Wikipedia:Simple talk

Simple talk
	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 Note that you should not change the archives, so if something that has been archived needs discussing, please start a new discussion on this page.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.
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Vandal Warner

I put on Vandal Warner, but I can't find it when I'm editing talk pages. Why? Magnolioideae (talk) 19:05, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

@Magnolioideae What do you mean 'Vandal Warner'. I suggest using twinkle as it is easier. Cactus🌵 ^{spiky ouch} 09:27, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

@Cactusisme: Vandal Warner is a gadget you can enable in preferences. @Magnolioideae: I tried using it when I started editing here, and I believe in a certain theme it appears in the sidebar but the buttons have never seemed to work for me. I just use Twinkle or do it manually instead. --Ferien (talk) 15:03, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

@Cactusisme Okay. I'll just stick to using Twinkle instead. @Ferien Thank you! Maggie🌺 ^{talk edit} 15:36, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

@Ferien, You're a life saver thank you!, The buttons have never worked for me either and I just assumed it was somehow related to Twinkle, Never knew I had Vandal Warner enabled so thank you :), –Davey2010^Talk 15:44, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

@Ferien One question though: How do you install Vandal Warner in manually? Maggie🌺 ^{talk edit} 15:47, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Magnolioideae, when I meant "do it manually", I meant applying the user warn templates manually by adding {{subst:uw-vand1}} (for example) to talk pages, rather than using Vandal Warner to apply them. --Ferien (talk) 16:27, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Oh. Thank you for explaining this misunderstanding :) Maggie🌺 ^{talk edit} 16:33, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Same here! Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 17:16, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it works here anyways. ^{(for most people)} Cactus🌵 ^{spiky ouch} 02:53, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Establishments and disestablishments

"Establishments" and "disestablishments" are pretty complex, and simple wikipedia has pretty much just copied these words from Wikipedia. I wonder if it would make more sense to change these words to "beginnings" and "endings", respectively. This would mean, of course, that "beginnings" and "endings" would also include Births and Deaths. What are your thoughts? MrMeAndMrMe_Talk 01:12, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I thought we had consensus to do something like that. Maybe the discussion got archived? -- Auntof6 (talk) 08:44, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

The most recent discussion (from April 2024) can be found here: Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 157#Category move discussion ✩ Dream Indigo ✩ 19:33, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. It looks like a consensus had been established that a simplification would be useful. However, a consensus for the specifics had not been reached, and the discussion died out and was archived. As many others have pointed out, words like "started" or "created" can have issues based on the scope of "establishments" being too broad. However, if we use broader terms like "Beginnings" and "Endings", this would make things simpler. Additionally, Simple Wikipedia is supposed to generally have simpler category structure. By including categories such as "births", "deaths", and "introductions" (were the category "introductions" to ever be used in the first place), this makes the category structure simpler. MrMeAndMrMe_Talk 22:58, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Will there be many cases of horrible English or experimental-English or unknown-English? "A 'company beginning' and a 'company ending' - not sure i have heard of the nouns 'beginning' and 'ending' about companies.--A company ceases its operations etc.--Have there been cases where we had to go back on some grand idea that we started to roll out?--How about starting with only smaller pieces of the category tree, before we start work higher up in the 'food chain'. 2001:2020:331:CCFE:2CDA:A476:2D02:BF45 (talk) 15:15, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

You would not refer to something as "company endings in 1942". The category is called "endings in 1942", meaning that the company was "ended" in 1942. This is perfectly normal English. It goes the same way with disestablishments. It is not referred to as "company disestablishments", it is referred to as "a company that was disestablished." In this case, you would say "a company that was ended".

The point of the category system is that the parent category is a description that can still apply to its children. For example, an article in Category:Biology is also a valid article in Category:Science (with some rare exceptions, such as container categories). In English Wikipedia, an article that is in en:Category:2020 disestablishments belongs just as much as en:Category:2020 endings. This is my primary reasoning for suggesting the terms "endings" and "beginnings", instead of "started", or "created", or whatever else. By default, "endings" and "beginnings" would not result in "horrible/experimental/unknown" English.

