Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 99

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Page views

Is there a tool for determining "page views per month" for articles here? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:05, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the link is above the history of an article. -Orashmatash (talk) 11:09, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:18, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Turning on WikEd

I find this gadget really makes it easier to edit. Do people know how to turn it on here. --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:18, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we have that gadget here. I also find it easier to edit with, though. -Orashmatash (talk) 11:27, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes we do not have it. But we should be able to get it I think? --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:40, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
I added it to my /skin.js page an hour or so ago. Put this in your /skin.js page:

// install [[Wikipedia:User:Cacycle/wikEd]] in-browser text editor

importScriptURI('//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Cacycle/wikEd.js' + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');

-Orashmatash (talk) 13:44, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nice thanks Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:12, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Traditionally (3 years ago), I edited many Wikipedias by default edit tools and kinda like it. But, I'd like to try this innovation if it really helps. I would like to ask you, if that would be a smart choice for me, to try this tool. Thanks. Alex’s SeaSide 01:16, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes you can always turn it off if you do not like it. The one drawback is that it does slow things down a bit if you are on a slow connection. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:34, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Template Wiktionary not working right

In Icon (disambiguation), there is the following line:

{{Wiktionary|icon}}

That should produce a link to "Icon" in Wiktionary. Instead, {{Icon}} is linking to "Icon (disambiguation)" (the full page title). Could someone take a look and fix this? Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:21, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Doing... -Orashmatash (talk) 20:24, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done. -Orashmatash (talk) 20:27, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! --Auntof6 (talk) 20:28, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

More input needed @ WP:RFD

The Requests for deletion page is receiving very low input from our community, so most of the requests have to be extended or closed with two or three delete !votes. I'd like to request more community input there to enable admins to close the requests on time with more of a "consensus". Regards, Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 15:24, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, as well as low general activity and No. of users on this Wiki. We should invite some people else from En Wiki to join. Alex’s SeaSide 16:37, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to encourage the admins on this project to speedily delete most of the detritus that actually makes it to RFD. There's a huge amount of crap that gets the soft-touch treatment. Just delete and move along. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:05, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Many articles about non-metal halides

Those compounds is bonded with covalent bond, instead of electrovalent bond. For instance: Bismuth(V) fluoride. See corresponding articles for details. I have corrected some of them, but I found it difficult to find all of them. --Makecat (talk) 01:39, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Blair Wtich Project

Should be renamed in The Blair Witch Project thanks Xavier Combelle (talk) 03:24, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Article has been moved. --Creol(talk) 03:35, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Template Commons category not working right

Would someone take a look at {{Commons category}}? I've just put it in several articles (yes, bridge articles!), and it isn't working the way it should. For an example, see Richmond Bridge (Tasmania). I coded {{commons cat|Richmond Bridge}}, which should link to the "Richmond Bridge" category on Commons, but it doesn't. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:32, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, the code {{{1| Category:{{PAGENAME}} }}} needs to be replaced with Category:{{{1| {{PAGENAME}} }}}. Osiris (talk) 06:35, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'll bring this up on the Admin board because that template is protected. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:38, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That change may cause some serious problems. The template has been using the same wording (for the most part) since it was changed back in April 2010. As its on (according to the page) 16K articles, that means a lot of them are likely using the new wording. ie. not using it as a cat link, just a direct pagename link. Making changes could break a lot of pages. Then again, the original 2010 change would have broken pages from before then.. so there could be a lot of broken pages out there already. --Creol(talk) 06:47, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I understand your point. My issue is that it is not working 1) the way it is supposed to or 2) the way the documentation says it does. The "commons category" template should point to commons categories, not commons pages. Also, there was a more recent change, just a few days ago. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:50, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wait, which change? From the history, I'm seeing that it was changed about 6 days ago, deviating from the 2010 wording. Changing it back to the 2010 wording will fix it. Osiris (talk) 06:57, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, now I'm a little confused. The code I showed above ({{commons cat|Richmond Bridge}}) should link to the Commons category for that bridge, but instead it links to a Commons page named "Richmond Bridge" (which doesn't actually exist). There has to be a way for the template to link to a Commons category that isn't named the same as the article or category the template is used in. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:03, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Think I had my diff set too far back (looked for the last major change by size). Normally the template still works fine. The problem is when it needs to be re-aimed. ie. the page name isn't the cat you are wanting. If it gets no parameters, it just goes to the cat that matches the page name. If aimed elsewhere, it needs the target the be explicitely labeled a category (and looks better if you also include the non-cat name of the target - |category:Richmond Bridge|Richmond Bridge on the page Richmond Bridge (Tasmania) ). The template is still badly used though. Hawaii, for example, uses it but there is no category on commons for Hawaii - just a page for it. This could get ugly.. --Creol(talk) 07:11, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's already messy, the way it's working now. It either a) shouldn't require the explicit "category" label, or b) it should display "category" for everything. On enwiki, it doesn't make you specify "category" -- after all, it's the commons CATEGORY template! --Auntof6 (talk) 07:22, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(change conflict) That's how it is at the moment, but I'm pretty sure it was a mistake in the recent revision. You shouldn't need to explicitly name the target a category. All the targets for {{commons category}} should be categories, whether using a default value or a specified value—otherwise the article should be using {{commons}} instead. Correcting the recent change should fix it. Whether it's being used on the right pages is another story. Osiris (talk) 07:25, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
FWIW, I just tested with the version before it was changed a few days ago, and that worked the way it should. I see that someone changed Richmond Bridge (Tasmania) so that it works correctly now, but that doesn't address the many other articles where it currently isn't working. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:24, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have now fixed it. -Orashmatash (talk) 10:00, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Orash! --Auntof6 (talk) 10:13, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Big Bridge Weekend

The last full weekend of the month is March 24-25. This will be an informal "Big Bridge Weekend" (BBW).

Everyone is invited to create or expand articles and categories having to do with bridges, including a very wide spectrum of possible subjects:

mythical concepts? ... Rainbow Bridge in Norse Valhalla?
historical paintings? ... Rainbow Bridge in China?
natural rock formations? ... Rainbow Bridge National Monument in Utah?
large international bridges? ... :en:Rainbow Bridge (Niagara Falls) between Canada and the US?
small local bridges? ... :en:Rainbow Bridge (Tokyo) in Japan? Rainbow Bridge (Texas) in the US?

A little advance notice gives us time to think about it. --Horeki (talk) 19:23, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Remind me to do something about the Forth Bridge Normandy 22:04, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I enjoy all the Big Weekends, it gives me the urge to create articles, which is good. Looking forward to it. -Orashmatash (talk) 22:06, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Pages that need work

Looking forward to the "BBW", a few starting points might be:

Bridge is a short article which can be expanded?
List of bridges? ... red links?
List of bridges in Canada? ...red links?
List of bridges in the United States? ...red links?
List of bridges in the United Kingdom? ...red links?

Your participation could be an opportunity to spark someone else's interest? --Horeki (talk) 01:01, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From the list of articles every Wikipedia should have:

Not exactly sure what the criteria was for choosing these. Osiris (talk) 06:06, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

BBW Progress

As the weekend begins, four editors have already made 21 edits and 3 new pages. Why not join in? --Horeki (talk) 00:26, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Update→ 6 editors, 198 edits, 10 new articles, 12 new categories.
Teamwork is created measurable results. Nice work ... a good first day. --Horeki (talk) 01:32, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Summary→ 6 editors, 309 edits, 20 new articles and 13 new cats. Well done. --Horeki (talk) 05:42, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mathematicians anywhere?

Hello there,

this morining I extended System of linear equations, and also added links to common methods for solving such systems. While I know that solving such systems is an art to itself, I still noticed that we lack articles to most - if not all such methods. While some may only be applicable in certain cases, other methods are very imporant in mathematics, and should get their article here. I am thinking about Gaussian elimination, QR decomposition, Cramer's rule, and possibly Relaxation (iterative method). Look in the article to get a full list. I am laso not sure if the first two methods I described (replacing a variable by an expression only using other variables, and reducing the number of equations) have proper method names; if this is the case, these should probably be used, instead of the description. --Eptalon (talk) 11:29, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a list of requested math articles anywhere? Rschwieb (talk) 14:15, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am not aware of any. Articles we have here are usually in Category:Mathematics, or one of its subcategories; as always, they are of very different standards. Compare Eigenvectors and eigenvalues, which is a 3-sentence stub to Dot product, an import from enwp. We are 20-30 regular editors, and do not have wikiprojects. One of the approaches of improving the coverage would be to take the "most important" articles WikiProject Mathematics has identified, and making sure they get covered here.--Eptalon (talk) 14:33, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is a list of vital maths articles, some of which still need to be created. -Orashmatash (talk) 15:03, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Numerical analysis is the only missing Mathematics article in Meta's List of articles every Wikipedia should have. Boivie (talk) 19:27, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Interwiki links

A discussion on the access page for AWB has brought up an issue. This would be the lack of interwiki links on many pages. According to the special page that tracks these pages we have 2373 pages without any interwiki links at all. This can lead to a lot of long hard hours hunting these links down. On the plus side, after an hour or two of poking and prodding, a new list has emerged. This is the list of our pages here which do not have interwiki links but do have a page on the English wikipedia with the same name. In many of these cases, it is just a simple matter of copying the pagename to the interwiki link and the page will be fine. There are some problems (covered on the list) with redirects at en:wp and the lists is still over 1400 pages long but this would be little problem to anyone with en:wp AWB capability - grab the list, fire it up on en:wp, add our interwiki to the pages over there that are not redirects (easier than adding them here after looking that you are not linking to a redirect). The IW bots will do the rest and spread the information back here to our pages. Often the redirect there would even get you to the correct page to add the iw to but that page should be verified to not already hold a link back here to some other article (we do have a number of duplicates here that need to be merged).

