Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 75

Important proposal

The following is something I wrote on the latest proposal to close a Simple English project.

An idea I came up with recently, to prevent these perennial proposals regarding the Simple English projects, was to merge the four projects (Wikipedia, Wikiquote, Wikibooks and Wiktionary) together into a large Simple English Compendium of Knowledge. I have been unhappy for a long time with the state of Wikipedia (it's the only SE project I'm active on): I think that, unlike other Wikipedias, it should concentrate on core curriculum topics that non-native speakers/children are likely to want to read about. Instead, we have mass creations of stubs of things ranging from places and asteroids, to football players and rivers. When these are deleted, or nominated for, there are always complaints that the topics are "notable". Those complainers are probably right. However, why would someone go to Simple English Wikipedia to view a one sentence stub on, say, a hamlet in Indonesia, when the English Wikipedia has an identical article, or possibly a more detailed one? It makes no sense to me. Now if I had my way, I would ban all stub creation, and articles should only exist if they meet, say, criteria for Did You Know (which isn't particularly hard). As noble as some people may think they are being when they create one-line articles, it actually is damaging to our project and reputation. When you look up a topic, you'd expect to see something substantial, not just something you'd be able to guess like that X is a place. In short, stubs do not help Simple English Wikipedia at all.

Now regarding Wikiquote. I think quote projects are completely redundant and problematic (e.g. the Rush Limbaurgh fiasco, fair-use etc). However, notable quotes can easily be merged into encyclopedia articles. A lot of people seem to forget that SE Wikipedia is not English WP and so does not have to follow its exact rules with article guidelines and layout.

A final point: I doubt such a proposal would work, for one reason being that it is probably out of the scope of Wikimedia - but I'm not too sure on that. People are resistant to change, even if it's for the better. There are many positives that can come with merging: more manpower, and a larger community so more opinions and assistance for things like vandalism; a larger scope, while narrowing parts such as what encyclopedia articles warrant inclusion in a Simple English encyclopedia; ability to add new parts, such as news, source, wikiversity etc without having to propose it here. There are probably more. But I really think this is the way to go, to stop these proposals coming up time and time again.

In short, I think we should merge the Simple English projects into one and redefine its scope. Majorly talk 22:05, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea. You said redefine its scope ; did we ever come to an agreement over what it was? Yotcmdr ^=talk= 22:10, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

No. It is claimed that it is for EAL speakers of English. However, no EAL person would look up fellatio in Simple English, or random river stubs that have identical content to English Wikipedia. My suggestion all along is it should be aimed at children based on curriculum topics. Majorly talk 22:12, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah perfect I was just writing something about this. I talked to Pathoschild on IRC and if we want to merge them all into Wikipedia we can do so with just local agreement (this has already been done with one language). It would be much harder to create a new project because we would have to go through the new wiki creation process which would be difficult since as a language we grandfathered in under the new rules (that would not allow a simple project). Personally I like a combination of what was talked about on IRC today. Wiktionary and Wikipedia are the two biggest and most important projects (in my mind) for any kind of simple project and Wiktionary should probably be imported into it's own namespace. Like Maximillion said on IRC the quotes would probably be better served on the article pages themselves, along with simplified explanations (the original quote should still always be there). I'm not totally sure Wikibooks should come at all to be honest.. though maybe in its own namespace if we wanted to keep them?Jamesofur (talk) 22:13, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I love it. BTW My personal stance on the one line stubs, is to take a little wander over to my good pal google. Search the topic up. If it has countless hits of information on why the subject is so great or noteworthy, then keep it. If, when I do a search all I can find out is that is exists, that I don't think it belongs on simple.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 22:46, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Why should everyone else make the effort? The article creator should bother to make the topic a substantial one before they post. No respectable encyclopedia sums up subjects in a single sentence. I say add a QD criteria "anything less than a paragraph". Majorly talk 22:53, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

And that I disagree with. I don't think we should be deleting things because they aren't up to our standards for a good article. Try to fix it. To me, deleting is like amputating. It should be a last resort, and for articles that are not noteworthy in the least. Take The Three Stooges. It was deleted today, and I re-created it. A very short article. Doesn't even skim the surface of the topic. I don't think we should delete it, because it is an important topic in our society. That show provided entertainment for a generation! I fully agree with the merger suggested above, but do not agree at all with the need to delete. In no way am I saying these stubs are acceptable articles, but we are an ever growing and changing project. I think we need to stop deleting, and try to fix what we have.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 23:00, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

No respectable encyclopedia sums up subjects in a single sentence. I think we should be deleting things that damage the credibility of Wikipedia, and that don't inform readers. The article you mention tells us exactly what about the topic? That it was a TV show. Anyone wanting information will go to English Wikipedia, not here, because that article is poor. It tells us nothing, and articles that tell us nothing have no place in an encyclopedia. Imagine if you wanted information on the topic, would you seriously come here to get it, if that's all the article had about it? Who says it provided entertainment? The article does not. Why not? We aren't doing the job properly if our article lack context and information. I think we should stop creating and fix what we have, and fixing involves removing the chaff. Majorly talk 23:06, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

As I said, the article hardly skims the surface of the topic. What is important however is that there is a topic to write about. Deleting an article doesn't improve that article. It demolished it, and I think that is more damaging to the pedia. If an article is a one line stub, and has no room to grow, then by all means get rid of it. It doesn't belong here, and isn't in the scope of this project (imho), but articles about an important topic need to stay. No matter how bad they are. I say this because they can be improved. Unlike Mr.One Line Stub over there, an article about an important topic has room to grow, and has potential to become a great article. If we start going through and deleting every article that isn't longer than a paragraph, than this wiki would be empty, and people would stop coming here not because the articles are poor, but because there are no articles to read.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 23:17, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

It shouldn't get created in the first place, so it wouldn't be "demolished". If an article can be written in more than a paragraph, then it should be written in more than a paragraph, and it shouldn't be left up to everyone else to fix it up because it's "important" or "notable". Your final point is nonsense - we have many proper articles here. It's a shame we have so many bad "articles" that show them up. Majorly talk 23:23, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

As I am coming here regularly to contribute with something, I would like to say some words about what Majorly said above. I discovered SE Wikipedia some days ago and started my contributions. I read almost all the policy and messages, talk pages and so on to learn about this increadible Project. As a foreigner, and a language lover (no matter what language it is), it would be horrible to let it die or leave it in the hands of those who want to destroy it and I don't even know why those vandals do it. After this preamble, I shall say that I feel all way comfortable here and I can work well among my other fellows; I mean, I found here lots of respect among users and that is somehting good for the health of the Project.

I decided, at first, to take a look at the orphan pages and also the uncategorized ones. It is a huge problem to solve, all those categories to be created (and I don't even know if all of them should be created or not). After that, reading all the messages about stubs and the way articles are brought to SE Wikipedia, I think it is time for a greater job and rearrange things before they grow as a snowball and fall over all of us. Inumerous one-line-sentence articles? What for? I agree that articles should really be revised and made bigger so students could come and feel comfortable with all the information in them. The more we grow, the more we have problems; so, what about cleaning up the house before the Armageddon? I am here to help! :)

Another point is the English used. Sometimes the article is all imported from English WP and, if this is it, I better move and contribute there (what I really don't want to). There must be a great effort to make them readible by everyone in everyplace, that knows a little English. If the proposal is being "simple", so let's make it really "simple" (of course, baby talk is not allowed :)).