This would not be a particularly big project, either. According to AuntOf6, there are about 6,436 relevant "establishments" and "disestablishments" categories. Including births, deaths, debuts, etc., you could add another 2000 or so. Using Cat-A-Lot, this would maybe take a couple of days at most. I have no idea how long it would take to fully automate this. MrMeAndMrMe_Talk 15:44, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Hey identical person, 2001:2020 you look like me except I have this, 2001:569. 2001:569:7C55:9000:91D9:EB7A:44FC:90C3 (talk) 16:39, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

I would also like to point out that the phrase "disestablishments" does not always work. In the case of Anglo-Saxon runes, it lists these ruins as being disestablished in the 8th century, as though they were formally disestablished in the 700s. However, a much better way to put this would be to say that the ruins "ended" in the 8th century, instead. This is the same for all languages, which were started in a certain century, and ended in another century. MrMeAndMrMe_Talk 01:58, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Runes and ruins are different concepts. From the context I assume you mean the former. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:48, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

@Macdonald-ross Yes, the writing system seems to have "ended" or "not used" after the 11th century. Even though english wikipedia does not do this, I agree that it is a good idea to date languages in the category section from when languages came into usage and (if applicable) left common usage. However, that is another discussion. In any case, the term "disestablishments" does not really work with this. MrMeAndMrMe_Talk 16:04, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Hello! How can I help?

I am new here, and I wanna help. What can I do? Theres not much vandalism to fix, and I am pretty bad at fixing article and putting sources... Haumeon (talk) 18:53, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

You can start digging in here for things where you think you have the right skills: Category:Wikipedia_maintenance. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:04, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Other things to do:

• When you find interesting facts, write a short hook, and nominate it for Did you know?
• If you find an article that you think you can improve, there are two categories of bettter-quality articles Wikipedia:Proposed good articles and Wikipedia:Proposed very good articles. We both need reviewers, and people who propose new articles.
• General article cleanup:

• look at Category:Complex pages, and simplify articles listed there
• look at Category:Pages with too many red links...
• Category:All articles with unsourced statements....

Eptalon (talk) 07:24, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Astronomy needs more people

I like astronomy (my name is a play on the dwarf planet Haumea), and I searched for an astronomy task force. Turns out everyone there is now inactive, and there were only three people. So the project is inactive. Could some more people visit the WikiProject and get it started again? Haumeon (talk) 19:16, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Hello, @Haumeon. You can't really try and talk people into joining. My best answer is if your WikiProject has some sort of userbox that you can put in your user page, you can hang it up there and see what happens. You can discuss that in your WikiProject's talk page. Hope this helps. Maggie🌺 ^{talk edit} 22:15, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

@Haumeon, I can help with astronomy stuff, as for the wikiproject, it's... dead. RiggedMint 17:19, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! We really need to bring that wikiproject back to life; there are a lot of astronomy articles needing work. Also, I'm confused about the article grading scale. Does it still work here? 🪐 Haumeon the Adventurer 🪐 18:10, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

@Haumeon: Since WikiProjects here are unofficial (for example, we don't put banners on article talk pages), any article grading would have to be tracked in userspace. I haven't seen anyone do that here before, but I suppose you could. -- Auntof6 (talk) 19:28, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm confused. Could you please clarify? 🪐 Haumeon the Adventurer 🪐 23:43, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

@Haumeon: My understanding is that WikiProjects on English Wikipedia have a grading scale that is indicated by banners on the talk pages of relevant articles. If that's not true, or that's not the grading scale you're talking about, please tell me more. Here on Simple English Wikipedia, we don't put anything related to WikiProjects on article pages or article talk pages. -- Auntof6 (talk) 00:54, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Page deletions RFD/QD