The other 900-ish pages are a bit more troublesome. Many may exist under different names, others will not exist at all. This is often the caase of pages deleted there or more obscure information here that they merged into a larger article and never created a redirect for that would have triggered the article to fall into the first 1400 page list.--Creol(talk) 07:00, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I volunteer to do the 1400 part, cuz I can use AWB on enwiki. Stand by for report of results. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:08, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, preliminary report. As of right now, I've done A through C of Creol's list. By "done", I mean I ran the articles through AWB on enwiki and added interwikis for Simple, except for articles that were skipped. I set AWB to skip redirects and any page that already had an interwiki for Simple. Interwiki links were added to 133 articles on enwiki, and 86 articles were skipped. At User:Auntof6/sandbox are some logs that may be of help to anyone wanting to check the ones that were skipped. Most of the articles that I manually skipped were disambiguation pages on enwiki but not on Simple.

I have the remaining articles saved to do in AWB, but I need to get some sleep soon. I'll do more tomorrow unless someone beats me to it. Comments? Suggestions? Complaints? --Auntof6 (talk) 08:48, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at your skip list there are some interesting results. Just at a glance, I'm seeing duplicate pages (Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. and Brighton and Hove Albion F.C. with the stub being the linked one) and pages where it seems everyone else links to us but the bots never linked us to anyone else (Cartoon Network). The skipped list will definitely come in handy for further investigation and work, but may need to aim one of the iw bots specifically at your en: edits to make certain we get updated here (worst case, the rest of the wiki-verse can still see us even if we cant see them) and we still got 133 articles done out of 220ish in the first batch, pretty good numbers there. --Creol(talk) 09:03, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My bot will actually be going though fixing these sorts of lack of links from us in a bit....it is currently running off a laptop so it doesn't go as fast as it usually does. I will try putting it on my server at home to get it going without stopping. It generally takes a few days to cycle through the entire wiki fixing all the links. -DJSasso (talk) 12:29, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Djsasso, do you mean your bot will be doing what I was doing, meaning that I don't need to continue? No problem if so, just let me know so I don't do unnecessary work. :) --Auntof6 (talk) 17:45, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well it will only do it for names that are the same on both wikis. Any that are different (and don't have a redirect of the same name) will still need to be done by hand or by someone with AWB who can check it as they manually go through the list. -DJSasso (talk) 18:12, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, then I'll continue. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:34, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Update

I just did another batch and added results to my page -- the page is now at User:Auntof6/Adding simple interwikis on enwiki. This time, 160 articles on enwiki had interwikis added, and 217 articles were skipped. This time, when the article on enwiki was a dab page and the simple article was not, I added the appropriate en interwiki to Simple if I could tell what it should be. --Auntof6 (talk) 03:32, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I just added stats from rounds 3 and 4. There are about 300 more to go through, and I'll try to get to them this weekend. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:01, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'm done with these. My user page has been updated. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:39, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If I fix one, should I strike it or something? Osiris (talk) 07:47, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, please -- either strike it or note what was done or something. Just don't change the text already there -- I think it would be good to keep the record of exactly what was skipped. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:00, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, do you mean fix here on Simple, on enwiki, or both? --Auntof6 (talk) 08:10, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll do both I guess, just to be sure it's fixed. Osiris (talk) 08:14, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As long as there is no conflict, I just add the correct enwp link to ours and let the bots take it from there. I only plan to go there to change if the one there is pointing to something wrong here since that could cause more bot issues with spreading the wrong info. --Creol(talk) 08:17, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Such as Wizard here is a disambig there, the real article there pointed to our magician which should be pointed to their Stage magician.. fixed our wizard, their mage(fant), our magician and let the bot get their stage magician. --Creol(talk) 08:24, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ah! okay I think I understand. Osiris (talk) 08:30, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Stub templates

While going through articles, it is easy to come across a stub that falls under multiple stub categories. For example, an American singer and actor. Three stubs could be used on this article. As the prevailing opinion is that putting all three on there is flooding the page too much (a bit cluttered and garish) the problem has always been how to chose which one. It generally ends up as personal choice at that moment. In some cases, the editor will just add a second stub and not worry about it.

To get the best of both worlds, I tossed together {{multistub}}. It allows from 2 to 6 stubs to be used on a page without the clutter. It only shows the first stub. It also knows that all of our stub templates (accept {{stub}} itself which should never be used with another stub) end in "-stub" so it includes that automatically. us-bio becomes us-bio-stub, music - music-stub.

The appearance of the pages and what the users see would not change at all, but the page would be included in multiple stub tracking categories. This lets someone interested in working on specific stub types locate them more easily. Obviously, widespread use isn't practical as going through and re-stubbing all of our stubs to take advantage of this is not an option (and probably a bad idea to even attempt), but passive use of it by just adding it where there are already multiple stubs or when an editor is cleaning up an article or originally tagging it a stub and trying to chose which one would be best of the viable options they have... this could be handy to have available.

An example of its use is on the Melissa Etheridge page (it had two stubs already). --Creol(talk) 08:48, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea, Creol -- thanks for the new template. --Auntof6 (talk) 09:07, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, looks good. Osiris (talk) 09:08, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for doing this, Creol. The given example is great. There are many sports, bio, music stubs that could also use stub tagging by area/country to put them in front of editors who might best be able work on them. Much appreciated. Gotanda (talk) 09:36, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I like this template, but I can forsee it causing stubs tags to be misused. For examples any of the country stubs are not intended to be used on people because they are meant for geography and topics specifically about a country. But in thinking about it further its probably not that big a deal. I definitely wouldn't go through trying to tag them all with both though. -DJSasso (talk) 13:12, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation tools

Hey, everyone! Just a quick notice to let you all know that three editors from the English Wikipedia (JaGa, Dispenser and Josh Parris) have co-ordinated to allow us to use their disambiguation tools on our wiki. The full list of tools is at Wikipedia:DPL#Tools and reports.

Dab solver can disambiguate many links at once, looks for unlisted red links, and can pick the best redirect for a link
Dablinks checks for disambiguation links on individual articles or up to 500 articles from a category or list
Dabfix can be used to automatically make a disambiguation page
Disambiguation pages with links is a list of all disambiguation pages that are linked to by articles
Disambiguation link count shows the number of links to a disambiguation page
Articles with the most disambiguation links is a list of all articles that link to multiple disambiguation pages
Disambiguation pages linked by an article shows all disambiguation pages linked from a specified article
Templates with disambiguation links lists all templates that link to disambiguation pages

Apparently there aren't very many at all, but I'm fairly certain that's because we don't have many disambiguation pages in the first place. For this reason, "Dabfix"—which builds a disambiguation page for you—might be one of the most helpful. Osiris (talk) 03:42, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Very cool! Thanks to all involved! Now if only there were a tool that could identify pages that are essentially dab pages but not coded as such. For example:

X is a town in England. It was founded in the Middle Ages. 100 people live there.
X is also a commune in France, and there is a company called X in the United States.

I see pages like that here once in a while -- just for towns, but other things, too, like general concepts. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:15, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Found one: Sharp. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:33, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yuk. Yep, I guess we'll just have to fix those on sight. Osiris (talk) 04:54, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User:Josh_Parris/MOSDAB is a rough draft translation of the en: Manual of Style for Disambiguation pages, feel free to change or comment. Josh Parris 08:32, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Global bans

Hi all! Feel free to comment on m:Global bans. (requested) -Barras talk 18:39, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Template Infobox Country

If someone has the time and competency there are several articles that the "Infobox Country" has data entered but it is not showing in the article. Some examples are Burundi, Burkina Faso and Cambodia. Help please! and Thanks! --Tbennert (talk) 04:13, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The articles appear to be using old parameters that no longer have any function. The template doc page should have the new parameters detailed, or you can just copy over the infoboxes from the enwiki versions of the articles. Osiris (talk) 04:20, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much! I'll just copy over as I run across these. Glad for an easy solution :) --Tbennert (talk) 04:40, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I have been fixing these lately. If you are copying and pasting make sure you fix all the references and copy them over as well. Don't just strip them. -DJSasso (talk) 11:11, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

N.Z. messups

Attention neeeded for titles and links of some pages about New Zealand.

The titles are inconsistent, and the key terms Canterbury and Christchurch are not properly disambiguated. In view of the repetitions of names throughout the British Empire as was, place names to be handled carefully. Might be wiser to call them all "(year) New Zealand earthquake", leaving details to the page. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:32, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

They only have to be disambiguated if we have two articles of the same name (ie there were two earthquakes in two different Canterburys in 2010). Otherwise the title isn't supposed to give all the information of the article. They can see which Christchurch for example just by going to the lead of the article if its written properly. -DJSasso (talk) 12:34, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Introduce DYK credit

I will propose Simple Wiki should introduce DYK credit system and template DYK nominators, as is done in English Wiki. Editors with at least 25 DYKs will receive a medal. This will encourage more editors to contribute to DYKs. Thoughts? --SupernovaExplosion (talk) 08:48, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it is not that I care too much, but there are mostly only the same users nominating stuff there. I doubt that a medal or barnstar for nominating articles there will help to increase the number of participants. -Barras talk 10:34, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On enWP the contributors to DYK are a very small percent of total contributors, and maybe need encouraging. Here, most regular editors already do contribute. The reason we used to give for not crediting was the communal nature of the process, where so many entries are adjusted during discussion. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:13, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Being careful not to put off the new user (welcome by the way!) I don't think this would help. I'm not actually opposed to the idea though if it were implemented, and I can certainly see the reasons behind the proposal. I can see how a little 'prize' would help some users contribute if there was a reward behind it. On the other hand I agree with the above that many of the regulars already contribute to it, and I think that actually encouraging new user to Simple Wikipedia is key here. This is why I am glad you are here SupernovaExplosion... tl;dr neutral Kennedy (talk • changes). 12:47, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see this as necessary. As Macdonald-ross says, most regular users already contribute to DYK. I think that giving credit will just clutter up the talk pages of those who regularly nominate. -Orashmatash (talk) 16:22, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Editor insight needed

Can anyone review "The Substitute"? myself and User:TheHistorian spent several days simplifying the article. I would like to nominate the article at WP:PGA. Thanks, Jona yo! ^{Selena 4 ever} 19:35, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Question about limitations in programming and scripting languages pages.

