Wikipedia:Simple talk

Simple talk
	Shortcut WP:ST This is the place to ask any questions you have about the Simple English Wikipedia. Any general discussions or anything of community interest is also appropriate here. You might also find an answer on Wikipedia:Useful, a listing of helpful pages. You may reply to any section below by clicking the "change this page" link, or add a new discussion section to this page. Please sign and date your post (by typing ~~~~). Please add new topics to the bottom of this page. Please note that old discussions on this page are archived periodically. If you do not find a discussion here, please look in the archives. Note that you should not change the archives, so if something that has been archived needs discussing, please start a new discussion on this page. Some of the language used on this page can be complicated. This is because it is used by editors to talk to one another, so sometimes we forget. Please leave us a note if you are finding what we are saying too hard to read.	Archives 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180
Are you in the right place? See WP:AN to speak to an administrator. See WP:RFCU for CheckUser requests. See WP:OS for oversight. See WP:RFRB to request the rollback feature (which administrators can grant). See WP:VIP to report vandalism. Add this page to your list of watched pages — Purge    change

This is the first line of this wiki page, by which I try to record something I think being interesting to share with other people. Hopefully, it may be useful for some people engaging in related research areas. By the way, due to my poor English, it is unavoidable for me to make errors, so please feel free to point out these errors helping me to correct them. Thanks very much. — This unsigned comment was added by Xiaobird (talk • changes).

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I've been deliberating whether it's canvassing or some other crime to do this, but here goes. I'm sure y'all are familiar with this edit counter. I'm a little bit annoyed that the monthly charts are now an opt-in, and I've opted in.

I'd just like to make you guys aware of that, so that those of you who have no objection to your monthly stats being visible can opt in, either locally or globally. The only reason I'm asking this is because I do like to see how much people have gotten up to since they started off. No worries if you don't, though. (I probably sound like a stalker now, actually...) SS✞^(Kay) 09:07, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to opt-in but I have no idea how to do it. If you can give instructions, I would be more then willing to do it. (because I like the monthly charts too. :) ) mccon99 13:44, 9 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Put in your name on the edit counter and scroll down. The instructions are there. Griffinofwales (talk) 14:27, 9 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's a way to do it Wikipedia by Wikipedia, and a way to do it from Meta. If you have a meta account or accounts on several wikis, I recommend the Meta one Purplebackpack89 14:47, 9 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Thx all. mccon99 17:48, 9 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Often, we have links within our articles that direct to the Simple English Wiktionary, but those pages may very well not exist. I would like to propose the use of {{dead wikt link}} (which is similar to {{dead link}}) to help categorize these pages (to Category:Articles with dead wiktionary links) and make it simpler to fix them. Obviously, it makes more sense for someone who finds a dead link to simply fix it, but tagging is something that could be done by bot quite easily, with humans fixing the broken articles. I'd also like to suggest that, if such a bot is run, that it also find links to English Wiktionary and replace them with links to Simple English Wiktionary (tagging the link as broken, if needed). Thoughts? EhJJ^TALK 05:03, 9 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, dear EhJJ, that's such a wonderful idea. Most of my wikts are so hard to link because after I link it, I always have to check each of them to see if there is really a definition existing in the wiktionary. I hope that idea works! ♥ Belinda ♥ 05:18, 9 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@EhJJ; Yes, just go for it. Frankly, and I've said this before, editors of SEWP should (read: MUST) also be very active on SEWT. I don't actually see us as sister projects, but as one project. (Yes, I'm as guilty as most others). Good idea! fr33kman 05:28, 9 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just wanted to see how other people felt about it before I started making these changes. I've written a bot (User:EhJBot5) that will tag links to wikt that don't work. I'll have it doing very limited and supervised test runs while I'm by the computer. If it's working fine, I'll be requesting a bot flag per the usual methods. EhJJ^TALK 05:18, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Bots#EhJBot5 about how, exactly, the broken links to Wiktionary should appear on this Wikipedia. I would ask that users please leave comments there (or here), if they have an opinion. Currently, links can look like this