So, those are my opinions about the case. Without mention the vandalism that occur in a non-stop way and I try hard to combat it. I have my fingers crossed and I am rooting for our Project to win this battle. Here, I found a place to learn more and more, to practice my English that I took some years to learn and also I can spread a little about knowledge. Regarding the merging thing (SE Wikipedia, Wikibooks...) I still don't have a clue if this is good or bad, but I am with all of you wherever you all go. If I said something wrong or my words sounded not alright, I apologize, but my intentions are good. Count on me. -- Isaac Mansur ^Post 23:29, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry if I am not making sense to you guys, but when I first started editing with Wikipedia at the beginning of this year, I proposed an article be deleted because it was in a terrible state. Because I did that, I had editors screaming at me, and they were going to send a report in on me (or at least open up an RFC) but they decided not to because I was new. If I learned one lesson from that, it was that we don't delete because an article looks bad. We are a wiki. Fix it. I have come to live by this, and it is one of the reasons I take deletions so seriously. I agree that we have many many many great articles here, but the shear number of terrible always seem to hide them, and many of these bad articles are the one line stubs about towns in the middle of nowhere that I agree should be deleted. I just don't agree that articles on important topics should be deleted because they are not up to par. Doing so has got me in trouble in the past, so I can't agree on it in the future. My views on this matter are hardly important, and I really would like to hear what others have to say.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 23:33, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem merging if that is where we are headed. But I do have a problem with deleting stubs on notable topics. Unless we are doing a full reboot of wikipedia and deleting everything except the VGA/GA etc. Otherwise its a complete POV situation. One line stubs as Gordonrox mentions that have room to grow are better as one line stubs than as no article at all. That is my take on it, and is unlikely to change because that is a core principle behind wikipedia. -DJSasso (talk) 04:18, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I disagree - one line stubs are just as bad as no article at all, because they simply don't inform. Majorly talk 15:38, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

They are better than no article, because they give a starting point for someone to expand on. Stubs are where many people start editing wikipedia. I know I started cause I was expanding a stub that didn't have much information. I would not have started a new article however. And from what I have heard talking to others there are many others would also said similar. -DJSasso (talk) 15:49, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I would not mind the Simple English Wikibooks and Wikiquote being merged into a compendium of knowledge, but the Simple English Wiktionary is doing just fine without the need to be centralized with a single Simple English project. Furthermore, what are you going to do about the current administrators and bureaucrats of all the other Simple English projects? Are you just going to drop them all saying that the Simple English Wikipedia administrators are sufficient enough? Several other editors and me have been working hard on the Simple English Wiktionary, and I don't see any need for it to be merged into a single Simple English project. Razorflame 15:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I think Wiktionary could work very well as part of a centralised project. I understand your concern about admins; my idea was to just merge the functionaries as well, as the manpower needed would obviously be greater. Majorly talk 15:38, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I would probably want the newcomers to run through RFAs. But for most that should probably be a breeze. By the looks of those discussions right now WB and WQ are likely to be gone soon anyways. So those people would lose them anyways. Simple wiktionary is another matter, since its not currently up its in a different situation. Personally I would like to see it merged into en.wiktionary and not a combined simple. For the sheer fact that dictionaries are supposed to be simple english, sort of the point of them. -DJSasso (talk) 15:46, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The idea of merger makes a lot of sense, including merging wikt, imo. fr33kman ^talk 15:49, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem with this. But I've one question: will WMF allow it? Pmlineditor ∞ 15:50, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

@Pmlinediter: Yes, they will allow it, you see, one language has done this before, so there is precedent, and since there will not be a new wiki created, langcom will not be involved at all. Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 15:54, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Dj, we will all be newcomers. It'll be a brand new project. Majorly talk 16:30, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

• (e/c) I saw a link to this discussion at SEWT, and thought I'd give my thoughts. I support merging the SEWB and SEWQ communities into a single wiki with the encyclopedia, that seems logical and will save the content in both projects from being lost (as they're both likely going to be closed). However, I think the simple english wiktionary is better off as a separate wiki (although I wouldn't oppose a merger). One comment though, shouldn't this discussion be advertised on SEWB and SEWQ, to get the input of the community there? Tempodivalse 16:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

  WQ and WB notified. Pmlineditor ∞ 16:37, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

SEWB and SEWQ as one wiki sounds pretty weird. They don't have any real relationship other than the "language". They should be merged at least with the encyclopedia. No one has suggested how SEWiktionary is better off a single project separate from the rest. Why would it be? Majorly talk 16:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I meant that SEWB and SEWQ should be merged with SEWP, I didn't mean we should merge those two into a separate wiki altogether. I clarified that point now. Tempodivalse 18:53, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

(unindented) Before I would even think about supporting a merger, I would want to see a) A !vote, b) support from every active member on all four projects, and c) Support from the WMF. Furthermore, there are many concerns that I have on this. Firstly, how would you denote the different projects here? Would they have their own namespaces? Secondly, I have liked the drama-free Simple English Wiktionary as of late, so I would really appreciate it if it were kept as its' own separate wiki. Thirdly, if we merged all four projects, there were be major duplications of many articles, which leads me to believe that there would be compatability issues which would be far greater than any we've ever faced. Instead of doing something like this, why not just focus on making them all better first? Razorflame 16:39, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

We'll vote on it once we have discussed what we want. I don't think asking for support from everyone is reasonable - if there is consensus (i.e. most people) then we should go through with it. A minority of people not liking it shouldn't hold us back. The projects would have their own name space: Wikipedia:, Wikibooks: etc. The project space would be called whatever the project ends up being named. I think leaving out one project is silly if the only reason to is the "drama" aspect. Merging will help the project not hinder it. If we merged there would be no duplications as every project would have its own namespace. There is no way we can make them better, particularly Wikiquote which is heading for closure as we speak. Merging will save them from that fate. Majorly talk 16:50, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Leaving out the Simple English Wiktionary is a good choice because it is the project that has the most practicality, and it is the project that is the most well off. I believe the Simple English Wiktionary should definitely stay as its' own project because it just would be too much of a hassle to move all four of the projects into one. Why not just leave it out as a project that can and will survive further proposals for closure, so I don't see why we should merge it yet. If it seems like it is about to close from a proposal for closure, then I will support merging it into a single Simple Project. Razorflame 16:54, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

But it would work just as well as part of the larger project. It would also have more people available to work on it and maintain it. It wouldn't be a hassle at all, it's been done before. I don't think this is a question of gaming the closure system, it's a question of making a decent project that people are going to use. Majorly talk 16:59, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

(<-) I would support the idea of merging all simple projects. Well, before we do this, we need to clarify what happens with the admins of other projects that aren't admins here (as mentioned above). I'd personally like to them having an RfA here. I wouldn't simply transfer there right to this wiki, because this wiki has a bigger community. I talked yesterday evening to Fr33kman about this. I came after sleeping about it to one concern. We will grow. At some point in the future we will have have 500,000 and more articles on this wiki. And this as a mix between quotes, articles, entries (Wiktionary ones) and perhabs books. This can become a problem, because this will make the work on this wiki more and more difficult. I guess the chances to get the then bigger parts like wiktionary or quote to own hosts won't be easy. In the future, this wiki will become very complecated and hard to understand how it works. I know that such a merge was already done, namely with the als Wikis. But they can request back an own host for books/quotes... when this parts are worthwile enough for an own wiki. We would have problems to do this. How will this wiki work in 10/15/20 years with a mix between all projects?