Ok, so I got quite a few examples to show on some pages (about 5, since I know them) and I need to know what kind of "limitations" are there.

How many examples can I show? or Can I add more than X examples? or Can I change someone's example? or Can I delete someones example if it is incorrect?

Thanks, EvilBartek (talk) 02:51, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Examples should be used to further explain a point. Examples should not be used to for the sake of including them. Because of this, the answer to your question is not easy. Each case is different. How many examples do you need to explain the point you are making? In many cases, a single example or two is more than enough to explain something. In others, there are multiple ways to see a situation and hence multiple examples show these different ways. Over all, the least number of examples needed to show the point you are making is the best number to use. --Creol(talk)

Topic bans

We as a wiki are, in many cases, a second home to banned English Wikipedia users. We offer a second chance for users banned there to both contribute and show they are changing (although not an official "proving ground for good behavior"). As a group we have always been forgiving of past behavior. Opinions on this and its effects will always differ but that is the way things are.

One issue about this position we take on the subject is NPOV / edit warring / battlegrounds. A number of our emigrated editors are serving a ban from the English wikipedia for conflicts on certain topics. They pushed their point, others fought back, hayhem ensued and they got a ban by ArbCom. While I think it is fine that we give them a chance to be productive, one huge problem remains. We normally do not have the personnel to prevent this from happening here. We don't have a horde of experts watching certain topics to notice one user from POV pushing. Our articles are completely open (for the most part) for users to spin many topics in whatever way they want. Many of these editors have already proven that they will spin them in the direction they feel is best. It is part of the reason they are banned and even after their ban is up, they are often still prohibited from ever editing on the subject. But they are free to come here and continue what is little more than a personal propaganda program on their topics of choice as we are not equipped to deal with it.

I propose that while we do not accept the en:ArbCom's rulings on banning, that we do, for the most part, follow their decisions on topic bans. The editors can still contribute, just not on topics they have proven they have issues with. Topics we, as a group, can not be expected monitor for continued POV pushing. A primary example of this is user:Freddy (en:user BoxingWear) who had an extensive history of POV issues on boxing articles on En, came here and pushed the same agenda (and was only stopped when his nemisis from en: noticed and came here to correct his pov edits leading to even more drama that still ends up in my mailbox weekly years later.)

I feel it is better to lose an editor with a proven likelihood of POV and a small range of articles they are interested in editing than to allow them to have free reign and obscurely push their POV wherever they chose. It may be acceptable to allow them to edit these articles after someone steps up and offers to mentor/watch their edits on certain subjects, but free reign is too dangerous.

We can not handle serial POV pushers. If they were bad enough for EN:wp to ban them for it, the least we can do is restrict their edition away from articles they have a prove issue with. --Creol(talk) 05:07, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I know that we have currently have several users that have migrated over here after a block on enwiki. To me it only becomes a problem when they start showing the same kind of problematic behaviour that got them blocked on the other wiki. I probably have a more literal view of the "one strike" rule than most, and feel that if a problematic editor starts pulling the same crap over here, it's really just taking this community's "need" for contributors for granted. It usually results in a whole lot of good contributors having to spend time cleaning up after them, talking about the issues, and—sadly—it's usually to no avail (as we saw recently). What I mean by all of this is that I'm generally in favour of using the "one strike" rule for all of these kinds of bans (including topic bans), but a much stricter version than seems to be practised currently.

I have one question though: Does your proposal only refer to topic bans issued directly to a user by the Committee, or does it extend to those issued by ordinary administrators under ArbCom remedies (i.e., such as those imposed at en:WP:AE)? Osiris (talk) 10:22, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would think on the basic level that the actual Committee ruling would be the basis. They are the ones tasked to handle all the evidence and in the position to make a decision based also on information that is not available to others. If it were a penalty leveled elsewhere, that information would need to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis for our community to decide if we feel it was a just call before we decided to take any action on it. Overall, what I am suggesting is in the case of POV issues, we bypass the standard "what EN does, doesn't apply here" policy we have and use their actions in the matter as suggestions/guidelines if not an outright acceptance of a type of "global topic ban". The editors are still welcome to edit, just not the article or group of articles they have be shown to cause problems editing. --Creol(talk) 10:42, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Framing an issue

The headnote for the Point of view disambiguation page explains

"In Wikipedia, a Point of view, or POV, is one way of looking at an issue. Wikipedia seeks a neutral point of view by including all relevant POVs, not just what one person thinks." {emphasis in italics = bold added).

A point of view which is informed and supported by inline citation support is good, solid, deserving encouragement. It is, in fact, not so much the point of view of the writer as it is the collective point of view of the serial sources which are cited. For example, it is not POV-pushing to mirror the scholarly consensus presented in the Library of Congress Country Studies, Japan (LOC).

Do we not agree that this is what simple:Wikipedia needs if the goal of our project is about building an online encyclopedia.

IMO, Wikipedia is not primarily a game ... or is it?

Creol's comments are "just what one person thinks". It is POV is informed by experience with our project, but its focus draws attention to the wrong thing. This thread mixes "apples and oranges".

I am unwilling and unable to make guesses about what's worse -- the intended consequences or the unintended consequences which Creol has in mind. --Horeki (talk) 09:58, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

“

A point of view which is informed and supported by inline citation support is good, solid, deserving encouragement. It is, in fact, not so much the point of view of the writer as it is the collective point of view of the serial sources which are cited.

”

I find the part the most interesting as it is both true and completely false but as this point is so obvious, it doesn't need explaining, links or diagrams to show it. And all I am seeing is apples. --Creol(talk) 10:15, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Old flag templates

I've made a list of 550+ very old flag templates on User:Osiris/old flag templates. None of them are in use, and they are all deprecated and entirely replaced by country data templates. They were deleted on enwiki back in 2007, and there's no foreseeable use for them here. I'd like to delete them, as they're clogging Special:UnusedTemplates. Does anyone have any objections? Osiris (talk) 12:23, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Don't see a problem. Albacore (talk · changes) 17:43, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Seems OK to me. If someone later wants any of them back, we should be able to figure out how to use the newer ones instead. Glad to see someone else checking the special pages for things to clean up! --Auntof6 (talk) 21:17, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Kamikaze

Kamikaze is at WP:PAD. Albacore (talk · changes) 15:24, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Template Infobox law enforcement agency

Resolved. I think...? Osiris (talk) 05:58, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone take a look at Template:Infobox law enforcement agency? It's not categorizing quite right. For example:

It puts Carabiniers of Chile into Category:National law enforcement agencies of the Chile (the word "the" shouldn't be there).
It puts City of London Police into Category:Law enforcement agencies of United Kingdom (the word "the" should be added). This category has been created, but should be renamed/deleted if the template is fixed.

A side issue is that this template probably does categorizing that doesn't fit here to begin with, but at least it should get the names right for what it does. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:43, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Found the answer in the template's /autocat subpage. It uses an #ifexist sorting—adding "the" to the category name is the default if the category name without "the" is a red link. So, because Category:National law enforcement agencies of Chile didn't exist, it adds a "the" to the title. On the other hand, because Category:Law enforcement agencies of United Kingdom wasn't a red link, it uses that. I'll fix the categories now. Infobox autocategorisation is always a bad idea in my opinion. Osiris (talk) 05:51, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm actually thinking of disabling the autocat on this one—too many levels for the amount of articles we have. What do you think of merging them all into [[:Category:Law enforcement agencies of {{{country}}}]]? Osiris (talk) 06:27, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That would work for me, if it needs to add any categories at all. This kind of automatic categorization can definitely be problematic. Will this cause issues the next time somebody updates this template from enwiki? --Auntof6 (talk) 06:35, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Meh, I'll just remove it all, so we won't have to create a new country category every time something pops up on new pages. I've killed the autocat systems on a few other templates as well, so I might write up a message box to put at the top of them. Osiris (talk) 06:47, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to rename WiktionaryPar template to EnWiktionary

{{wiktionarypar}} is used here to link to en:wikt, I guess for when wikt: does not have an entry. On enWP {{wiktionarypar}} is an old version of their Wiktionary template, it was created to handle many words - the template Wiktionary does that now. I want to change all the places that use {{wiktionarypar}} to use {{enWiktionary}} (I'll do a move if approved).

Dispenser's disambiguation tools (tools:~dispenser/view/Main_Page) were made for enWP. The tools are confused by the use of WikitionaryPar in this way; the tools try to change the template to use {{Wiktionary}}. This is why I want to change {{wiktionarypar}}.