(with or without an in-line <!-- comment -->), or the can have a small link [?] that will explain the link, for example: 

this . This will also make it easier to fix the broken links, since they will appear in the text, but it could make it less enjoyable to read. Thanks! EhJJ^TALK 15:27, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This category will be very helpful over at SE WKT. I have a (far from complete) list of pages that link to SE WKT at wikt:User:Tygrrr/Pages Simple English Wikipedia says we have#Some words linked here in articles on Simple English Wikipedia (in-text). I will use this category to help me add to the list so we can know which pages we need to create there. Another useful thing that takes just slightly more time than adding {{dead wikt link}} of course would be to create a really basic definition and a regular SE WKT user (likely me) will go through and format everything for you. Food for thought :-) · Tygrrr... 00:35, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good idea. I've also created the page User:EhJBot5/wordlist which lists all wikt word links and the wikipedia articles that link to those words. I should be able to create an identical page on wiktionary, which (since the links will be red) will show which wikt definitions are missing. I have also thought about creating a bot that could do most of the work of converting an en.wikt page to a simple.wikt page and would need a human to "translate" the definition. That's a project for the not-too-distant future. EhJJ^TALK 13:35, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Great! I look forward to seeing the page there! Also, a general note to everyone using the dead link template: Wiktionary is case-sensitive. Only proper nouns are capitalized, so some of the links can be fixed simply by changing a capital letter to a lowercase letter (like this). · Tygrrr... 18:31, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps one of the other admins can explain this to me. Why does [[wikt:Word]] link to the Simple English Wiktionary, while [[wiktionary:Word]] links to the regular English Wiktionary? I would expect [[en:wikt:Word]] and [[en:Wiktionary:Word]] to be needed, to get to regular English. Thanks! EhJJ^TALK 05:55, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeh, probably a dev error when setting up the interwiki links. A bug request should solve it. Goblin 12:44, 10 April 2010 (UTC) I ♥ Meganmccarty![reply]

Submitted a bug report bugzilla:23142. I'm new to bugzilla, so if the report needs to be reformatted, or more details added, please do so. EhJJ^TALK 14:38, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I do believe this is normal behaviour as wikipedia:whatever always points to english while the short form w:whatever points to the local language. This happens on all the languages. -DJSasso (talk) 14:53, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If that is the case, then nothing needs to be done locally. However, I think some changes to meta:Help:Interwiki linking might be needed, as the table at the top seems to imply that they are equivalent, and these sentences: "The long form doesn't work within the same project. The shortcut works everywhere." don't really explain how the long form and short form are different (one links to en, while the other to the local language), saying that the long form "doesn't work" possibly implies that it links to the namespace, not project (which would be my understanding of those sentences). EhJJ^TALK 16:05, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think the idea is that to most laymen English Wikipedia is Wikipedia which is why the long form links there. Its only to people who edit more than one wiki that has a different view. I believe that is why it works that way. But yeah definitely something to bring up if you think it should change. -DJSasso (talk) 02:10, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can understand why it is the way it is. If you're on Bugzilla and linking to Wiktionary, there is no correct language. So, makes sense to default to en, since it's "the" Wiktionary. If links on all wikis (epecially non-WMF wikis), it shouldn't be different on WMF wikis. So, let Wiktionary point to enwikt, as long as wikt: remains simple.wikt. That said, should be replace Wiktionary:x links with wikt:x links, in our Article space? I would think so! EhJJ^TALK 03:09, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to be broken? –Juliancolton | ^Talk 00:12, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is it fixed now? Griffinofwales (talk) 00:34, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Looks it at first glance. Thanks. :) –Juliancolton | ^Talk 01:33, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've opened up a page at Wikipedia:Editor help modeled off en:Wikipedia:Editor assistance. Wasn't sure where to post this, but it could probably use some more watchers if anyone is willing. Cheers, Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 00:39, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, IMO, it's not really needed, as this is where the questions should be asked. Griffinofwales (talk) 00:40, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, how will this differ from asking people questions on Simple Talk? Or Administrators' Noticeboard? Or someone's talk page? Either way (talk) 04:31, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just a suggestion, it works well at en, and could work well here as the project grows. No prejudice against redirecting the page, however. Regards, Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 12:40, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We're a much smaller project than EN - this page is a combination of all the pumps and help pages; we don't need another one. I'm going to take the liberty of re-directing it here. Goblin 12:42, 10 April 2010 (UTC) I ♥ Kennedy![reply]