I'm not sure if this idea is that much better, but: Quotes can be added to the articles when needed. We usually don't use that many quotes, because they are most likely complex. Do we really needs quotes? The same goes for books. I doN#t know if this wiki is worthwile enough to merge it with WP. The Wiktionary is atm with over 12,000 entries a relatively large project. There is enough content to merge it with WP. But in the future, it will grow to perhabs 20,000 or even 50,000 entries and more. A mix between WP and WT articles would be hard esp. because we can later most likely not undo the merge. Perhabs it would be the easiest to just close SEWQ and SEWB. To the Wiktionary, I would suggest that all admins from WP get admin there too. This would help in the case that vandalism appears (or grant the right at least to whom they want to have it and watch the wiki via the IRC channel).

But again, I still think a merge isn't a bad idea, but several thinks I mentioned now should be cleared first. A good idea would imo be an agreement that if WB, WQ and so on are grown that they can get their old domain back and can be again independent. We need to look in the future. I'm not sure if we can handle a really big mix-project. This is possible at this time, but is it still possible in 5 years?

I hope the comment is understandable and not too bad written. Regards --Barras (talk) 16:50, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Please read my comments above. There is no reason why the admins on the other projects shouldn't be admins on the large project. Why should Wikipedia get priority and keep all the admins? We are merging into a new project, not merging to Wikipedia. We will need all the manpower we can get, so making everyone not an admin on Wikipedia go through a pointless RfA is... pointless.

Above I described how we can use different namespaces to differenciate the parts of the project. It will be simple to understand.

If we find we can merge quote pages into the encyclopedia article, the quote page can be deleted. But some would probably be worth keeping.

Again we're not going to be a random mix of things. Each project will be in a separate namespace - it will just be hosted under one wiki. Majorly talk 16:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't saw the comment above my long statement. I think this was an unshown editconflict. Barras (talk) 16:59, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

If we are going to just be one project with seperate namespaces then I see no point in doing it because that is what we are now basically. The only difference is that instead of namespaces its seperate urls. What I do support is those other projects merging into Wikipedia and merging what we can into singular articles. Thus my comment about having them run RFA here. -DJSasso (talk) 17:18, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Other projects are not an encyclopedia though, so that is unlikely to work, with the possible exception of quotes. Majorly talk 17:20, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikibooks should just disappear completely, quotes can be put on articles. And dictionary definitions while not strictly encyclopedic, I think would fit in perfectly fine into an encyclopedia. -DJSasso (talk) 17:23, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

A few of my musings on this:

• I think that there should be different namespaces for the different projects, it would make things more organised (and I think it would be difficult/clumsy to mash everything together into one page). My idea for how to arrange things is something like this (not sure if it's feasible technically though): each page would be split into namespaces, listed as Encyclopedia:, Quotes:, Dictionary:, and Book: (or something like this). The main article (in main namespace) would serve as a disambiguation page with links to the pages in the different namespaces. To ease searching, there could be a menu in the search bar to determine what namespace to search things in (i.e. if i wanted to search for an encyclopedia article about something, I would choose "Encyclopedia" from the search bar, if i wanted to see quotes about someone I'd choose "Quotes", etc.).
• I'm of the opinion that admins on the other simple projects should get the admin bit on the merged wiki by default as well. There's no reason why SEWP members should get priority over the rest of the simple english community.

--Tempodivalse 18:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, the only reason I say it is becaues its excedingly easy to get it on the other projects. Having the trust of 5 active editors is alot different than having the trust of 30+ editors. That being said, I also said it was mostly a formality as I am sure everyone would pass anyways. -DJSasso (talk) 18:20, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

What makes you think that just because the folks at Simple Wikipedia have an identity crisis and a lot of silly articles, other projects like Simple Wiktionary need to be pulled in to the mess. I think the purpose of a simple wiktionary is clear and have no desire for it to be mixed in with a simple wikimash.--Brett (talk) 23:42, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The simple language projects have been an overall failure; combining them into one would make simple projects even more useless. This merger proposal is a hastily-created alternative to closing the simple books and wikiquote projects. In the pervious closing proposals, the wikimeta community was tolerant to the inactivity and decided to live and let live the struggling simple projects. Unfortunately there has been little progress and many other projects, especially the English wikipedia have shunned the simple projects. On the most recent closing proposals, the majority support closing simple wikibooks and wikiquote by a rough 2-to-1 margin. Many projects in other languages have been closed for similiar reasons why some users want to close simple. However there was always a group of resistance, claiming to keep it for non-native speakers or for the children. Just how often do 5th graders come to the simple wikipedia to research for a school project, or an ESL student use simple wikitionary to know what the word "population" means? It is time to step back and realize that keeping the simple projects won't bring a sudden burst of activity here. Users come and go and wiki projects evolve over time. I think that the consensus should also change and adapt to the current circumstances here. Even if the current proposals fail again, in the next year another complaint will arise up and the discussion will repeat itself again as it has done before. The majority of the opinion will progressively push for closure of simple language projects. 71.107.248.207 (talk) 04:33, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

To my knowledge there are no statistics on "user base" (what kind of user uses what kind of project). It is therefore idle to claim that these projects should be closed, based on the fact that no fifth-graders use Simple Wiktionary, Wikibooks or Wikiquote. Can you please point me to some kind of statistics that show that any pupils (school, not university-level) use Wiktionary, Wikibook or Wikiquote, for the "regular English" (non-simpilfied versions)? - If you make claims, please back them up with hard facts. Thank you. --Eptalon (talk) 16:56, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

• Another question: How will interwikis work if we merge the wikis? This should be sorted out. I'm not sure if it would make troubles esp. for other wikis (Wikitionaries) to interwikis to this wiki. Barras (talk) 12:27, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

  There is no real good way for interwikis to work. Interwikis wouldn't be able to work for Simple Wiktionary because not every entry created there has an entry at the English Wikipedia, which means that it would make a huge mess of the interwikis for the Simple Wiktionary, which is just another reason why the Wiktionary shouldn't be merged in with the others. Razorflame 04:48, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

• Seems a logical suggestion by Majorly. I note, although I'm sure others have realised, that the user who raised the admin issue is one who has sought adminship here countless times and is the person so concerned about Simple Wiktionary, where they happen to be an admin. Soup Dish (talk) 15:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Let me add my thoughts here. I have been involved with the other SE projects for a long time. Most of my contributions on this project have been in the Wikipedia:, Wikipedia talk:, and User talk: namespaces because I was the most vocal advocate of the other projects, which had basically no content early on and faced strong opposition from a bureaucrat here. Since then, the other SE projects have undergone repeated attacks and closure proposals, and now it feels like we are being stabbed in the back by those who we considered our closest allies: SEWP editors. I understand that the people in this discussion that are considering merging the other projects into this one think they are doing us a favor, but they are really doing the same thing that the people who have tried to close those projects have done. I think the idea of merging the respective SE projects into another one (usually into a separate namespace on the analogous EN projects) has been mentioned in almost every SE closure proposal since the very first. These proposals have all failed, so far. It says on the Meta project closure page that if one closure proposal fails, other proposals over the same project will also likely fail, so that means they should continue to survive them. It is important to remember that SE projects will never be reopened if they are ever closed, since the project creation policy currently does not allow for their creation. This in and of itself does not necessarily mean that they shouldn't be closed, but it does mean that we should think long and hard before closing them.