I've seen quite a few cases recently where an article winds up on RFD when it's clearly a matter for QD. This then leaves a new RFD discussion page being created for the RFD page and the article being deleted by a roving admin. For instance, when I'm patrolling RC and I see a good QD candidate I don't nominate it I just delete it. Then I get back to new changes and sometimes I see someone has tagged it with an RFD via twinkle. When this happens I'm recommending that we remove it from RFD and simply delete the discussion page via WP:G6 as housekeeping. Thoughts? fr33kman 19:47, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Support, it seems more convenient Cactus🌵 ^{spiky ouch} 08:52, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

It depends on what the nominator of the RfD wants to do but I find it isn't that difficult to just close it on the spot. --Ferien (talk) 11:11, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree, in obvious cases where a discussion is unnecessary, the should just be closed and the page deleted. It doesn't harm anyone to keep the discussion page up. — *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 11:31, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Non-free images

See the main page: Non-free content proposals

I know this was brought up fairly recently but I missed it due to being on vacation. The old-timers can tell you I would start a discussion every year about this. This time I'm proposing that we would solely allow those pictures that are already being used on enwiki. No other non-free images would be allowed under any condition. This would solve a lot of the time and effort issues that have already been brought up many times before. Any image that doesn't appear of the enwiki version of the page would be forbidden to use here. I think this would solve the effort problems and also allow non-free images for TV shows, comic books, and other cases where having an image would add clarification to articles. Thoughts? fr33kman 20:20, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

My thoughts:

• I assume this means we would be hosting images here. How much administrative burden would this add?
• What if a non-free image being used on enwiki stops being used there? Would we remove it here, or keep it on the grounds that it used to be used on enwiki?

For convenience, here are some relevant policy/guideline pages I found on enwiki:

• en:Wikipedia:Non-free content - guideline
• en:Wikipedia:Non-free use rationale guideline - guideline
• en:Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria - policy with legal considerations

-- Auntof6 (talk) 08:33, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Isnt that what wikimedia is for? [1] Rathfelder (talk) 12:42, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

@Rathfelder: In general, yes. But there are some images that Commons doesn't allow. Some of those can be uploaded at enwiki, following certain requirements, and this proposal is that we also allow it here. -- Auntof6 (talk) 20:59, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

If a non-free images stops being used on enwiki then I would think we would stop using it here. As for admin burden this is why I'm suggesting that we only permit images that are already on enwiki. This way they will have already gone through the burden for us, we'd simply follow what they do. We'd let them hash out the rationale, copyright concerns etc and we'd use the image after enwiki has addressed all those issues and simply use the end product. fr33kman 21:10, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I would recommend that only still images being allowed and that non-free video clips, text, and the like be banned. There will be a brief amount of initial overhead as we create the appropriate guidelines and usage templates for local usage but that would be a one-time only thing and that day-to-day use of non-free images would be easy to implement and that the local upload of the image would be simple to enact. fr33kman 21:31, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

@Fr33kman: If a non-free image stops being used on enwiki, how would we know? -- Auntof6 (talk) 10:42, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

A bot could be made to monitor the situation and then inform the project or remove the image. Then manual deletion would need to be performed. I don't see it as something that would need to happen often. Enwiki doesn't often delete non-free images very often. fr33kman 20:05, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

I ment to say that it would not be a problem that would come up much. fr33kman 09:37, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Support: see Bart Simpson vs w:Bart Simpson as a simple example of article improvements offered by a rigorous non-free policy.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if Mediawiki offers interwiki file embedding into pages (other than from Commons), so that might need to be a feature request to avoid rehosting every en.wiki file. - Tule-hog (talk) 22:35, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Comparing the global file usage between the first and second hints the non-free use policy is a broad issue in the Mediawiki ecosystem. Tule-hog (talk) 22:42, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Each image would need to be hosted locally, commons can't host them. fr33kman 20:01, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

I am suggesting interlinking from en.wiki not commons, hence hosted there (not commons). My comment is in reference to that not being possible as of now (as far as I'm aware). Tule-hog (talk) 20:20, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

There is no precedent for this within Wikimedia. I'm not sure how feasible such a technical exception compared to the other wikis would be. TheDJ (talk) 11:12, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

