02:10, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

We should add this info to one of our existing guidelines. Chenzw  Talk  02:23, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Do you want to take care of it, or shall I? fr33kman ^{t - c} 02:29, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion to cope with edits from IP-users

Hello, I heard that the edits of IP-users on this project can be handled barely, so vandalism can slip through. I watched the recent changes here and I missed an extension what could be very helpfull here if vandalism needs to be prevented. The suggestion is to request for the extension "Marked as Patrolled". (This is not the same as Flagged revisions.) Marked as Patrolled makes sure that all the edits (of specified users) get a ! in the recent changes. If you watch the difference there is a button which you can press that you've checked the edit done. Other users who also check the recent changes can see that an edit is checked, so that there is no need for checking double/triple/etc the same edit each time. With this extension you can set the following:

• The users who get a ! in the recent changes, like: *everyone, *IP-users + new + autoconfirmed users, or *only IP-users + not-autoconfirmed-users.
• The users who are able to mark edits as patrolled, like *sysops only, *autoconfirmed users + sysops, or *a specified group of users set as able to mark as patrolled.

This system is used on several projects, but most used on nl-Wikipedia (and sisterprojects). Here it works very fine to prevent vandalism. In the recent changes there is a button to select the not marked as patrolled only. Perhaps this is an idea to cope with vandalism and correcting it? Greetings - Romaine (talk) 18:06, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

If there are questions about this extension, please ask! Romaine (talk) 18:11, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I have to say, it does sound like a good idea. I think it would have to be tested, and if it doesn't work nevermind! Yotcmdr ^{=talk to the commander=} 18:13, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Normally we never have a flood like this...50 edits in an hour is a busy day. But yeah there is no reason why we shouldn't use patrolled edits. -Djsasso (talk) 18:14, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

It would probably be a pain to mark every good edit a user makes patrolled, but if this is going to be implemented I suggest making rollbackers edits autopatrolled and allowing rollbackers to patrol edits. The configuration would be:

$wgUseRCPatrol = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['rollbacker']['autopatrol'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['rollbacker']['patrol'] = true;

(note: admins have the patrol and autopatrol rights by default, so no changes would be required to their rights. Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 18:37, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

It is just, if you'd like to check all the edits for vandalism to correct it, than it is an easy tool to do no double work. If every edit of anonymous users is checked, than marking as patrolled seems to me no extra work. Greetings - Romaine (talk) 18:07, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Adding a task to my bot

I would like to add a task to my bot, User:MaximillionBot. I wasn't sure where to bring it up or if I could just go ahead and add the task. I would like for it to also substitute various templates on User talk: pages. Specifically, it would: python template.py test test1 test1a test2 test2a test3 test3a test4 test4a test4im vandalism vandal1 vandal2 vandal3 warning block advert RepeatVandal stopvandal vandalism-n welcome -namespace:3 -subst -always -summary:"Robot: Substituting various User talk: templates" Anyone object to this? Regards, Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 01:03, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Probably no issues with it, run a test and make the request at the bot page just so it can be made official. -Djsasso (talk) 02:40, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Ok, it looks good, except for substituting the vandal template, I had to revert that. I believe everything else is fine though. Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 14:41, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I wonder where that was from...but my bot's inactive. I've got a good copy of the code somewhere. Steve^Talk 02:59, 25 February 2009 (UTC)