I can never get past the fact that all Wikimedia wikis are about helping where one wants to help. If some people like SEWikiquote, for example, let them work there. If you don't like it, just don't work there. But don't work against us, either, to shut us down! You wouldn't like it if someone said, "Hey, SEWP is much smaller than EWP, and has comparatively no activity (because compared with the huge, unceasing activity on EWP, this place is almost inactive), so let's merge it into EWP in its own namespace." You would tell them not to mess with what you're doing here and to mind their own business if they don't want to work on SEWP. Remember, an open but inactive project is ready to take off as soon as enough people get involved, and one never knows how long that might take or when it might happen, but happen it probably will, eventually. You could say that it's a great project just waiting to happen. Even if it never gets past a few edits a month, at least something good is slowly forming that might help some people. But an SE project that is closed now is closed forever. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 20:49, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Broken interlanguage links on WP:AGF

The interlanguage links on Wikipedia:Assume good faith are not working correctly. The syntax appears to be correct, but they are showing up as redlinks in the article. Clicking the links leads to the correct page, but they're not displaying properly. Does anyone know how to fix this problem? Reach Out to the Truth (talk) 00:21, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

 Done I think that did the trick. I am not sure why it wasn't working. I just added spaces in between them. Weird.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 03:03, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

The devs have been working on wikilinks the last little while. They were all down for awhile. Your fix just happened to coincide with theirs. -DJSasso (talk) 03:44, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah I see. I see you removed the spaces and it still seems to work fine. Thanks!--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 03:45, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah wanted to make sure that really was what the issue was, so I removed them. -DJSasso (talk) 03:50, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Merge Discussion

Just letting everyone know about this discussion.--  † CR₉₀  21:56, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Collapsible Box option not working

I have two collapsible boxes on my userpage and they're not collapsing, is there something wrong with the .js?--  † CR₉₀  04:26, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Well I figured out the problem, it was TW. I don't know why it was messing it up.--  † CR₉₀  05:31, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Convert.

Hey guys. I found another page with a problem with the convert template, but I can't seem to find the convert template anywhere on the page when I go to edit it.... Hiroshima. If somebody could take a look that would be great. Thanks!--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 18:28, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. Griffinofwales (talk) 18:33, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Great! Thanks.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 18:35, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Flood flag

I'd like to formally propose that administrators be permitted by the community of Simple English Wikipedia to add and remove the flood flag to user accounts. Right now we rely on bureaucrats to either notice when a trusted account is flooding or else we require the holder of an account to ask a bureaucrat to add the bot flag to an account that is temporarily flooding RC. Admins can be trusted with this function; let's give it to them. Thoughts? Fr33kman 14:33, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea. If an "ordinary user" know they will flood. I'd go further, and propose the following:

• Admins can add the flood flag to ordinary user accounts
• To limit the damage done, this flood flag will "time out". By default, without further intervention, the flag will be disabled automatically, after a given time (say: 2 hrs)

Just my thoughts.--Eptalon (talk) 14:54, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

There's not the technical ability in the MW software for it to auto-timeout, so unfortuntely we can't implement that. I do however support admins giving it to users and feel it's no more "dangerous" than rollback - plenty of people watch the "with bots" WMF IRC channels and would notice any damage done. Plus the amount of admins around it could be removed pretty quickly. So it's a support from me. Cheers, Goblin 15:03, 15 November 2009 (UTC) I ♥ Kennedy!

If I remember correctly, its a technical limitation that only allows us to give it to ourselves, that is how the flood flag is setup on all wikis that use it. Secondly I think this wiki should stop being concerned with flooding. There really is no need to be worried about it, especially since we can go back 10's of thousands of edits in the RC if we wanted to. -DJSasso (talk) 15:06, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

(e/c) Yup, that's right. It would require a re-do of the UR set-up from the shell. But yes, I agree with your point about flooding and i'm personally supporting because of the principle of granting, not the fact that I agree with the (not) flooding... if that makes sense. Regards, Goblin 15:14, 15 November 2009 (UTC) I ♥ Shappy!

No, its possible to set up flood flag so that it can be given to everyone (Quote has that) Pmlineditor ∞ 15:08, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Either way I think the risk is not worth any possible benefit, there is very little benefit to being able to give it to everyone. That being said if someone really needs to be flagged there are a tonne of crats on this wiki who can temporarily mark them as a bot. -DJSasso (talk) 15:12, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Risk? What risk? We are talking about trusted admins granting it to trusted users. If I can decide whether or not it's a good thing to grant to myself, and I can also remember to turn it off, why can I (as as admin, not crat) not be trusted to grant it to other trusted users. Let's not be paranoid here, huh? fr33kman ^talk 15:19, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Right, and we already know the admins on this wiki are too free handing out things like rollback. Giving them the ability to also hand out the flood flag would be dangerous because it hides edits. Rollback is completely visible. Personally I don't see that admins even have the need of the flood flags themselves, nevermind the ability to give it out. Most edits should remain visible. -DJSasso (talk) 15:22, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry Dj, I don't buy it. Very rarely does an admin granting rollback turn out to be a bad thing (in fact, I'd really like to see the stats on that assertion frankly). There are multiple times when flooding occurs. People who watch RC often complain (to me at least) that flooding impedes their ability to monitor RC. Why not let more people be able grant a flag that prevents it? fr33kman ^talk 15:30, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

We have removed RB a number of times. I don't know the numbers. Secondly, people shouldn't be constantly monitoring RC, that is part of the problem with this wiki. Its addicted to watching RC. If people would spend more time editing and less time watching RC we would all be better off. I am concerned with the slippery slope. I see people giving RB to people who have only been here 2 or 3 days...when really they should be around a couple months before that happens. So I can see them giving the flood flag to people after only days as well. There is a reason why we seperate giving the bot flag out to crats. -DJSasso (talk) 15:33, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Dude, we are NOT enWP! We do not have thousands of editors editing mainspace and hundreds of others who monitor RC. We have a small set of users (<40) who have to do both!! Removing non-controversial edits from RC is a VERY good thing here!! Having editors not monitor RC would only lead to masses of unseen vandalism. fr33kman ^talk 15:51, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

That is exactly the reason I don't think we need to be so concerned about it. Even with flooding we have so few edits that removing some small amount of flooding will not make a difference. Vandalism will still be caught by people watching, because some people will always watch. I don't see why we need a second flag to be able to do this. As I said there are already crats on at almost all times of the day who can do this. (not to mention we have what, less than 5 active users who can't set it on themselves) -DJSasso (talk) 16:43, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

You seemed to have moved from "dangerous" to "no need". Who cares that "perhaps" less than 5 editors could benefit? Simple English Wikipedia is not static. It is the summation of all the people who have edited here (long before most of the now active people here dropped by) and also by editors who have yet to edit here. Both the future community and future admins (who can say how long we'll be here) may find it as useful as may the current community! Yes, we have given RB to people who have been here fore 2 or 3 days. We have a policy of granting it to rollbackers from elsewhere so this will happen from time to time. However, this is NOT about rollback, it's about flooding. I can't imagine a circumstance where an admin here would flood flag an unknown and untrusted user and if they did there are larger problems afoot, problems that would need addressing anyway. Right now there are only a few people who can stop another user from flooding RC. Why not expand that? As for "too few edits to worry about flooding", I wonder if you have been here when it's happened. I've missed vandalism because of floods, others have too. fr33kman ^talk 17:14, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I care, I don't want to open up the wiki to more problems if it doesn't have enough benefits to outweigh the possible problems. We have a problem with a race to get flags on this wiki, giving yet more powers to admins is only continuing that trend. I do think we have the bigger issue that admins are not careful enough in trusting unknown and untrusted users I can see this happening quite often, of course this is not out of malice, but out of assuming too much good faith or being over eager. Vandalism being missed isn't the end of the world. It will be caught eventually. And with how thorough some users are in combing back through the last few thousand RC edits I doubt many will slip by if a users floods the RC. -DJSasso (talk) 17:55, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

• I think that is a good idea, but we would really need to be careful. Making sure that we don't give the flag to somebody who will end up wrecking things, and then not being able to see where they went wrong. I also think that per DJSasso that this isn't really a huge issue.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 15:08, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

  We already allow our admins to give rollback to users, and flood flag is no more "dangerous" than that. Cheers, Goblin 15:14, 15 November 2009 (UTC) I ♥ Shappy!