• Support - I've said it in a past discussion but it's never made sense to me as to why we don't either host images ourselves or somehow piggyback off of the English Wikipedia as strictly speaking we're kinda the same ...., Anyway and to my knowledge all other local Wikipedias host their own images so why shouldn't we ?, I don't see a reason why we can't host images if I'm being completely honest. –Davey2010^Talk 21:38, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

  See the Media Statistics for Wikipedia for why re-hosting is probably not preferable if it can be avoided. 300GB isn't huge huge though, certainly not in comparison to Common's stats. Tule-hog (talk) 22:23, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

  Agree I dont think we can use enwiki images directly but using extra bytes won't be a problem right away. It'll take time for images to be uploaded locally and used locally. Plus we are only talking about images which by default will be lo-res as using higher Res pics would be against the non-free rationale. fr33kman 09:34, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

  Maybe a phabricator task can be started to see if we could link to and use enwiki images? fr33kman 09:44, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

  A lot of the non-free content that exists on enwiki can only be used on specific articles on enwiki. I think it'd be very unlikely that a phab task would let us just link to enwiki articles. I imagine we would have to import them on a case-by-case basis. Non-free content not used in any articles on enwiki are sorted into categories and deleted, and we may have to track our non-free files here in a similar way. --Ferien (talk) 10:51, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose We should not have non-free content here. We simply cannot handle it. And frankly its not really simple either. -Djsasso (talk) 02:31, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

  It would only be lowres images that are already on enwiki. No other media would be allowed. fr33kman 12:03, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

• Support Only images that a low resolution so lesser bytes. We are almost the same as EN Wiki so why not.--Cactus🌵 ^{spiky ouch} 02:50, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

•  Neutral - Simple English Wikipedia, like any other independent project, should have the autonomy to host its own non-free images. This would definitely enhance the quality of TV shows, comic books, and movie related articles. Also, using non-free images from English Wikipedia seems like a feasible and effective approach. So, why not? – Cyber.Eyes.2005^Talk 06:10, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

   Comment: Based on the feedback from other admins, it appears that implementing this proposal would demand significant manpower, which we may not currently have on SimpleWiki. While I personally appreciate the idea of hosting our own images, I lack the experience to fully understand the implications. Therefore, I will defer to the judgment of those with more experience in this matter. I am changing my vote to neutral, as I neither support nor oppose the proposal at this time. – Cyber.Eyes.2005^Talk 17:07, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

  So, i guess this is a comment now; this wiki does not have 'neutral votes'... Eptalon (talk) 17:15, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

  Using {{Neutralvote}} works? – Cyber.Eyes.2005^Talk 17:25, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

  And as to counting: not counting towards support, not counting towards oppose,not counting towards the total number of votes? Eptalon (talk) 17:47, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

  Ah, Got it. I guess my comment works as feedback instead of a vote. – Cyber.Eyes.2005^Talk 17:56, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose The main reason why we don't allow image uploads, and take the images from commons is that handling the formalitiers associated with it is likely too much for our small community. Yes, it might be thrilling to say that to illustrate an article about a movie you can now use a scaled-down movie poster. I also think that the content of this Wikipedia should stay free. For the last 20 years, this wikipedia was able to survive with the images/media it had from commons. So, from my side, this is a clear oppose.--Eptalon (talk) 14:32, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose I haven't made a !vote on this either way but reading into this further now, I think Djsasso's comment, albeit the one he made on a past proposal on this same issue in 2011(!), says it best: A> We don't have the manpower to deal with it. (not even en can deal with it) B> It takes away from this wiki being a simple wiki. ie by adding complicated licensing issues into the mix. Doing this leads directly into us being a copy of en. We are supposed to not be en. One of our major differences is that we don't use non-free images because they complicate the editing of the wiki with complex licensing issues. To be frank I don't think many people here I can't actually think of a single editor here who has the knowledge necessary to police this. Now this isn't a knock against them its simple fact that fair-use image law is very very very complicated. I really don't think much has changed since that comment was made in 2011. If anything, I believe we now have fewer active editors than this wiki did in 2011. The non-free content criteria as it exists on en right now is very complex and it is the type of thing we would have to transfer to protect us from a legal perspective. It isn't something we could simplify any further. I really don't think it is worth the work on our end when a reader can just go to enwiki and find it instantly. --Ferien (talk) 15:15, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