No problemo! Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 14:26, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm having problems with this template. The parameter "pages" doesn't seem to work. I added the template to American Robin with page numbers, but they are not showing up in the references (diffs: 1 and 2). Can someone please fix this? Thanks! Megan|^talk_contribs 00:58, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The doc page doesn't list a "pages" parameter. Griffinofwales (talk) 01:00, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You could install importScript('User:Bsadowski1/refToolbar.js'); to your monobook, if you like. :) I find it very helpful. —Classical Esther 01:06, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@Griffin:On this page, on the left, it lists all of the parameters. One of them says "pages". @Esther:Thanks for the advice. I'll try it out soon. Megan|^talk_contribs 01:10, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I imported the en version. Let me know of any errors. Thanks, Griffinofwales (talk) 01:23, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The error is now fixed. Thank you very much. And Esther, I added the script to my monobook.js. It works very nicely. Thanks again. Megan|^talk_contribs 01:33, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have proposed a change to the User talk guideline at Wikipedia talk:User talk page. Comments are welcome. Griffinofwales (talk) 19:06, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone take a look at the blackpool article? It has red template links at the top and I am not sure how to fix it. Thanks! 64.255.164.31 (talk) 20:33, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

 Fixed Griffinofwales (talk) 20:36, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just checking in. I've not really found a good internet connection yet, so editing is almost precluded at this time. I'm reading however. I hope everyone is well, I am well also. Anyone remember dialup :) Very best, Jon@talk:~$ 06:16, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dialup? I remember Windows 3.1. ;)  — laurynashby 06:32, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are you viewing this page on Netscape Navigator? ;-) Either way (talk) 15:11, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I remember when I thought that cable modems were special and few people had them. Hope to see you back soon! Kansan (talk) 16:07, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lol. On school there are computers using Windows 95 and Netscape Navigator works slooooow.... Well, they have just 32 MB of Ram, so... see you soon Jon! :-D --Diego Grez _{(previously MisterWiki)} ^{let's talk} 01:39, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello all, I just "translated" one of the translations of the week, Ogyū Sorai. For my part, I am done simplifying, but it would be good if someone could proofread, and fix the parts I forgot. Thanks. --Eptalon (talk) 13:24, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

 Doing... Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 14:53, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

 Done - alright, here's my proofread. The problem is still the 'teachings' section, where all the different philosophies can be quite confusing. :) Well I didn't have a lot of changes; it's a good translation to be sure! Cheers, Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 15:35, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot. Such 'translations' usually are a lot of work, an as I am a non-native speaker, finding replacements for difficult phrasing isn't easy, at times. --Eptalon (talk) 15:41, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Vandalism information Hello Happy Happy Chappies on the Simple 'Pedia.

Just let y'all know that GB4 now has a new feature enabled, which is the updating of {{Vandalism information}} when people ask it to via IRC.

Here's what the template looks like →

It probably won't be totally accurate as it's human powered so needs to be updated with a command by our friends on IRC. The command that you can use is !defcon <level number> [comment] (I think.)

Any problems, report them to JIRA (link at User:GoblinBot4).