If this all okay, I'll apply to do this with AWB. Josh Parris 07:03, 7 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Given the lack of thunderous objections, I'm off to make this change. Josh Parris 22:59, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Check Wikipedia

FYI, I am setting up a couple of pages related to this WikiProject. I'm not trying to start a WikiProject here, I'm just setting things up so I can improve the Check Wikipedia process that already scans Simple English Wikipedia for various errors and discrepancies. The pages I'm setting up are Wikipedia:WikiProject Check Wikipedia and Wikipedia:WikiProject Check Wikipedia/Translation. If you have any questions, please bring them up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Check Wikipedia -- I will be watching that page. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:33, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

George Graham

Hi. I found some problems in this article. Most interwiki are wrong. Point to George Graham (footballer) in several lenguages (es, de, fr, it...) but this article talk about a watchmaker. Plase check and fix. Thanks. --Andreateletrabajo (talk) 13:10, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am working on it. Looks like it was cause Microchip08 replaced the content of the article. It originally was the football player.... Now the interwikis were messed up everywhere. I have it mostly cleaned up now. So the bots can do their job and repopulate the interwikis. And I have split the article history to fix attribution and restore old content. -DJSasso (talk) 18:22, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. Thanks! --Andreateletrabajo (talk) 22:16, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Upcoming school project

Hi everyone. Just letting you all know that a class of 4th-grade students in the U.S. will be contributing to our wiki as part of a class assignment next month. This is currently scheduled for 7-11 May. The students each have their own account—pretty easy to identify, they all end in "smsb", and their userpages have been tagged.

They've been assigned specific topics, all pertaining to electronics. I should advise that while some of us are normally quick to fix or reword a newbie's edits, it might be a good idea to give these kids a bit of space. If they muck up the formatting on a few pages, try to help out where you can but be patient with them. Please note that these are kids (from a Catholic school).

Any major issues you might have with them can be directed to the closest admin. If you have any general questions, Peterdownunder is the resident go-to-guy when it comes to school projects. Admins should note that they will all be editing from the same IP address. Osiris (talk) 17:48, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is it just me?

...or is it kind of strange for brand new articles with only one editor to be tagged for issues? An example is the disputed neutrality tag Islam in Kashmir (the orphan tag isn't as big a deal), but I've seen others. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:24, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That tends to happen on some en:wp transwiki'd articles. They bring it over, issues template and all. Some they clean up a bit, others they don't. in the case of that article, it was a direct copy. The only changes were to the cats. --Creol(talk) 08:31, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, that makes sense. The next time I see it, I'll check that. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:34, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Current TOTW

Hello all,

Translations of the week give us visibility, and may attract new editors. I have started To each according to his contribution, which currently is a TOTW. I invite all those who like, to help simplify and extend the article; some annex articles also need creating. Just a small note... --Eptalon (talk) 22:43, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to change the sidebar link name for Main Page

Currently, we use ** mainpage|mainpage for the Main Page link in the sidebar. However, the default (more popular) is to use ** mainpage|mainpage-description. Could we please change to the mainpage-description message (Main page) rather than to continue using mainpage message (Main Page)? Hazard-SJ ㋡ 23:24, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The only difference here is a lower-case 'p'? If so I think it is better for consistency with the rest of the links on the sidebar. Kennedy ^(talk) 11:47, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since it seemed fairly non-controversial, I've done it. However, anyone should feel free to revert or object as they may. Osiris (talk) 11:57, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ahh .... much better :) Hazard-SJ ㋡ 23:10, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Renewed discussion at Simple Stub Project

To anyone who is interested, I restarted a discussion about Japan-stubs over at Simple Stubs. I hope people will support this proposal. Please have a look if you have time. Gotanda (talk) 07:16, 23 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

More than 1000 articles are tagged with {{Japan-stub}} -- see here and here. --Horeki (talk) 13:38, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dalmatian Italians

We have the page Dalmatian Italians. It has a talk page which contains another article. The article (Dalmatian Italians) was started by a user Pio, who was blocked for POV-pushing in 2010. The talk page was started by an IP. Since the events go back almost 2 years, there is no knowing whether the IP corresponds to the user. I see different options:

Delete (one or both)
Delete the one on the talk page
Move the one on the talk page to its own article (in article space); sutable location needs to be found
Merge the info on the TP to the article (but I vaguely remember it being taken out)

The very big question however is how POV-laden the article on the talk page is. In short: I just noticed this, and am waiting from input from the community, so it can be determined what to do. --Eptalon (talk) 10:27, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion:

Revert the article back two versions. A 3K "quote" from a magazine article is pushing the boundaries of fair use a bit far (over half the article is pretty much a copy/paste). Attributed as it might be, that's not referenced, its stolen.
Rewrite most of the article that is left. Its not in Simple English and its a bit hard to say that its even in common English.
Move/delete the talk page. The series of incidents like this is more a matter for an article on the country or city article (as appropriate) than for the people article. This is more so when it would be an overwhelming part of that groups article. It would probably be best to just create its own article. The main problem is as with any cultural battle article, POV is a major issue. Without multiple experts in the area or a ton of research, separating fact, myth and propaganda is not going to be easy. It may be easier to just translate the en: article over top of the talk page article (thereby keeping attribution) or just deleting and replacing it. Or.. just delete it.. not like its a must have topic with lots of pages linking to it. We don't even have a page on the city where it took place after all so we probably won't miss this information if it got deleted.

tl;dr version: delete the talk page, revert the article due to copyvio and cleanup what is left. --Creol(talk) 10:55, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The long quotation must be cut: it is clear violation. From then, it is just a stub which may or may not attract an editor. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:01, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Update: I have found the enwp article corresponding to the article on the talk page (here), and moved the content of the talk page to 1918–1920 unrest in Split). Other than removing the first sentence, and adding the enwp interwiki, I have not changed the newly created article.I have also created the article about Split.--Eptalon (talk) 09:58, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Voting Guideline...

Hello all,

I found a propoesed guidleine on voting (here). This was created/changed in 2007/2008, as a side product of the Criteria for adminhip. Big question: If we need such a guideline, can we perhaps spend some time, and agree to make the document a guideline (perhaps with some changes). If we don't, can we agree to delete it? - Given our current size, I don't think we should overregulate, but a document may be useful to point new editors to ("Look, that is what the community agreed on"). What do you think? --Eptalon (talk) 10:23, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've cleaned it. I think that we should have this page as a guideline if simply to show newbies how we work. Kennedy ^(talk) 11:57, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think it should be left as is and marked as historical as a failed proposal. -DJSasso (talk) 16:38, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed.74.163.25.129 (talk) 18:07, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Diffs

I just noticed when viewing a diff that it's all changed. At least for me. I'm assuming its not to do with using a new browser and its changed for everyone? Either way, I like it! Kennedy ^(talk) 12:46, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not just you. I think the software has been updated again. --Auntof6 (talk) 14:12, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the MediaWiki software was upgraded last week sometime. Special:ListUsers has also changed a bit. -Orashmatash (talk) 14:58, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Its very nice. Much better than the old look. Kennedy ^(talk) 12:29, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Main Page/Sister projects

I think this is should be updated to the protocol relative format or better to normal interwiki links. Ruslik (talk) 16:22, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done [1] π r ² 16:36, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please, also change one non-complient link in MediaWiki:Sp-contributions-footer. Ruslik (talk) 18:16, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done, [2], thanks for notifying. Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 18:24, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the links in MediaWiki:Sp-contributions-footer-anon (the toolserver links) should be fixed. π r ² 03:09, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, they should be updated too. Ruslik (talk) 11:33, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Finding categories that have "by" in their name

Does anyone know a way to get a list of categories that have the word "by" in their name? I'd like to make an AWB run to make sure all the appropriate ones are tagged as parent categories. Thanks! --Auntof6 (talk) 02:05, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Like and Dislike

Is it worth transferring this and this? DJDunsie (talk) 19:45, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What for? Osiris (talk) 20:04, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, they're like the

Support and

Oppose templates but much, much more social-networky. I

Dislike this idea. :P Kennedy ^(talk) 22:13, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If I wasn't too lazy I would probably be putting them up for deletion right now. -DJSasso (talk) 12:52, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

They were saved surprisingly recently - I'd have thought it would have went out the window quickly too... Kennedy ^(talk) 15:15, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But of course that is en, no reason we have to follow their lead. -DJSasso (talk) 19:33, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly, but you said you'd consider putting them up for deletion, they are not here on simple, but previously nom'd on en where it survived. Kennedy ^(talk) 21:18, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thumb up = opinion

COMMENT: Osiris, the answer to "what for" is explained indirectly at en:Wikipedia:I just don't like it. For me, the arguments of this essay page are persuasive. --Horeki (talk) 21:24, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oh I am totally blind. I thought he had created them here. -DJSasso (talk) 11:44, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

SUPPORT Yes, DJDunsie proposes something practical.
I imitate the format of Kennedy-above when I explain: I Like this idea. :P
It is easy to foresee ways in which these paired icons might be helpful in specific contexts such as

Now that DJDunsie has brought these icons to our attention, I plan use them in the future -- if not as an imported template, then as reduced-size images like the one at the right. This is a good idea which can help our project move forward across a range of expected stumbling blocks. --Horeki (talk) 21:24, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I really dislike the use of a thumb image (pun unintentional) - Thats too much. Kennedy ^(talk) 22:21, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Horeki the essay you linked says not to use like it and don't like it. I agree with the above comments that we have no need for these social network buttons. --Tbennert (talk) 22:48, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

SUPPORT It's very simple.74.163.25.129 (talk) 23:43, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - An emotional opinion has no basis in a discussion. Reasons should be given either in support or opposition to an idea - liking or disliking something is not a valid reason, they are a way to avoid giving a reason. That a person likes something doesn't really matter. --Creol(talk) 01:05, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Let's create some pages, write (V)GAs or work in DYK rather instead of wasting our time in discussing templates which have no value whatsoever. If you are so eager to use it, make a copy of it in your userspace and use that... Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 16:53, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Or we could just use the words like and dislike to mean like and dislike? No point having templates, words are just as meaningful. Yottie ^=talk= 12:54, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I Dislike the idea. -Barras talk 13:24, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Need some help