  The suggestions about importing from the English Wikipedia or transcluding the images through linking to the English Wikipedia also do not appear to be technically feasible. There are 500,000 non-free images linked to articles on enwiki, mostly images already, with almost 400 orphaned files due for deletion. Editors on the English Wikipedia have done their job to make the non-free images valid for use on their articles and are not intended for use cross-wiki. As stated above, each file needs to pass numerous criteria to simply exist and one of those is that it needs a valid article to link to and an explanation on why it's needed on that article. And realistically, the justifications for using the articles on en's articles and our articles will have to be completely different because our articles are not the same. It is not going to be something we can do en masse, it is going to be a lot of work simply to bring the non-free content here – as each one will have to be worked on one-by-one – let alone maintain it and ensure the justifications continue to remain valid. --Ferien (talk) 15:30, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

  Which non-free use criteria would be invalidated by the 'simple english' version of the same article? I think that question is the crux for this particular proposal. Tule-hog (talk) 16:34, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

  I'm focusing on point 8 of the non-free content criteria, contextual significance. Would the lack of a poster be "detrimental" to the understanding to the article of Furiosa (movie), as one local example? I personally don't think so. On the enwiki article, w:Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, I think the need is greater, but honestly, I'm not confident it would be "detrimental" if it were not there.

  I find that specific criterion to probably be the broadest and most complex one because it just depends on how a certain person views the need, ie it is a subjective criterion and not objective. Copied here for the benefit of other readers: Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the article topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding. With quick deletion criteria, that we would likely have to expand to allow for non-free content should we go ahead with this, we are looking for things that can be checked easily so a deletion request can easily be accepted or declined. With non-free content, that'd definitely be more challenging. I should note, that criterion can be simplified, perhaps to something like Non-free content can only be used if it would really help readers understand a topic and not having it would stop them from understanding it., but the issue with how subjective it is remains. --Ferien (talk) 17:00, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

  My idea is that only images that pass enwiki's criteria would be used. Enwiki would do the work, we'd reap the benefits. We'd also likely only be talking about using a couple of thousand images in total. fr33kman 12:08, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

  Enwiki's criteria is dependent on their articles and need in given articles. Continuing on from the example above, the associated file for this article is w:en:File:Furiosa A Mad Max Saga.jpg. I do now recognise this is a template, so it would not be as much work as I had initially expected for some articles, however the template uses the following default response to "Purpose of use": Main infobox. The image is used for identification in the context of critical commentary of the work, product or service for which it serves as poster art. (bolding mine). I find it extremely difficult to say our local article, Furiosa (movie), offers sufficient critical commentary to the work to use non-free material, because it is a basic description at best. This would also be the case for many movie articles. Enwiki's work alone will not allow us to use non-free content, because our articles are different and non-free images have to be imported/uploaded for specific articles. --Ferien (talk) 15:25, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

•  Comment: I see why it would beneficial, but I also see how much of a burden it could be on the admins' shoulders. If this is approved, I will not be helping, not because I don't like the idea, but because I am very afraid of copyright and similar issues (same reason why I have never uploaded anything on Commons). So, as a non-admin who won't be helping much, I vote  Neutral. ✩ Dream Indigo ✩ 15:58, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

• Was originally going to stay out of this discussion but the more I think about it, the more I realise the problems. If we had the editor numbers we used to have in the late 2000s / early 2010s I believe this proposal would be a no-brainer. However, as Djasso states in their !vote, we do not have the manpower nowadays to sustain such a system. And while thinking about the proposal of using bots, such a system would be difficult to maintain and be generally unreliable. There is also the problems of enforcing fair use criterion which because of our low editor numbers would be a problem (a legal problem at that).