  Actually, flood flag is much more dangerous than rollback. One allows an editor to revert all the edits of a single user; the other allows a user to remain hidden from RC. Obviously admins would not be adding flood to accounts that are not trusted. fr33kman ^talk 15:24, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

  No, it hides it from the on wiki Recent Changes feed. Most of our users use either the WMF IRC channel or the CVN channel, neither of which hides the edits of users with the bot flag, and therefore it would be noticed. GB4 will also revert if people started vandalising with it, thus my comment that it's no more dangerous than rollback. Cheers, Goblin 15:29, 15 November 2009 (UTC) I ♥ GoblinBots!

  Most of our users do NOT sit in those channels. Also, even those that sit in those channels are not always watching them and things slip by. Less eyes is always more dangerous than more eyes. And your bot will not catch all vandalism as long as its not stupid vandalism like blanking or bad words. Secondly vandalism is not the only reason that edits should be visable. Sometimes there are changes that should be seen by the community to make sure there is concensus for them to happen. -DJSasso (talk) 15:32, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

  Agree with Djsasso, most of our users do NOT sit in those channels. It sounds quite good in theory, I'm not sure if it'd work in practise. Yotcmdr ^=talk= 17:10, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

• It seems to me a lot of people are thinking about this the wrong way. Rollbacker is a permanent flag; it is given to a user and they get to keep it forever, so long as they don't abuse it. The Flood flag would be given only for an hour (probably less). In this case, it would make sense that the admin who gives the flag is responsible for monitoring the edits by that user and immediately removing the flag if it abused in the slightest way. Also, they would be responsible for removing the flag as soon as it is no longer needed. Giving admins the ability to grant the flood flag is would not be any different than what the crats are doing now for users who request a bot flag, except that admins could only give it temporarily, while crats are allowed to give it permanently to bots (i.e. not a technical restriction, but a functional one). With these provisions, I would support this idea. EhJJ^TALK 18:32, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

  I echo EhJJ here. I also support the idea. Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 16:39, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

  Agree as well. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 16:49, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

• I also agree with this. Timelimit to one hour then it expires automatically or it is earlier removed by an admin. I hope we get some more input on this. If not, I'm going to open a bugzilla for this in about a week, if there are no more changes here and no major concerns are risen. Best --Barras (talk) 18:48, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

  IMO the input is here, so a bug could be filed soonish. However as I mentioned above it's not possible to have it automatically expire, so perhaps we should say it's the responsibility of the giving admin to remove it when the user has finished with it? Regards, Goblin 19:29, 19 November 2009 (UTC) I ♥ GoblinBots!

OK! 21571. --Barras (talk) 19:47, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Spellchecker updates

Hello! I just want to let you fellows know that there are updates to the spellcheckers made about a year ago to help you write articles in Simple English. You may download them from addons.mozilla.org; they are still in the experimental section, so you may have to log in to download and install them. There are three flavors: one strictly based on Basic English, and two others based on Special and Specialized English.— Good luck and happy wikiing!— Lwyx (talk) 02:51, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Discussion bump

Please all see here - if there's no input in the next few days to the contrary of the (loose) consensus formed i'll implement a change.

Ta,

Goblin 16:13, 23 November 2009 (UTC) I ♥ Yotty!

I'm back!

It's been about six months since I last contributed. I just got back from a sudden deployment to Iraq, and I'm darn glad to be back CONUS! I'm looking forward to contributing again. Can anyone update me on what's happened in the last six months?— Preceding unsigned comment added by DefenseSupportParty (talk • contribs) 02:50, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Yayz! :D Gotta dash but can fill in later if you've not already been so. Goblin 08:57, 18 November 2009 (UTC) I ♥ Fr33kman!

Great! Welcome back :) Yotcmdr ^=talk= 11:42, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Welcome back! —Mythdon ^{[talk] [changes]} 22:26, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm also back. I.T next year is apparently going to be a bore for me (7 hours a week) cause I know too much xD, so I'm back. --  Da Punk '95  talk  18:08, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Welcome back :) Yotcmdr ^=talk= 18:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Welcome back. —Mythdon ^{[talk] [changes]} 03:41, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Patroller group

Hi there all. I would like to ask that we implement a new user group called patrollers who would be non-admins who can patrol the new pages like they can on the English Wikipedia. I believe that we are starting to get too many new pages a day to only have the administrators be able to mark pages as patrolled. I think you need to open it up to trusted users who you know will not abuse the patrolling tool. Opinions; suggestions? Razorflame 07:34, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Since we have a much smaller user base than en, I suggest we simply give rollbackers the patrol and autopatrol rights. Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 12:54, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

We brought this up before. There's no need for it, most articles are 'patrolled' as it is and there's no need giving people more user rights for the sake of it. Don't bundle with rollback either because we give that out too freely... Goblin 13:40, 26 November 2009 (UTC) I ♥ Kennedy!

As I said before there is no reason to have the patroller right here. 90% of the pages are auto patrolled as is. And even if the rest are not auto patrolled you can guarantee that someone looked at them on the RC even if they didn't click a patrolled button. There is no need to give rights for rights sake. People need to concentrate on making articles and stop worrying about trying to find gnome tasks to do when they don't need to be done. -DJSasso (talk) 14:01, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Yup, DJSasso has put my thoughts down much more gracefully :) Goblin 15:26, 26 November 2009 (UTC) I ♥ Yotty!

Djsasso has my pulse on this one. NonvocalScream (talk) 16:02, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Then, instead of making it a right, hows about we enable it for all autoconfirmed users, like it is on the English Wikipedia? Razorflame 16:09, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know of a compelling reason to do so. NonvocalScream (talk) 16:13, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

No, as DJSasso said, stop finding things to gnome that don't need gnoming and instead work on some top-notch article. Goblin 16:19, 26 November 2009 (UTC) I ♥ Fr33kman!

I'm going to (at least patrly) agree with Razorflame on this one. The patrolled feature is not used enough on Simple.Wikipedia, and would be very useful for us. If creation of a patrollers group would let this feature to be used rather than not, then it sounds like a good idea to me. I realize who made this request is probably changing people's willingness to think about it, but I hope it doesn't stop us from using it if the community agrees on its usefulness. EhJJ^TALK 17:37, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to have to concur with EhJJ on this. Not every single idea I bring up is useless or wouldn't benefit the Simple English Wikipedia in some way, shape, or form. I only think about what is good for the project, and I see that enabling this user right for certain users who like to do Wikignome things like myself would put it to good use as the Patrol tool isn't very widely used. As for the arguement that more than 90% of all pages made are autopatrolled; this is false. Most of our articles come from users who are not administrators or bureaucrats, so therefore, there is a major amount of patrolling that needs to be done. Patrolling will allow users to go through new pages to weed out the ones that are quick deletable and the ones that need to be requested for deletion, so therefore, I can only see positive things coming from the adding of the Patroller tool. Razorflame 18:51, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually my reasoning for not wanting us to have this group is because its not used. Patrol is not needed on a wiki that sees maybe 50 (on a good day) new articles a day. Every single one of which I can guarantee you has been looked at by atleast one experienced user on the RC. The user suggesting it has no bearing on it as it was suggested by someone else before and I disagreed with it then as well. Adding a userclass like this will just give users who don't actually want to contribute to the goal of creating articles a place to hide. It will not help the wiki and more likely will hurt the wiki at this stage of the game. When we start having multiple hundreds of articles created a day then I can see the usefulness of it. I for one know its not necessary because I go through every new page created each day and I know many others do as well. Clicking a patrolled button just adds extra unnecessary work and it just causes editors who are not useful to remain that way. -DJSasso (talk) 19:01, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