Hello, I'm relatively new to Simple English Wikipedia. I'd like to transfer some articles from the main English Wikipedia to this one, but I'm unsure of some of the steps involved, and especially how to rewrite articles for this site. Stage 5 of "How to properly copy a page from another Wikipedia" says, "Don't save the new page yet, but go through the text and change words not in the combined wordlist to words that are in that list". This is the part I'm unsure about - I don't know which words are in the combined wordlist and which aren't. I have seen the page at Basic English combined wordlist, but it seems to give only a very short list of words, and I don't understand how one could use only those words to write an article. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 22:32, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! You don't have to only use those words, they're just there as a basic guide. Just try to use basic words whereever you can. I generally find a thesaurus is more useful in simplifying my words. There's also a bunch of online tools you can use (see this list or one of my own. Obviously there is going to be times when harder words are unavoidable. Sometimes people explain big words in parentheses or link the word to Wiktionary. You'll get the hang of it after a while; the fact that you've read that guideline already tells us you're off to a good start! Good luck! Osiris (talk) 22:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 07:33, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The setting "Add pages I change to my watchlist"

A day or two ago, I noticed that my preference for this setting had gotten changed without my changing it. I'm thinking this had something to do with software changes, so I thought I'd mention it here in case anyone else wants to check their settings. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:44, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I got that aswell. Makes me wonder what else in my settings has changed. Osiris (talk) 22:32, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I got an email to tell me that the article LOL had been changed. Weird cause I don't have that option enabled in my settings. The software update must have caused this issue too... Kennedy ^(talk) 06:22, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

RfA and RfB Notification update

Hello, can someone provide me all the different RfA and RfB Notification update templates which provide current information and status on both RfA and RfB. Thanks. TheGeneralUser (talk) 17:54, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What exactly do you mean? All we have is an update on the talk page of the requests page if I understand what you are asking. -DJSasso (talk) 17:57, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

{{User:Chris G Bot/Rfx}} is the place where the status of running RfXs can be seen. Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 17:59, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah that is the one I was talking about. -DJSasso (talk) 18:04, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes that is the template i needed :), Thank you for your time and help Pmlineditor and Djsasso. TheGeneralUser (talk) 18:10, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Citing studies in medical articles

Hello, I work with Clear Passage Physical Therapy, a network of physical therapy clinics treating chronic pain, infertility and bowel obstruction. I attempted to post information to pages relating to conditions we treat but the information was removed for the following reason: "We should be using secondary reviews, not primary studies."

I understand that there are guidelines for the types of sources we can cite on Wikipedia, however the studies I was referencing are from recognized leaders in mainstream medical research – namely mainstream medical journals and the U.S. National Library of Medicine. These journals require independent peer-reviews by experts in the field. Several of the journals (Medscape General Medicine, Fertility and Sterility, Contemporary Ob/Gyn), are among the most respected journals in medicine.

I'm not sure how to proceed -- I don't want to keep re-posting the information and have it taken down each time. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks very much!

Anna

Hi Anna,

It seems you are asking in the wrong place. I don't see any changes for this account here on Simple English Wikipedia, but see the changes you describe over on English Wikipedia. Sometimes people wander from one to the other without realizing it.

Thanks, Gotanda (talk) 23:01, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Gotanda! I can't seem to find a Help Forum for English wikipedia -- would it be possible for your to provide a link? Thank you!

Anna

Yeah its a little clustered over there for new people... Best bet is WP:HD - Good luck! (Oh, and why not stick around here too! ^_^) Kennedy ^(talk) 19:24, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

All, thank you for your help! -Anna

New student users

Hi, I have a group of students signing up for new accounts. The usernames will all start with TMD, so they are easy to spot. Please be kind. For now, their changes should be mainly on their userpages to get comfortable. ELTted (talk) 02:35, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ted, thank you for your interest in getting your students to edit here. We'll be keeping watch and letting them know if anything crops up. If you have any questions, feel free to drop a message here, or on our respective talk pages. :)-- Tdxi ang 13:46, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, just for a headcount, these are the students registered with the prefix of 'TMD'.

Take note.-- Tdxi ang 05:20, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Album/movie poster images?

Hello. I tried to upload an image of a music album cover here (under Fair Use), but apparently uploading images is prohibited in Simple English Wikipedia. I'm quite new to this wiki, but other languages haven't prohibited the upload of images. Could someone kindly clarify this for me? What do we do in cases of album covers, movie posters, cover art, etc.? How do we provide such visual identification?

Thank you. Fluttershypie (talk) 11:53, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there! On this wiki we can't host non-free content because we don't have our own licensing policy. Other wikis can host non-free content if they have established what the WMF calls an "exemption doctrine policy", which exempts the wiki from the general licensing policy. On the English Wikipedia, this is at WP:NFCC. Other wikis that maintain their own non-free content policies are listed here. So what do we do for album covers, movie posters, etc? We just don't have them. Unfortunately there's no way around that unless the project agrees on establishing a criteria for allowing non-free content. Osiris (talk) 16:36, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's similiar to the German Wikipedia, where Fair Use (Fear Use ^^) isn't allowed. There, covers etc. aren't allowed, so we just use the text on the cover and upload it to Commons. welt force™ 17:06, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Template:RfD

I've created a new style for that template, can you please take a look at Template talk:RfD? Thanks! --welt force™ 20:53, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Review of the community ban of Purplebackpack89

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

Closing this for Purplebackpack89's future reference. Ban remains in effect. Osiris (talk) 05:13, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Purplebackpack89 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was indefinitely banned by the community on 4 November 2011, six months ago to the date. According to the closing decision, his ban may be appealed starting from today (although this is technically a few hours too soon). He is therefore appealing to the community to review its decision. His appeal is cross-posted below from his talk page. The original discussion which led to the ban is here. Osiris (talk) 04:34, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Six months seems consistent or excessive in comparison with others when no vandalism or sockpuppetry is involved. The point of a block is supposedly to prevent harm to the Wiki, and I think it could easily be proven that the opposite has happened. Articles I frequented have become out of date; articles I would have created remain redlinks. I would also point to the work I've done at Simple Wiktionary, and the fact that I still have never been blocked on English Wikipedia. Purpleback pack 89≈≈≈≈ 00:40, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Edit made here

Comments

Oppose His comments above indicate he still does not understand why he was blocked. Don't think his behaviour will be any different that it was prior to the ban. I would note that other similar cases were gone for a year or more when no sock puppetry or vandalism was involved. So stating 6 months is normal is a bit off, we haven't in the past let anyone off in less than a year. CR is an example. -DJSasso (talk) 12:50, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Um, Goblin (multiple times) and Kennedy/Ydennek/NotGiven... Also, the point of any block is to make the Wikipedia mainspace better. The block has failed in that regard. Purpleback pack 89≈≈≈≈ 13:29, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Goblin was never community banned and Kennedy etc was for considerably more than a year. As for the point of a block it is to prevent harm not to make mainspace better, its to prevent the wiki itself from being harmed to quote "Blocks are used to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia". Currently you harm the wiki more than you help it. -DJSasso (talk) 14:01, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with DJ on the first point, ie, PBP still does not seem to understand why he was blocked. Therefore, unbanning him at this point in time does not seem to be a good idea; people should only be unbanned if they have changed and in this case, it looks like the user hasn't changed and does not wish to change either. The user's block log/rights etc. in another wiki is irrelevant in this case as the issue pertains to the Simple Wikipedia and not the English Wikipedia. Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 13:43, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. He has never changed, never understood others' point of view, never agreed with the previous decisions, and clearly would cause major problems if he returned. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:38, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - Yup. Kennedy ^(talk) 15:14, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Kennedy, I have no problem with you opposing, but I think it would help if you explained why you oppose instead of just saying "Yup." CRRays Head90 | ^{Get Some!} 05:11, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Per above Kennedy ^(talk) 08:48, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

AgreeHe has good points.~Tailsman67~ 74.163.25.129 (talk) 16:34, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose I'm usually one for lenience as proven by my past votes in these situations. However, PBP does not show any regret for his actions that led to his ban which leads me to believe that he doesn't understand why he was banned in the first place. Therefore, I must oppose an unban at this time. Sorry, PBP. CRRays Head90 | ^{Get Some!} 05:09, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

Use English

In my opinion, there are problems with some article titles in French. The suggestions at en:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) do not help me understand how to parse the issues.

I first noticed a problem with the title of this article about a French job description—Technicien supérieur de l'aviation?

When I reviewed the history of the article's creator here, I found many carefully written articles with ~~problematic~~ non-English titles.