TLDR: Non-free images are too dependent on manpower that we just don't have, so I Oppose.- FusionSub (Talk page) (Contributions) 17:58, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Template:Jctbtm / table not correct end

Hi, I use en:WP:WPCleaner which lists errors from low to top priority, one of the categories in the top priority list is "table not correct end"

Usually this error means the end code ( |} ) to a table is missing or that an article is using a templated top but not a templated bottom (so for instance if someone wanted to close a discussion they would use {{atop}} and {{abot}} instead of {{atop}} and </table end> as {{abot}} is the footer/end of the table

Anyway motorway articles are in this category and I believe it's down to Template:Jctbtm and more specifically "invoke" somehow not working ?,

I say it's related to invoke because 1. Template:Jctbtm uses invoke and 2) over at SpongeBob_SquarePants_(season_1)#Episodes none of the edit summaries show (I've updated everything with the episode table template and I believe Module too)

I can add |} to the end table on articles which according to WPCleaner "fixes the problem" but it just leaves trailing table end codes behind[2]

At Template:Jcttop and Template:Jctbtm I had reverted back to pre-LUA conversions hoping that would work but it didn't, I had updated Module:Jctbtm and that only fixed the key placement and Template:Jcttop is only used on American highway articles (UK motorways have normal top tables),

I've checked English Wikipedia motorways on WPCleaner and the articles doesn't show there so it's an issue here and I'm lost as to how to fix it so not sure if anyone with more knowledge with this stuff would have any idea ?, Many thanks, Warm Regards, –Davey2010^Talk 22:02, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm not knowledgeable enough to fix it myself but @Djsasso: does, iirc, have more knowledge than I. So perhaps emailing him might be a good start. Other than that, there are some members of simplewiki who would know the answer. Failing that you could individually approach one of the enwiki authors about it. They have helped in the past and generally approachable. fr33kman 21:25, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Fr33kman, That's a great idea I didn't even think about asking enwiki authors, If DJSasso can't/is busy etc then I'll try asking enwiki authors in a few days time, Thank you for replying and helping it's always greatly appreciated, Many thanks, Warm Regards, –Davey2010^Talk 21:30, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

How to get account back?

Hi. My account has a new password and I forgot it. I tried doing the forgot my password thing but it won't send. What do I do? 2601:402:4400:3A90:F920:2D8C:FC24:CB4D (talk) 14:24, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

There are some instructions at en:Wikipedia:FAQ/Technical#How_do_I_recover_a_password_I_have_forgotten?. Is that what you already tried? You can only do the recovery if you had an email address connected to your account. -- Auntof6 (talk) 16:53, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

If you haven't connected an email address to your lost account, you may create a new account and state that you had a previous account. 🪐 Haumeon the Adventurer 🪐 16:55, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Coming soon: A new sub-referencing feature – try it!

Hello. For many years, community members have requested an easy way to re-use references with different details. Now, a MediaWiki solution is coming: The new sub-referencing feature will work for wikitext and Visual Editor and will enhance the existing reference system. You can continue to use different ways of referencing, but you will probably encounter sub-references in articles written by other users. More information on the project page.

We want your feedback to make sure this feature works well for you:

• Please try the current state of development on beta wiki and let us know what you think.
• Sign up here to get updates and/or invites to participate in user research activities.

Wikimedia Deutschland’s Technical Wishes team is planning to bring this feature to Wikimedia wikis later this year. We will reach out to creators/maintainers of tools and templates related to references beforehand.

Please help us spread the message. --Johannes Richter (WMDE) (talk) 10:36, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:How to write Simple English pages

File:Simple wikipedia.png

Vandalism

Anyone know how to change this? Cactus🌵 ^{spiky ouch} 12:36, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Short descriptions on Simple English Wikipedia are updated through Wikidata. I've reverted the vandalism—thank you for pointing it out. – Cyber.Eyes2005^Talk 12:58, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Template categorizations

Currently in Simple Wikipedia, we have many templates for YYYY categories that very easily take categories such as Category:1985 establishments and puts it into Category:1985, Category:Establishments by year, etc. These templates are very useful as they provide an easy way to regulate and edit many similar categories quickly. However, this does not always work. In the case of Category:1930 movies, I do not think it is likely that there will ever be a category for Category:1930 in entertainment, which is a red link. This is very common (see Special:WantedCategories), and detracts from the quality of the categories since it becomes harder to navigate.