Ta, Goblin 18:23, 11 April 2010 (UTC) I ♥ Juliancolton![reply]

Are we supposed to use the number that is currently set on ENWP, or is there another way of determining that? -Avicennasis @ 03:24, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, the number is supposed to be the current amount of vandalism happening now/recently on this wiki. There is no formula, you just get a feel for it based on Special:RecentChanges and adjust it accordingly. EhJJ^TALK 13:09, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Any plans to have GoblinBot4 automatically update it based on how much GB4 is reverting vandalism? Or, it can scan RecentChanges for how often "revert" appears in the edit summary / number of recent blocks. EhJJ^TALK 13:09, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Avi, no, we use our own number depending on how much vandalism we have here. The numbering system is the same, though.

EhJJ, good idea. I'll have a look into it... Goblin 11:04, 13 April 2010 (UTC) I ♥ Yottie![reply]

That is a great idea, though I think the bot should only check for rollbacks. I will see what tweak to the code I can do. Chenzw  Talk  11:07, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to post this, but an edit conflict with Peter, closing the RfA didn't left me no time. I want to make sure people know how grateful I am so here is my message about my withdraw (I hope its okay that I post this here. If not, delete it. I just want to make sure people know I'm not disappointed).

"Thank you all for taking the time to vote and give me advice. I'd especially like to thank my wonderful nominator, Belinda. All in all, I'm over my head. I thought I was ready, but obviously not. Again, thank you all for this wonderful opportunity only few wikipedian's get to have. I will leave knowing that I did my very best and have much to work on. I can never thank you all enough for this opportunity you all have given me. Hopefully I may try again in the future."

Thanks again, mccon99 18:56, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm very glad that you seem to be keeping a good perspective on this. You are a very good editor, and whether you have the admin tools or not does not change that and the fact that you can still continue to do a lot for this site. Keep up your good work and I wouldn't be surprised to see you get the tools in the future. Kansan (talk) 19:07, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed I was extremely surprised at such a closure! I was very disappointed when you withdrew. And of course, as I said before, I was only honored to be able to be your nominator. There's nothing to thank me for; it was my pleasure. I hope you can fix all the issues the community does not approve of, and then when you feel that you are ready enough again you can ask me to nom you. I'm always free and happy to nominate you! I'll be hoping for a new and successful RFA in the future. ^^* Yours truly, ♥ Belinda ♥ 04:31, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Kansan is right, you're an excellent editor who everyone appreciates. Please keep up the good work! I'm sorry you couldn't get the tools, but as they really make no difference in your merit, I am glad to see you are still working as hard as ever. God ever bless, —Classical Esther 12:42, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Problem with Infobox Settlement template

There seems to be a problem with the current template:Infobox Settlement template. The locations are not being mapped correctly. Please see User:The Three Headed Knight/Sandbox for an example. The top image (in white) is mapped using the dot map x & y procedure. The second image is mapped using the pushpin map procedure. The third image (in the second infobox) is mapped using a copy of the english wikipedia template saved in my user space.

You can clearly see that the current template has moved City of Toledo into the state of Michigan! I am afraid Ohio will declare war if this is not rectified :-) --The Three Headed Knight (talk) 02:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, mapping for the settlement template does not work. Its something I have been trying to find the bug in for a number of months. -DJSasso (talk) 02:12, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This IP

Hello there. I've been here before, on another IP, never really had an account. This IP is shared; be careful with blocking summaries as it's a computer cafe's IP. I'm not going to vandalise, no intention of that. how do I help here? --84.45.219.185 (talk) 13:07, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone in this position needs to register a handle; then they'll get treated as an individual. As it is, this individual may have good intentions, but others in the café may not. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:34, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

IP bot?

Is it authorised? Why? SS✞^(Kay) 08:22, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nah, it's the toolserver IP. When a bot edits from there, it means it has somehow logged off. Pmlineditor ∞ 08:24, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, okay. I shoulda known that... :P oops. SS✞^(Kay) 08:29, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]