We understand that the proper names ~~of institutions and airports~~ may need to be non-English if there is no conventional English alternative. For example,

I wonder if the French acronym is a better article title because it is simpler? I don't think so. 80.13.85.217 (talk) 20:00, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is the ~~French~~ non-English proper name usually or always best? I don't think so. For example,

In my opinion, Groupement des écoles d'aéronautique (GEA) needs to be moved to French aviation school network or to the French acronym which is now a redirect page. What do you think? --Horeki (talk) 17:13, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We are supposed to use the common name in English. If the organization doesn't have one then we fall to the official name of the organization which in these cases are french. -DJSasso (talk) 18:08, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Groupement des écoles d'aéronautique I think. 80.13.85.217 (talk) 20:00, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to see more of these in English as well. However, I think they're better in French than using acronyms. I don't think article titles should be acronyms. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:05, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Technicien supérieur de l'aviation

Technicien supérieur de l'aviation (TSA) needs to be moved to TSA (title) or TSA (job title). ~~In my opinion, this article title should be the French acronym -- TSA -- because it is the closest English alternative.~~ ~~The~~ French acronym will need disambiguation to distinguish it from the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA). What do you think? --Horeki (talk) 17:13, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Advanced Technician Degree in Aviation if you want a title in English should be the best (used here : http://www.enac.fr/en/menu/training/bachelor-degrees/advanced-technician-degree-aviation-tsa). 80.13.85.217 (talk) 20:00, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Technician in Aviation Operations or Technical in Aviation Operations (French) may be better. This comes from the English version of the ENAC website -- see ENAC.fr, excerpt, "Technicians in Aviation Operations (TSA) can handle a wide range of positions, enabling you to look forward to a multi-functional, varied and fascinating career in the aeronautical sector..." This article about a job title. --Horeki (talk) 15:05, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I found a possible article name in English. It was "published" on the internet here. Is this a good source which justifies naming the article Aerospace Book and Image Festival? Would this be better than "Aeronautical literary festival" which is a reasonable descriptive summary of the article's subject? --Horeki (talk) 16:22, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Institut au service du spatial, de ses applications et technologies

Institut au service du spatial, de ses applications et technologies (ISSAT) needs to be moved to Institute of Space, its Applications and Technologies or Institute of Space? What do you think? --Horeki (talk) 17:13, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Institute of Space, its Applications and Technologies is the best, if you want a name in english. 80.13.85.217 (talk) 20:00, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Technicien supérieur des études et de l'exploitation de l'aviation civile

Adding a new one to the list. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:01, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This ~~subject~~specific article and this group of French-titled articles are notable. It IMO, each article has a practical purpose and utility. For example, there is a boom in civil aviation in China. This causes me to think that there is likely to be a growing demand for simple:Wikipedia articles about French aviation terms in simple English.

The value of more articles like this one is not questioned, but the title causes me to wonder.

This new article title is both complex and non-English. I am not certain that Technicien supérieur des études et de l'exploitation de l'aviation civile is simple. Maybe it's simple enough? --Horeki (talk) 14:25, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The names don't have to be simple. A name is a name, we can't make up names, that would be original research. -DJSasso (talk) 14:50, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be clear, I wasn't saying this wasn't notable, or that it should be deleted. I was adding it to the discussion of French-titled articles. --Auntof6 (talk) 01:54, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

French-titled categories of French-titled articles

Adding to the discussion? --Horeki (talk) 12:34, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Probably no need to list every possible article here. The answer for one will likely be the same for most. We need sourced English names that are in widespread English use otherwise we are supposed to use the official name. So just look to see if you can find Common English names for these articles/categories. -DJSasso (talk) 12:40, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, for example, Category:French Civil Aviation University may be better. This comes from the English version of the ENAC website -- see ENAC.fr, excerpt, "The French Civil Aviation University (ENAC) and the French Aeronautical Training Service (SEFA) merged on 1 January 2011." --Horeki (talk) 15:03, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since that particular one seems to have an English name I moved the category and article. -DJSasso (talk) 16:54, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Big Weekend

Is there going to be a Big Weekend for this month? DJDunsie (talk) 17:18, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think not. We have a proposal for early June, but as yet no organiser. We do need other editors to come forward as organisers. It's quite a busy job on the weekend and just after, so interested people need to book themselves in advance. Macdonald-ross (talk) 05:33, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's down on the chart for next weekend, topic 'red links', but we need someone to supervise. The topic is a bit open-ended for my taste, perhaps 'red links in my country' would be more targeted. Anyway, it won't go ahead unless someone comes forward. Have a think about it. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:04, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What about redlinks from Wikipedia:List of articles all languages should have/Expanded or from Category:Pages with too many red links? Though I'm too busy at the moment to be able to help organise.. Osiris (talk) 07:09, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Template Persondata needs looking at

Article Mikhail Myasnikovich is in Category:Persondata templates missing required fields. {{Persondata}} puts articles in this category if either the name or the short description is missing. However, the article appears to have these fields. I'm sure it's something small that I'm missing, but would someone take a look? --Auntof6 (talk) 04:57, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just didn't have the short description filled in. I added one. Osiris (talk) 05:38, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Aaaah! **headdesk** It wasn't the parameter that was missing, it was a value for it! I should have seen that! Thanks for the info! --Auntof6 (talk) 07:03, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hey don't kill yourself over it.~Tailsman67~ 74.178.187.104 (talk) 14:28, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Template categories

I'd like to standardize the names of our template categories for navboxes. We use at least three different terms:

"navigational boxes" (such as Category:Religion navigational boxes)
"navbox templates" (such as Category:History and events navbox templates‎)
"navigational templates" (such as Category:Entertainment navigational templates)

It can be a pain to have to look up exact category names due to this. I'd like to change them to use the same term -- I don't really care which term, just so they're the same. The old category names could be left as category redirects. Would anyone object to this change? Which term is preferred? --Auntof6 (talk) 06:19, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Should be the same as en for things like this because so much gets imported over. I believe they go with "navigational boxes". -DJSasso (talk) 12:18, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, looks that way to me, too. I'll proceed with this a bit at a time, unless someone voices any concerns. --Auntof6 (talk) 13:17, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Update on IPv6

(Apologies if this message isn't in your language. Please consider translating it, as well as the full version of this announcement on Meta)

The Wikimedia Foundation is planning to do limited testing of IPv6 on June 2-3. If there are not too many problems, we may fully enable IPv6 on World IPv6 day (June 6), and keep it enabled.

What this means for your project:

At least on June 2-3, 2012, you may see a small number of edits from IPv6 addresses, which are in the form "2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334". See e.g. w:en:IPv6 address. These addresses should behave like any other IP address: You can leave messages on their talk pages; you can track their contributions; you can block them. (See the full version of this announcement for notes on range blocks.)

In the mid term, some user scripts and tools will need to be adapted for IPv6.

We suspect that IPv6 usage is going to be very low initially, meaning that abuse should be manageable, and we will assist in the monitoring of the situation.

Read the full version of this announcement on how to test the behavior of IPv6 with various tools and how to leave bug reports, and to find a fuller analysis of the implications of the IPv6 migration.

--Erik Möller, VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation 01:22, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Distributed via Global message delivery. (Wrong page? Fix here.)

School users

Just a heads up to everybody that the school group I mentioned earlier in April have begun editing articles relating to electronics. Their usernames all end in "smsb" and their userpages have been tagged. They're mostly here to learn about using Wikipedia, so if they're not "doing it right", try to be patient and use the talk pages. Thanks, Osiris (talk) 06:16, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Aww, a school group? That sounds so sweet. And about patience, you can count on me! :) I hope I'll see them on new changes soon. Fingers crossed they stay and keep editing! Love, Bella ^{tête-à-tête} 09:01, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Recent changes/Watchlist

Is there a way to show the RC header (or at least a vastly reduced version) elsewhere, such as in a watchlist? Specifically I would like the bit with the number of RfDs or RfAs mainly... If theres not a way for solely me, is it a worthwhile excercise to put it as default? Kennedy ^(talk) 12:02, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

All you need to do is copy the code from Wikipedia:RecentChanges/Community for RfD and RfA to your userpage or a usersubpage if you want it on your own page, it is simple code that simply counts how many articles are in those two categories. But to have it show up automatically on your watchlist no you wouldn't be able to do that. It might be possible to do it for everyone but not just for you. Personally I would rather just have people click on recent changes to see it than to have it cluttering up my watchlist. -DJSasso (talk) 12:16, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your response but I see in my haste I worded that kinda back-to-front. I've fixed it up a bit but for clarification; what I mean to say is (bluntly); can I, or should we, have Wikipedia:RecentChanges/Community at the top of the watchlist? And is it worth having that at the top of everyone's watchlist by default. That link is exactly what I wanted btw DJSasso, cheers. Kennedy ^(talk) 13:01, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually that doesn't sound like a bad idea and is easily done. Most of the stuff there gets only very few input and any hint to it would be useful. It would be done via watchlist notice and people who don't want to see it can just turn it off. We don't use the watchlist notice for other stuff anyway. -Barras talk 10:38, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. Only people who revert vandalism etc already know about that stuff, would be handy to remind everyone when something happens. I've missed an RfX because I didn't look... Kennedy ^(talk) 09:41, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Or you could watchlist the RfX page? That's what I do. -DJSasso (talk) 15:37, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

2011 Picture of the Year competition

македонски • norsk • polski

Dear Wikimedians,

Wikimedia Commons is happy to announce that the 2011 Picture of the Year competition is now open. We are interested in your opinion as to which images qualify to be the Picture of the Year 2011. Any user registered at Commons or a Wikimedia wiki SUL-related to Commons with more than 75 edits before 1 April 2012 (UTC) is welcome to vote and, of course everyone is welcome to view!

Detailed information about the contest can be found at the introductory page.

About 600 of the best of Wikimedia Common's photos, animations, movies and graphics were chosen –by the international Wikimedia Commons community– out of 12 million files during 2011 and are now called Featured Pictures.

From professional animal and plant shots to breathtaking panoramas and skylines, restorations of historically relevant images, images portraying the world's best architecture, maps, emblems, diagrams created with the most modern technology, and impressive human portraits, Commons Features Pictures of all flavors.

For your convenience, we have sorted the images into topic categories.

We regret that you receive this message in English; we intended to use banners to notify you in your native language but there was both, human and technical resistance.

See you on Commons! --Picture of the Year 2011 Committee 18:38, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Distributed via Global message delivery. (Wrong page? Fix here.)