• EhJJ, the one who made this request does not affect the merit of the request for me... please assume better of me. :)
• This request is such bureaucracy, instruction creep. I believe that if effected, it has the potential to create another class of users. Also, if bonded to the autoconfirm group, the potential for a timesink exists. While we need "vandal fighters" I don't support adding a feature so that our editing group can now concentrate on patrolling. Such waste of valuable volunteer hours. I might even suggest disabling the feature altogether. Best, NonvocalScream (talk) 19:04, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I would rather the feature gone completely than to start adding this bit to users. As you say its just a timesink on a wiki this small. -DJSasso (talk) 19:06, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Having the feature gone altogether sounds better, imo. I suggest we set $wgUseNPPatrol to false. Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 19:33, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with that. There is almost always somebody watching RC, and we don't have enough new pages to warrant handing out this tool.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 16:26, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Special:Newpages

We get a lot of new pages that clearly are not noticed, and they are often in a very poor state and either require deleting, or tagging/fixing. Can people please go through Special:Newpages each day to ensure we are not left with test pages and messy "articles" for too long. Thanks, Majorly talk 22:57, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, it would help considerably if the ones who are going to "sort stubs" or "fix typo using AWB" would get in contact with a bureaucrat before hand so they don't flood recent changes. In my opinion, this plays a part in some of the silliness getting through Recent Changes and staying on the encyclopedia for much longer than they should. @Kate (talk) 23:46, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

2010 Article Cup?

Let's have one. I'm game, and BG's article cup seemed to have worked in it's limited form. But this time it needs to be more interesting. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 02:46, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Oppose for the same reason I opposed all the other times. Takes up what little resources we have to run when time could be better spent actually doing the articles. -DJSasso (talk) 05:57, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I oppose it, but I thought it was supposed rally article creating and expanding, Djsasso?--  † CR₉₀  06:03, 1 December 2009 (UTC) How did I get signed out.-  † CR₉₀ 

Well yes, but I don't believe it actually does that. And the time taken tracking it could be better spent elsewhere. -DJSasso (talk) 06:07, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

The problem was that people didn't keep good track, and the responsiblity fell to a few sysops. What would be smart would be to award vandal catching in the Cup Purplebackpack89 (talk) 07:08, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

How does "vandal catching" relate to building/writing/improving articles? @Kate (talk) 07:11, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Stopping vandalism? That has everything to do with it Purplebackpack89 (talk) 07:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

"Vandal catching" has nothing to do with the three things that I mentioned. Thanks for playing, though. @Kate (talk) 07:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

<--reset Right, as i've been 'named' as 'my' Article Cup, i'm going to say something about this proposal. I believe that having a cup has the potential to be both good and bad. On the one side such a cup has got potential to put a surge on the number of Good and Very Good articles and has been seen with the shorter Article Cup. I believe that it takes little or no extra effort to get such a cup running and it is fairly easy to do so. However, on the other side, and this is what made the 'first' one fail, was the fact that people didn't stick with it and couldn't be bothered. The people who signed up never came back and never edited, giving us numbers out of proportion. Scoring was never an issue as there was a bot that did that, nor was it left 'to a few sysops' - because I certainly wasn't one. With regards to 'more interesting', I think that was another element to it's downfall. The scoring system rewarded points for anything, even if it was useless, whereas the current cup only does articles. Adding in DYK expansions would probably be a good thing, but it doesn't need to be any more complex than that - and nor will adding in vandal reversion, as it will be impossible to calculate. So, i'm on the fence at the moment for the reasons above. But yes, like DJSasso says, the effort that a full cup [like Mk.1] would take is better spent elsewhere. Regards, Goblin 09:16, 1 December 2009 (UTC) I ♥ Chenzw!

Science articles needed

Geology: most of the periods in the geological table are wanting. It's necessary to be able to use terms like "Devonian" in related subjects such as palaeontology and evolution. Also, the table itself should have its own page (now tucked away under Historical geology). Palaeontology itself has only a few lines.

Botany: shocked to see the some of the basic parts of plant structure not described and illustrated. Surely we have someone interested in doing this.

The general rule should be: the most basic terms in every science should be covered. Otherwise, learners are frustrated by being unable to investigate terms that are new to them. I am working on topics in evolution and genetics, plus associated mini-biogs, so am a bit over-committed at present. I'm writing this in the hope that it will encourage others to pop up and do the above. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:26, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Well here I've copied the list of all the core physics articles, and I'm going to work through improving all of them over the next month or so. (starting with Atom, if anyone wants to give my handiwork a look over...) If anyone wants to help out that would be awesome, as I agree with Macdonald, many of our science articles are in a pretty poor shape. FSM ^Noodly? 00:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Emphatizing my (somehow) 1000th birthday

I'll be reaching very soon the 1000th mark on Main. Never before I've been trying to celebrate on Simple pump where very few French people such as me contribute. That's why I ask you to give me an idea about my 1000th edit. Something I could be proud of and useful for Simple as well. Michel Alençon aka ONaNcle (talk) 11:06, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

An edit to France ;) ! Je ne suis pas français, mais j'habite en France, cela revient presque au même! Yottie ^=talk= 11:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Not announcing it here? We really don't care about your edit counts and would much rather the time spent to write the above was spent on an article. Ta Goblin 11:48, 2 December 2009 (UTC) I ♥ Chenzw!

@Yotcmdr: Tks for your kind words; @ Bluegoblin7: When emphatizing about an unwelcomed 1000th edit, I didn't think about those outside Main appearing too in the Recent New Changes. ONaNcle (talk) 17:00, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Take it to my talk, though I fail to see how they are the same thing. Goblin 20:32, 2 December 2009 (UTC) I ♥ Yotty!

Point Enabled Pages

Hello,

I'm not entirely sure if this the right or most appropriate place to be contributing, as I have never contributed to Wikipedia before, can someone assist me please?

I am here for the following reason:

I work for Widgit Software www.widgit.com and for the last 25 years we have been providing support for people with literacy impairments.

We’ve always believed that no matter what your level of reading, you should have fair and equal access to text-based materials. As such, we have developed a large database of symbols, which currently stands in excess of ten thousand images spanning a forty thousand-word vocabulary. The Widgit Symbols are the only symbol set specifically designed for readers with Special Educational Needs, they are also the main symbol set used within UK schools to promote mainstream inclusion and more recently they are being heavily used with readers who have English as an additional language.

Our software is available in 14 languages and is used worldwide to create symbol-supported materials for use in print, onscreen and online. We also offer a range of services to help organisations make their information more accessible.

In addition to the continued development of innovative software, we have now have turned our attention to accessibility on the internet and created Point and Insite, both allowing unparalleled support for symbol readers online.

We would like to work with wikipedia, to get our new product, Point, enabled on the website, as it is a site that is full of useful information that would be of benefit and interest to people with literacy impairments, an audience that would struggle to access the information without traditional human support.