I wonder if we could instead auto-categorize to the decade if there is not an existing category year through the template. In this case, Category:1900 movies would be categorized into Category:1930s in entertainment. Does anybody know if this is possible? MrMeAndMrMe_Talk 16:53, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

This somewhat exists in Template:Category if exists. This would categorize the category if said category existed. However, there is no parameter for if the category does not exist, and instead just removes the category entirely. So it would need to check if the category for the "year in entertainment" exists, and if not, it would use the "decade in entertainment". (see the enwiki article on "else statements") Is this possible? MrMeAndMrMe_Talk 17:03, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

It should be possible by directly using the "ifexist" function (if that's the right term) that the template uses. What if the decade-in-entertainment category doesn't exist, either? How far up the chain would you go to find a category that exists?

We actually had a discussion a while back about whether templates should assign categories at all. -- Auntof6 (talk) 17:13, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

What about using the "ifexists" function and manually adding the larger parent category if the specific one doesn't exist? Like the change made by @Auntof6 in this category: Category:2002 establishments in Australia (ignore my changes just look at Auntof6's). ✩ Dream Indigo ✩ 17:29, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant by @MrMeAndMrMe, I confused you two, my bad. ✩ Dream Indigo ✩ 17:29, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

@Auntof6 I probably do not have the skills to implement a LUA function, but I think it is definitely possible. Addressing your second point, I think we could just use "if else" statements up to the relevant century. If the category for the century does not exist, then that is an issue on its own. In most cases, the category for the century can pretty easily be filled. If there is another discussion for if templates should have categories, that would be an interesting one because I can see both sides of it, but for now I think using another template would solve the current issue pretty well.

@Dream Indigo this does not work for every category. I was able to change that category from "2002 establishments in Oceania" to "2000s establishments in Oceania" because that category is not part of the template. However, let's say "2002 establishments by country" did not exist. Then you could not easily change this. I suppose one could manually add on "2000s establishments by country", but that does not fully address the problem in my opinion. MrMeAndMrMe_Talk 17:38, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

@MrMeAndMrMe But if we change all template-categories to be included only "ifexists", then they will never appear as red categories, I believe. I might be wrong though. ✩ Dream Indigo ✩ 17:52, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

@Dream Indigo: I think you're right. I think that's why this kind of thing was not adopted in the past. -- Auntof6 (talk) 17:53, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Maybe there can be code included to both include the red categories and the closest category near it, so it is useful to both navigate and edit to see wanted categories. MrMeAndMrMe_Talk 17:55, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

@MrMeAndMrMe: I don't think there's any Lua required. There's Lua inside the ifexists structure, but that's just what is done if the if condition is met. I just createdTemplate:Category if exists/sandbox with the code indented to show the actual structure. I think the ifexist things existed before we had Lua here. -- Auntof6 (talk) 17:52, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

31 RfDs numbered 1..27..

Topic says it all? Eptalon (talk) 19:48, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

@Eptalon It's because these aren't listed at WP:Requests for deletion:

1. Wikipedia:Requests for deletion/Requests/2024/Umaima al-Baghdadi
2. Wikipedia:Requests for deletion/Requests/2024/Oleksandr Klassen
3. Wikipedia:Requests for deletion/Requests/2024/Ali Malikov
4. Wikipedia:Requests for deletion/Requests/2024/199 (number)

The 4th RFD seems to be vandalism. 2601:644:9083:5730:EDCD:F32E:CE64:CD67 (talk) 19:55, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I'll add them later, thank you... Eptalon (talk) 19:57, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Added them all, but closed the last one as a speedy keep... Eptalon (talk) 20:16, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Good evening

I just need to ask whether there is a bot that archives talk pages for use on my talk page? ToadetteEdit (talk) 15:45, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