Merging article promotion

Hello there. We have two pages here: Wikipedia:Proposed good articles (PGA) and Wikipedia:Proposed very good articles (PVGA). I suggest to merge them to one page named Wikipedia:Proposed article promotion. Arguments:

If an editor lists a very good page on WP:PGA, other people will likely rate it as very good. But he only posted it on PGA, so that can't be done. Merging the both pages together will fix the problem, editors can rate a page to "Good" or "Very good". This can be the same with an "good" article which is posted on PVGA.
There aren't so many pages in proposed article promotion, so clarity isn't a persuasive argument.

This is just a suggestion. What do you think about it? --weltforce™ | Talk 18:26, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You can't nominate an article for both at the same time. Generally its a stepping process. (though not always). Usually people nominate an article to be a good article. And then if it becomes one and much more work is done on it, it is nominated for very good. It is very very rare for an article to go from nothing to very good in one step because the PGA process is sort of a way of showing you what needs to be done to make the article better before it can be a PVGA. -DJSasso (talk) 12:22, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is better when reviewers can get an own opinion rather than to decide between "good" and "no promotion". You understand me wrong: I didn't want to nominate an article for both GA / VGA. If an editor posts a article on VGA, people can only choose between "very good" and "no promotion". With the two pages merged people will be able to decide between "very good", "good" and "no promotion". --weltforce™ | Talk 14:34, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The categories are different:

While VGA has all GA criteria, plus a few extra ones, this is not the case for GA.
Also, in general the comments for improvement are very specific ("To be able to simplify quotes they need to be paraphrased, and attributed; direct speech cannot be simpilfied easily."), we are not talking about "general ideas on how to improve an article".

I agree that getting an article to bear the flag is a huge amount of work; VGA is a lot more work, because reviewers will be a lot more picky. But, no, I don't think merging the two proposal pages is a good idea. --Eptalon (talk) 23:14, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Renew the logo

Logos

Hello! File:Wiki.png is now outdated. Can someone upload the new logo? --112.210.45.16 (talk) 10:31, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This has been requested and rejected on numerous occasions in the past year by the community. -DJSasso (talk) 11:35, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually to my recollection it was never rejected. Discussions may stalled with no real consensus but I feel it would be wrong to call it 'rejected'. As before I would support strongly to update to the new logo. Kennedy ^(talk) 11:57, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really like the vector thing, however, you only need to find a willing admin to update this. I wouldn't even know how to. -Barras talk 12:00, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Easiest option, though theres likely an option somewhere in the software, is simply to overwrite the old logo with the new one. Upload a new version...? Kennedy ^(talk) 12:08, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would also like the new logo skin updated on the logo here. Can somebody tell me how to do it in the common.css? – weltforce™ | ☣ Talk 12:10, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It only takes updating the image. But it can't/shouldn't be done unless there is consensus. -DJSasso (talk) 12:24, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

DJSasso: "But it can't shouldn't be done unless there is consensus." - WP:BOLD Kennedy ^(talk) 12:38, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not for something that affects the whole wiki. Generally you don't make changes that affect multiple pages per WP:BOLD you always get consensus first. In this case it affects literally every page. -DJSasso (talk) 12:39, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support-R^NB_SIG 12:15, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In the most recent discussion it was about 4 people opposing and two saying to change. -DJSasso (talk) 12:24, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Although it's not a big deal, I do prefer the new logo. It is cleaner, simpler and slightly smaller. Good logos should be simple rather than complicated and fussy. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:29, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's funny you say that and goes to show how subjective visual things are. I think the old version is cleaner and simpler thanks to the better dividing lines and the larger size. -DJSasso (talk) 12:31, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can't we just get a option to change between them? This is like the Monobook-Vector discussion... Keep both. – weltforce™ | ☣ Talk 12:33, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Don't believe it works that way for the main logo. -DJSasso (talk) 12:39, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe if we see some suggestions things would go better.~Tailsman67~ 98.71.49.244 (talk) 15:19, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unambiguous decision. This request will not be archived until the consensus is reached. --112.210.20.84 (talk) 12:11, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No one asked you,It was just a suggestion.~Tailsman67~ 184.44.128.158 (talk) 17:17, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll support changing the logo-- mostly just to end the repeated discussions/queries over it. Osiris (talk) 03:28, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I support the change as well. (Maybe it's just because I'm stupid, but) I don't see any difference in the new one or the old one. There's no great reason not to update it, so we might as well do so. Agreeing with Osiris, there's no necessity to keep repeating these discussions. ♥ingly, Bella ^{tête-à-tête} 03:36, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd love to see the change implemented as well. I've personally implemented it at User:Hazard-SJ/common.css for a while now, but a sitewide implementation would be good. Hazard-SJ ✈ 02:50, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I might be wrong, someone double check, but I count a 6:2 ratio in favour of changing to new logo. I guessed DJSasso as an opposition but actually I wasn't 100% on his opinion... Kennedy ^(talk) 11:56, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: If people want I'm happy to make a quick gadget that will switch the logo to the old one for people who desire that (we just need to keep the image uploaded somewhere else obviously). James (T C) 01:24, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello there. I found a way to customize the logo by yourself. You have to copy some code to your own common.css:

#p-logo a {
 background-image: url(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/1/1b/20120609121746%21Wikipedia-logo-v2-simple.png)
 !important;
 }

By that, the logo is now the new one. --weltforce (talk) 10:41, 9 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I renewed the logo with the new font: [3] --weltforce (talk) 12:19, 9 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that makes another decision to make, since we already had File:Wikipedia-logo-simple.png. Osiris (talk) 22:07, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

DYK

Did You Know needs more attention, and examples on a much wider range of topics. You know it's important, it's in our shop window, so please give it some of your time. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:35, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I just created and nominated the nine-banded armadillo. :) I hope it helps! About it being in our shop window, good point. We do need to concentrate on DYK more... Thank you for your concern, Macdonald-ross! Bella ^{tête-à-tête} 08:55, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Student usernames starting with TMD active today

In about three hours, a group of students whose usernames all begin TMD will be actively editing their userpages and article pages. They may create a few new articles as well. They are still quite new to Wikipedia, so please be kind. Please do make changes or corrections. I want them to experience being editors and that means other editors changing their contributions. But, I'd like to ask everyone to hold off on any Quick Deletion requests or extensive deletions, please. If they flood New Changes, I will go back after class and review the intervening changes. Thanks, ELTted (talk) 22:43, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Good luck! I have watchlisted all their pages to see if I can help anywhere, or just keep an eye out. Kennedy ^(talk) 12:43, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

InterProject

The recently created template Template:InterProject lets you to display Interwiki-like links to other Wikimedia-Projects (InterProject) e.g. Meta, Commons etc. They will be displayed above "In other languages" in a new group named "sister projects". In order to let this template work, additional JavaScript code is needed. Administrators need to add this code to MediaWiki:common.js:

/** Code for [[Template:InterProject]] */
mw.loader.using( [ 'mediawiki.util' ], function() { jQuery( document ).ready(function() {
    var iProject = document.getElementById("interProject");
    if(!iProject) return;
    var sistersibling = document.getElementById("p-lang");
    if(!sistersibling) sistersibling= document.getElementById("p-tb");
    if(!sistersibling) return;
    var sisterparent = sistersibling.parentNode;
    var sisterprojectnav = document.createElement("div");
    sisterprojectnav.id = "p-sisterprojects";
    sisterprojectnav.className = sistersibling.className
    sisterprojectnav.innerHTML = '<h5>'+document.getElementById("sisterProjects").firstChild.innerHTML+'</h5><div><ul></ul></div>';
    var sistersiblingsub = sistersibling.getElementsByTagName("div")[0];
    if(sistersiblingsub){
        sisterprojectnav.childNodes[1].className = sistersiblingsub.className;
    } else {
        sisterprojectnav.childNodes[1].className = "pBody";
    }
    var sisternext = document.getElementById("p-lang");
    if ( sisternext && sisternext.parentNode == sisterparent ){
        sisterparent.insertBefore( sisterprojectnav, sisternext );
    }else{
        sisterparent.appendChild(sisterprojectnav);
    }
    var sisterlinks = iProject.getElementsByTagName("a");
    for (var i = 0; i < sisterlinks.length; i++) {
        var sistername = sisterlinks[i].firstChild.nodeValue
        mw.util.addPortletLink('p-sisterprojects', sisterlinks[i].getAttribute("href") + '?uselang=' + mw.config.get( 'wgUserLanguage' ), sistername, "sister-"+ sistername, sistername);
    }
})});
/** End of code for Template:Interproject */

I've tested the template completly and it's working. If you want to test it, copy the code to your own common.js and view my user page, I've got some InterProject links there. --welt force™ 06:08, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone plz respond? Admins will only need to add that code that the common.js with Copy&Paste --welt force™ 14:35, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Instead of blowing up the commons.js page, I think it would be better to create a gadget for this. Thoughts? -Barras talk 10:33, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I would make it a gadget so they can be added by personal preference. I personally prefer less links along the side. As a gadget I could avoid seeing it if I wanted to. -DJSasso (talk) 11:33, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

These Interproject links are just like interwiki links - they only appear when you use the template. It's been thought to use them on user pages. --welt force™ 11:49, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So... --welt force™ 11:37, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I feel this would be useful. Having not tested it myself I am relying on other users affirming that it works as expected, and would suggest strongly that this is implemented site-wide. Kennedy ^(talk) 11:59, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It works. This is the code I copied from the German WP. You can test it by yourself in your own common.js -welt force™ 12:28, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't think I'd have the time atm, but I've added, tested and confirm it works. Kennedy ^(talk) 12:44, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I get what you're saying that it's not an ideal candidate for a gadget. It doesn't actually do anything without also using the template, but (if I understand correctly) it will enable two additional id's that allow you to customise an addition to the sidebar. I agree that making it an opt-in gadget is probably the only way to go if you're really wanting to get this enabled. Osiris (talk) 03:24, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Puting this into a gadget would be the same as putting the interwiki link code into a gadget. This template does just the same.--welt force™ 14:27, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I know but some people prefer less links on the sidebar. I would use the gadget, but agree that it doesn't make much sense if others aren't going to see it by default. And it's only really going to used on user pages... So maybe just try to get some more community input on simple talk, not many editors comment on the admins' noticeboard. Osiris (talk) 01:29, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

They could also be used in the Wikipedia namespace. These little code won't blow up your RAM; it'll become active when an InterProject link is given. --weltforce (talk) 22:23, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Big Red Link Weekend - 8 June 2012

Hello everyone. I've decided to take the role of coordinator for this months Big Weekend. This month the focus is on creation of vital articles from the list of articles we should have. This is a good one because although you will be editing a very wide range of subjects you are maximising the benefit to Wikipedia by creating the most important articles. If this weekend is a success Simple English Wikipedia will take a sizeable step forward. The weekend is due to start on Friday 8 June until Sunday 10 June. When you edit please add the letters "BWR" to the edit summary to allow us to count the success of the weekend.