Point works when a user hovers their mouse over a word they are struggling with. When they hover over the word, an appropriate symbol pops up. This symbols is a pictorial representation of the word, showing the user the concept and meaning of the word. It enables impaired readers to confidently and independently access texts, without the need to be continuously assisted.

If you would like to see point in action it is enabled on our new online technology site, which is www.widgit-online.com or you can read further information about Point specifically by visiting http://www.widgit-online.com/products/point.htm

We also have a page of selected current clients that are using Point, it can be found here, http://www.widgit-online.com/clients/examples.htm As you will see we have a range of clients that vary from schools, services and tourist attractions.

We are willing to offer wikipedia the use of the service for free.

Please would you get back to me with any questions or thoughts you have about using Point, or if you would like to discuss the technical implications of using it on your site.

Many thanks for your time, I look forward to hearing from somebody soon.

Russ russell@widgit.com

Wikimedia is open source only so your software is not really an option.Geni (talk) 00:04, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Unblocking me

Hi guys. I am Tharnton but please DO NOT block, please. Could you unban me? You agreed that I shouldn't get an indefban back in February. I have matured by now. So could you change it back to 3 February 2010? 89.242.29.29 (talk) 19:16, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

No, because you're now ban evading. This does not show us that you have matured. To contest your ban, please use your talk or email an admin. Ta, Goblin 19:23, 12 December 2009 (UTC) I ♥ Yotty!

Tharnton, As I told you a couple weeks ago, if you wish to be unblocked then you should consider sending an email to the admin list explaining your reasoning. Evading your ban using different IPs only hurts your chances. James (T|C) 19:41, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello there. I have unblocked your talk page, I think we can discuss an unblock there... --Eptalon (talk) 20:58, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Editor Review.

Hey guys. There are two editor reviews open that have been up for almost a month now. Maybe somebody would like to head over there and give a quick response. Thanks!--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 23:37, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Editor reviews are quite exhaustive ones and often aimed getting nominated to an admin vote; I just need a partial advice: in my previous RfA I had only 28 deleted edits and most of people voting against my promotion said it was not enough; today the number is 178; is it enough? Tks. ONaNcle (talk) 21:00, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Numbers don't always matter. But I can tell you right now it is unlikely you would pass an Rfa. -DJSasso (talk) 22:16, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah it isn't always about edit count, it is the quality of the edits you have made, and the trust the community has in each editor. Editor review isn't always about passing at RFA though, it can be a place editors can go to receive feedback on the work they have done.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 23:52, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

You've only been active for 4 days since taking a lengthy break. I think an RfA would almost certainly fail at this time. EhJJ^TALK 04:41, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Let just hope Simple will never have a drastic and urgent need for sysops... don't worry about me : I contribute far more in the very places where I can access the full tools I do need. ONaNcle (talk) 20:39, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I posted an opinion to each editor review, but it would be nice to have a second opinion before they are "closed". If anyone has a minute to either agree/disagree with my reviews and perhaps offer some additional insight, I'm sure it would be appreciated by the two users. EhJJ^TALK 04:41, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Simpler editing for Simple English

Lwyx has updated his simple English spellchecker for Firefox. By using this Firefox add on, editors can easily see which words are in simple English and which are not. While in the editing window words not in the Simple English dictionary are treated as spelling errors and are underlined. This makes it very easy to see where words need to be made simpler, or where a link maybe needed. I think it is one of the best editing tools you can get. Download it from here. --Peterdownunder (talk) 11:54, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

A spell checker in general would be a good idea. Majorly talk 12:23, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I also agree that a spell checker is a good idea. However, words like "spell", "dictionary", "editing" or "easily" are underlined. I think these words are simple. --Barras (talk) 13:33, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it is a help. But it tends to overlook slightly more complex words like 'rhythm' and 'official' but underlines words like 'movie' and 'guitar.' Still, any tool that makes an editor double check their work regardless of whether it is spot-on accurate is a good thing. while typing this post the spellchecker underlined the word 'tool' Theodolyte (talk) 16:00, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Does it override Firefox's built in spell-checker, or is it in addition to it? For instance, nothing in this editing window is underlined right now; including the words that Barras has listed. @Kate 16:52, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

You can only have one dictionary at a time so you have to turn off your other one and turn that one on. -DJSasso (talk) 20:20, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Special:WantedPages

Can we get this list updated at least weekly? Thanks. Davidwr (talk) 00:51, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Devs don't like it. Sorry, Griffinofwales (talk) 00:53, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

What's not to like? If they don't like it being generated at run-time a weekly generation by a bot would do nicely, something along the lines of en:WP:WANTED but updated more regularly? Also, a WP:MISSING would be good, it should probably consist of articles that are on the burn-to-CD list, or at the very least, the 1000 "most vital" topics in :en. Davidwr (talk) 01:07, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

We actually already have pretty much all of the WP:VITAL articles. -DJSasso (talk) 01:10, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I copied the en:Core_topics_-_1,000 to User:Davidwr/Core topics - 1,000, this gives us a few important redlinks to get rid of. I count about 25-30 redlinks that need fixing and a few flag templates that need creating. Some of these may just require redirects. Similar copies can be made from en:WP:VITAL and related pages. Davidwr (talk) 01:18, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

We actually already have what we consider to be the vital topics at WP:VITAL as I pointed to above. We are simple.wiki and not en.wiki, so our list of topics considered core will be very different. -DJSasso (talk) 01:20, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

As for the flags. What you have to do to fix those is actually go to commons and create a redirect from what our template considers the title to the actual flag image as we don't host images on this wiki. -DJSasso (talk) 01:27, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Numbers...

Hello all,

I want to perhaps leave some to think. Recently, the election of Bureaucrat criteria was changed so that candidates who get the support of two current crats are automatically promoted. While having many bureaucrats is not a problem of itself, I still want to point out that getting rid of an (inactive) bureaucrat is much harder than for an admin. What this community needs, in my opinion, is simply more users who edit (without the need to have extra buttons). We currently have about 20 active admins, and as many inactive ones, for a total of between 30 and 40 active users.

Can I therefore propose we limit the number of crats to 10 (25%) total? --Eptalon (talk) 13:57, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm willing to go with that on two conditions: 1) it counts only active crats and 2) it applies only to promotions that bypass community consensus. If we have 10 crats and a superior candidate wants to run via a community process, he should be allowed to do so.

If too many active crats are a problem - and that is a wonderful problem to have - then asking crats to give up the bit for awhile and let someone else have a turn might be in order. Many real-world organizations require people to not serve more than X years in a row for certain positions.