@ToadetteEdit: Yes, there is. You use it by putting User:MiszaBot/config at the top of your user talk page. There are instructions in the doc on that page. You can see an example on my talk page (and many other user talk pages), but don't make an exact copy of what's on my talk page because it's specific to me. If you need help setting it up, feel free to ask. -- Auntof6 (talk) 16:09, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! ToadetteEdit (talk) 16:24, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Mainly here to seek approval

I recently created a category for pages tagged as {{historical}} (Category:Historical pages) but wanted to see if there was any opposition to me making it so any transclusion of the template would automatically add it to the cat.- FusionSub (Talk page) (Contributions) 13:48, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

No opposition from me. --Ferien (talk) 10:56, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Support ✩ Dream Indigo ✩ 12:14, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Support Cactus🌵 ^{spiky ouch} 02:23, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good fr33kman 12:14, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Sign up for the language community meeting on August 30th, 15:00 UTC

Hi all,

The next language community meeting is scheduled in a few weeks—on August 30th at 15:00 UTC. If you're interested in joining, you can sign up on this wiki page.

This participant-driven meeting will focus on sharing language-specific updates related to various projects, discussing technical issues related to language wikis, and working together to find possible solutions. For example, in the last meeting, topics included the Language Converter, the state of language research, updates on the Incubator conversations, and technical challenges around external links not working with special characters on Bengali sites.

Do you have any ideas for topics to share technical updates or discuss challenges? Please add agenda items to the document here and reach out to ssethi(__AT__)wikimedia.org. We look forward to your participation!

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:19, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

WMF ignoring or just not responding to my emails?????

Just going to collapse this. The person contributing to this discussion appears to only be using proxies and is likely evading some sort of block as a result. --Ferien (talk) 19:10, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Is there a reason for that?????? 14.52.105.175 (talk) 02:20, 24 August 2024 (UTC) (Non-administrator observation) What mails? I do not this is a place to discuss WMF mails. Probably they are busy, or you send something offensive/spam. Cactus🌵 spiky ouch 02:22, 24 August 2024 (UTC) I sent several emails to them about something I will not be disclosing here Im not sure where else would be the place to discuss getting responses back from WMF to emails sent to them if this is not the place for it 14.52.105.175 (talk) 02:26, 24 August 2024 (UTC) maybe meta? Cactus🌵 spiky ouch 02:47, 24 August 2024 (UTC) Administrator note: User blocked (open proxy), global block requested. MathXplore (talk) 04:33, 24 August 2024 (UTC) @Cactusisme: I sent them another email about the same thing just now... Im really really really really really hoping they get to it as soon as possible... 166.198.157.47 (talk) 18:41, 24 August 2024 (UTC) Which address are you sending these emails to? --Ferien (talk) 18:46, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Temple of Confucius

I have been working on this article for some time, and it is currently listed as a proposed Good Article. I welcome reviews from editors regarding its level of simplification—specifically, is it simple enough? Which sections might still need improvement? I believe the article meets the other requirements for Good Article status, and I have fixed most of the red links; only one remains in the history section and one in the infobox. The article has been on the proposed Good Article list for a while now, so consider providing feedback and voting there. – Cyber.Eyes.2005^Talk 20:12, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

RFC: Move TV seasons

On English Wikipedia they removed the parentheses for all articles about TV seasons, per an RFC. For example, from The Simpsons (season 1) to The Simpsons season 1. Should Simple English Wikipedia do this too?

Note: RFC stands for "Request for comment".

• Support Per WP:FOLLOW. Also, the season number is not disambiguation, so it would be better not to be in parentheses. Yamazaki Kaoru (talk) 17:37, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Yamazaki Kaoru Here on the Simple talk we don't use voting templates. Also, that seems like a big change. I never expected that to happen. We (Simple Wikipedia) should have our own discussion. After all, we should not just blindly import rules from over there, but instead discuss them and see if they should be here too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Haumeon (talk • contribs) 23:43, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

@Haumeon: I think we do use the kind of template that Kaoru used to show support or opposition. Did you see a guideline or something about that? -- Auntof6 (talk) 01:00, 27 August 2024 (UTC)