If you are able to contribute please signify your intention to particpate, this will make it easier to gauge if this weekend will be a success. Look forward to seeing you there! Kennedy ^(talk) 14:59, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll participate, but I'll focus on the "Animals" section :) Best, Jona yo! ^{Selena 4 ever} 15:31, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you put BWR at front of your change summaries, this helps the coordinator. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:36, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oh I forgot about that Macdonald-ross, thanks. Kennedy ^(talk) 17:49, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, always check carefully before you start a redlink page that the page is not already there under a slightly different name. I've discovered (and altered) four of those today. Example: redlisted was 'Robert Malthus'; but page was here and enWP, headed Thomas Robert Malthus. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:19, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, I'll try to get involved, although I'm trying more to improve the articles I've already created rather than creating new ones. -Orashmatash (talk) 18:56, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll help out as well. --Tbennert (talk) 19:06, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly I will miss a Big Weekend - but happily I'll have the kilt on and be at Australia's National Celtic Weekend, listening to the pipes and eating haggis. I am sure Macdonald-ross and Kennedy will understand.Peterdownunder (talk) 07:52, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll let you off since you're embracing your inner Scotsman :) If you can, pepper sauce with your haggis. Kennedy ^(talk) 11:42, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just a quick reminder that the Big Red Link Weekend starts TODAY (perhaps should have re-arranged it from a weekend with a big event starting but...) good luck! Kennedy ^(talk) 14:35, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have a question... on the Pseudoscorpion (for an example) I created the article but there are redlinks for other animal articles. Can I create them and still be credited for the BWR even if they are not on the list? Best, Jona yo! ^{Selena 4 ever} 15:53, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. I think that would be best to plan it that way, maximises the benefit. Articles related to articles will count. Kennedy ^(talk) 17:55, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't get the time I imagined I would, only managed a couple. How do we count the contribs? Kennedy ^(talk) 11:03, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Counting?—Several months ago, Albacore asked a similar question here; and Peterdownunder answered here. --Horeki (talk) 19:21, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sheesh, manually? Forget that! :P Kennedy ^(talk) 19:26, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Do we have any idea of how many new articles were created? DJDunsie (talk) 12:41, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

By my count we had 65. Wow! Those who played along were AJona1992, DJDunsie, Horeki, kennedy, Macdonald-ross and me. My sincere apologies if I've missed anyone. --Tbennert (talk) 20:35, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

BE/AE in articles

Hello! I've read that editors can decide by themselves wether to use British English or American English. My question is, should I mark the term in the other way? Example: The word americanisation (US. americanization). Does a template to mark this exist? Regards, weltforce (talk) 18:03, 9 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You don't have to mark every term that's spelled differently in the two versions. If it's the name of the article, then it can help to mark it. Also keep in mind that if an article is about something that is primarily British, British English should be used. If it's primarily American, then American English should be used. If it's not really one or the other, then use whatever the article's first author used. (In other words, don't switch from one to the other without a reason.) --Auntof6 (talk) 19:07, 9 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for this information. --weltforce (talk) 08:25, 10 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

en:WP:ENGVAR is the guideline that you should read if you are trying to figure out when to use it. -DJSasso (talk) 11:44, 15 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Adding Extension:WikiLove

Hello! Have you been in the English Wikipedia in the last time? Did you go to somebody's user talkpage? Then you might have perceived a red heart icon. By clicking on this icon will open a JavaScript window, see the picture right. This extension is named WikiLove, see WP:WikiLove for the topic.

Maybe you now recognised what this Extension does. It let's you adding messages to someone's talkpage, mostly barnstars. Specifically, it makes adding awards, gifts, and invitations to user talk pages as simple as clicking a few buttons. It is described like this: WikiLove is a feature designed to make it easy and fun to express appreciation for other users. WikiLove can be invoked from any user page by clicking the "Heart" icon. It was originally developed by Ryan Kaldari as a user script, and is now available as a MediaWiki extension.

This extension is an official Wikimedia extension and is activated in the main English Wikipedia. You can find out more here and here. I suggest activating the extension here, hence the extension is written in English and the templates work together. Maybe simplification is needed but I'm sure that people here are willing to help. --weltforce (talk) 14:37, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I saw this, and have used it. I thought it was a little myspace-y, but actually perhaps thats what Wikipedia needs, is a little bit of user-friendliness in terms of using the software and in contact between users. Often its very difficult to use WP for new users, and especially difficult to get used to it. I personally did not like it, however would not be opposed to it being implemented here. Kennedy ^(talk) 15:15, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that two things while working on a non-profit thing are important: having much motivation and working in a nice working climate. One thing results by the other one. Statistics have shown that more greetings have been sent since the introduction of the WikiLove extension. Don't you feel satisfaction when you receive a barnstar? --weltforce (talk) 15:35, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Of course (although its been a while :P) hence the reason I don't have strong opposition to it. I created my own welcome template which I felt was friendlier than the bog-standard one, and often see users, like Sonia for example, delivering very friendly messages to users. You're right, that sort of thing does help immensely. I suppose that a tool to make anything here easier and more user-friendly is a net positive. Kennedy ^(talk) 15:52, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, why not? It would certainly help with adding barnstars etc. to talk pages without having to copy-paste the code. -Orashmatash (talk) 15:59, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oh god I hope we don't add this....its a nuisance on en.wiki and I would hate to see it migrate here. If you want to message someone a fuzzy message just use the talk page like normal. Once you automate the sending of a message like this (which this is essentially doing since all you have to do is click a few buttons) you lose the personal touch of the message. Which is sort of the point of sending such a message. Its the same reason we don't use welcome bots, who wants to be welcomed by an automated bot. It makes you feel less special because someone couldn't be bothered to take the effort to give you a real message. -DJSasso (talk) 12:05, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Although I am a very enthusiastic wikilove supporter here, Djsasso has a point. Going through the effort of giving someone a barnstar or a "fuzzy message" manually has much more value. Although, does the difference of using the tools show (like in the edit summary)? :) Bella ^{tête-à-tête} 12:29, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Best way to find out is to try it out. :) Its not obvious but I doubt many people would use that summary if they were doing so manually... Kennedy ^(talk) 12:42, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Djasasso, I think you are very right. A personal welcome is much more worth than a bot's or a flood's edit. But WikiLove isn't a automatic barnstar generator. It is just a way to simplify the way of giving awards. There is no difference if you do it with Copy&Paste the template's code or using WikiLove; the gadget doesn't mark it. Kennedy, WikiLove means WP:WikiLove in that context, not MW:WikiLove. --weltforce (talk) 12:45, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

PS: I'm sure there will be a way to customize the summary. --weltforce (talk) 12:46, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I should note, I would not complain if people do want it. I just don't think its necessary and would rather not have it. The more myspacey this place becomes the less people work on the encyclopedia articles. It has long been a problem on simple that the majority of editors here tend to just play around with the administrative side of things or social aspects and not so much on the articles themselves. (I am guilty of this too.) So the less of that we have the better. -DJSasso (talk) 12:52, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Myspacey"??? Come on bro, it's 2012! The correct term is "facebooky". Are you still stuck in the 2000s? 96.238.210.147 (talk) 19:57, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Except that in wikipedia terms its called Myspacey. Even if facebook is the more used one now. -DJSasso (talk) 11:35, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn't matter. I suggest to deactivate the feature by default. --weltforce (talk) 21:26, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

DJ: To solve that problem we can just actively discourage excessive use of it, in exactly the same manner which we do currently... Kennedy ^(talk) 21:32, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Template talk:Disambiguation

Please take a stand to this discussion, I'm posting it here because I think that not many editors have the page on their watchlist. Cheers, weltforce (talk) 13:49, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Request for input: notability of movies

I have a concern about a lot of the articles we have about individual movies. I've been reading en:Wikipedia:Notability (films), and it seems to me that a lot of the movie articles we have do not indicate notability. Many of the articles are little more than "Movie X is a 1990 American drama movie starring X and Y.", often with a link to the movie's IMDB entry. To me, this doesn't say notability. I know I can be quick to QD things, so I wanted to get some more discussion on this before I go QDing movie articles. Do we want looser notability criteria for movies than enwiki? For example, if a movie has one or more major movie stars in it, is that enough? Please let me know your thoughts. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:57, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As long as they meet the guidelines you link to they shouldn't be deleted. I think you take the doesn't show notability thing a bit to literally. All it has to do is claim notability to avoid QD, it doesn't have to prove it. Saying that it is a move starring a major actor is more than enough to avoid QD. However at Rfd it would then have to be evaluated to make sure it meets the notability guidelines you point to in your comment. -DJSasso (talk) 10:40, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]