I wasn't around when the crat-promoting-crats discussion came around, it would've taken some convincing for me to support that proposal. For what it's worth, I'm on the record on :en as supporting term limits before reconfirmation for all advanced bit-holders, but on that wiki that proposal never gets any traction, and there are good arguments against it. Davidwr (talk) 14:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

It isn't really any harder. We just hold a deRFB like we used to do with admins. At which point we ask a steward to remove it. No harder than what we did in the past for admins before removal of them became automatic. We could probably also change the admin removal process to include crats if it doesn't already. That being said I have always supported limiting the numbers of both admin and crats to a percentage of editing population. -DJSasso (talk) 15:29, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

If you lose the admin bit, the crat bit has to go with it. Griffinofwales (talk) 19:21, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

My opinion is that it's "the more the merrier" as that means there are more trusted people and more people to take care of deletions. Having almost every active user a Admin or 'Crat is not a bad thing. So no I oppose any limits.--  † CR₉₀  19:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Technically you can be one without the other grif. Though yes we most likely would remove both. -DJSasso (talk) 19:56, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

•  (change conflict)  I don't really care about a limit. However, I think that all higher rights ('crat, cu, os) should be removed after three or four months of inactivity (less then ten edits/actions). We currently have one nearly inactive oversighter and two or three nearly inactive 'crats. I think we should first do a "clean up" and look if we need to fill the positions up. An other good thing could be the re-election of all those groups after 2 years. This means we limit the number of the positions and all 2 years has every user the chance to apply for the position. (The current people can keep the right if they are re-elected). This could help to get the inactive people removed from their position. Also the numbers would be limited and a kind of review all 2 years (Community says s/he did a good/bad work). All people have the chance to get re-elected and new user's have the chance to get the higher positions (not for admin elections). The system works fine on dewiki. Just a few thoughts. Best --Barras (talk) 19:59, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Policy (or guideline, although it's probably a policy) says that one must be an admin to be a crat (or be a CU or OS). @Barras, we have an inactivity policy that should take care of that. Griffinofwales (talk) 20:03, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I know that we have a policy. I just think that the higher positions should be handled an other way (less time of inactivity until the right is removed and/or re-election, so that the user will lose the tool after two years. --Barras (talk) 20:05, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Is not 1 year good enough? Griffinofwales (talk) 20:36, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

The problem with one year in the higher positions is that some users (I guess all know to who I refer) do all three months two edts and count then as active. This is having tools for no reason. --Barras (talk) 20:39, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

(<-) What about the following (would apply to Crats, CU, OS):

• No inactivity for longer than three months (inactivity: not using the resp. tools; as opposed to not editing)
• Re-confirmed/re-elected once a year
• For the time being: Crats limited to 10 active.

Things that should not change:

• Admin election rules
• Only admins can apply for higher positions

Suggestions? --Eptalon (talk) 20:52, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with the first one, because the user may not always have the opportunity to use the tools, as the demand for use is not very large. Thinking about others. Griffinofwales (talk) 21:00, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. The first one should be changed to edit, not actions. There is probably not always use of the tools. Furthermore, I think re-elections should be all two years. One year could become annyoing. --Barras (talk) 21:25, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Can't say I necessarily agree with the reconfirming every year. Especially since the identifying to the WMF is a pretty big deal and I know some people wouldn't want to do it if they were just going to lose their tools in a year. I see no real reason to reconfirm unless an abuse has happened. -DJSasso (talk) 04:53, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

<-Personally I see this as a rewrite of the policy that we just wrote, thats fine if people want to do that but thats what it is. As I told Eptalon on IRC when he said it looked like he was the only one who thought this way: If he sees a problem then its fairly likely someone else does to and didn't say anything, perhaps we didn't have enough discussion for the last policy change or it wasn't clear enough. To the discussion: Personally I tend to lean on to side of get rid of people who are inactive (3 months seems like a fine time frame to me for basically ANY tool set but I know people disagree with me on admins and thats fine). For crat it may be fair to say they don't have to use their crat tools very often but we could always use admin logged actions, for OS and CU I think it should be OS and CU actions, if your not using them do we really need you to have them? We are a smallish community but not THAT small or inactive.

On the whole idea of the number of crats/admins/normal users I don't personally see it as a "big deal" if anyone wants to see my normal thoughts on them feel free to look at my essay on the matter. I think the idea behind the last discussion was that if you were trustworthy enough to have crat then there really wasn't a big downside to have more people with the tools especially with a time period you had to wait to get it. I don't see it as very difficult to remove since a steward will usually do a NORMAL request almost instantly let alone an emergency request and if you abuse the tool your done, period. I also tend to think of admin/tool access numbers as separate from editor numbers and in general they don't limit the other but I realize thats coming from someone who as an editor is less active then most so... James (T|C) 23:22, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

While I think we have too many admins, I do not see the big rush to remove tools from people. What does having the tools hurt if they aren't using them. Personally I think its mostly a case of human nature, people want to knock others down. I know most people won't admit to that but I think that is what it boils down to. -DJSasso (talk) 04:55, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the "too many bureaucrats" arguement is a major issue. It's not like the community is over-populated. More 'crats means higher effeciency and more active 'crats is a good thing.-- Tdxiang 07:04, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

(<-) Why should we elect our users for a life time? In most (probably all) western countries, the population elects their "leader" for a limited time. After their period, the people have the chance to get re-elected (Which says: Has s/he done a good work in his position or not?) People wouldn't elect others who are clearly not active. Would you like to have people in positions (like being a president) who isn't even active with his/her responsibility? Why should we keep a crat/cu/os who exists only on paper? Sure it doesn't hurt if they have the tools, but does it help? No! An other point to consider is, that the user base of the wiki changes from time to time. People leave and new one come. Why shouldn't the new ones, those who joined later, not have the chance to say their opinion about User:xyz as crat/cu/os is good or not? On the German WIkipedia are currently around 20 adminships/reconfirmations of the inactive ones or the ones who got their tools with under 30 to 1 or two supports. The users who do a good job will keep the rights, the ones who doesn't do a good job will lose it. If you are inactive, you don't need the tool anymore, so you will lose the tool, if you are active you will keep it because the this will surely be the case in re-elections. I think many people don't want to say User:xyz: please go through a re-election because you are not active enough or something. That would look bad. This system is not only to get rid of the inactive users, it shows also if you are trusted. If we probably (and hopefully) have in two years more regulars (50/60 editors): Am I still trusted also by the new members? Only people who cling to their tools won't go through a re-election. What happends if I lose my tools? Nothing. I know that having extra tools doesn't mean having extra power, but people might think so. Please feel free to fix my typos/bad grammar! Thanks. It's only my opinion. --Barras (talk) 14:21, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Well the key point to make is that these aren't elections. We aren't politicians, we are just being shown a higher level of trust based on our past contributions. Whether you use the tools or not you still have the trust. Having to reconfirm every year is just a wide open door to drama, something this wiki should be trying really hard to avoid at this point in its life. Sometimes there isn't the ability to use the tools, I haven't for example seen anything that I could OS in weeks. Doesn't mean I am inactive, just means either there hasn't been anything or I haven't been on at the right time to catch it. (same goes for being a crat, now that every one can be one once they hit the requirements. There might be enough actions to go around that each crat has the ability to make one action every third month or so) Should I lose my tools because of that? Of course not. ps. Senators in my country actually are appointed for life....or well until mandatory retirement at age 75. Oh and you asked if it helps only having them as a crat or whatever on paper, and the answer is Yes, becaues if they are on and something needs to be done in an instant they are there and can do it. One edit is all it takes to be a benefit to the wiki. Heck even the potential to make that edit if the need arises is a benefit. -DJSasso (talk) 18:18, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I know that there isn't always use of crat/cu/os tool. Active in my point of view means that the user who has the right should edit here and/or use his admin tools here. I wouldn't say we should revoke rights as long as the user is active. Furthermore, I'm not talking about yearly elections. I'd like two years (probably three). Reconfirmations will just show us who has changed and should/ shouldn't have the tools. We in Germany appoint our parliament for a four year term (as well as the ministers). No one in Germany is appointed for life time. I think reconfirmations are a good thing. --Barras (talk) 19:09, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

With all due respect, Barras, I think reconfirmations would be an unnecessary bureaucracy. I'm also well aware that I'm probably in the minority with that opinion. I believe, though, that barring unforeseen events, once you have rights, you should keep them unless they are abused. Katerenka ^Talk 07:27, 19 December 2009 (UTC)