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 Note that you should not change the archives, so if something that has been archived needs discussing, please start a new discussion on this page.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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Action: Change the languages on the Log in page

In December and January we had a discussion about Proposal: Change the languages on the Log in page. There was a pretty clear consensus to change, with some details of exactly which languages to include. Then, it dropped of the Simple Talk page. Probably just an automated time limit thing? Anyway, the hold up seemed to be that very few people have the permissions to make the change. I would help out of I could, but I can't. Can this be put in place? Thanks, --Gotanda (talk) 05:41, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

The change is easy and can be done in a second. The deciding on the languages is the hard part as Chenzw mentions near the end of that discussion there is no consensus on which languages to include. -Djsasso (talk) 11:03, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Gotanda's suggestions seemed fair to me, in my opinion. I agree the current languages are not ideal for a world audience. --IWI (talk) 11:04, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Gotanda's list at the end. I think the most important languages are English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, and Hindi. Naddruf (talk) 02:07, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Chinese Traditional or Simplified? I'm assuming by Chinese it means Mandarin? --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 02:10, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't know about Traditional or Simplified, but aren't the different varieties of Chinese written the same? Naddruf (talk) 03:14, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm not too sure, I would imagine they would be very similar. I can only speak Cantonese, but listening to Mandrain is way different than Cantonese. Just to give some contex, for Japanese Chinese characters (Kanji), they are read differently than regular Chinese, but have the same characters. Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 01:31, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

The discussion stopped last time as the topic was moved / fell off Simple Talk into the archives. Over the past and current discussion, it seems we have a general consensus on this from many people, but つがる makes a good point about Chinese and we should probably include both to avoid prioritizing one over the other, so that gets us to something like this:

عربى | 中文 (正體字) (简化字) | English | español | français | हिन्दी | Indonesian | русский | Swahili.

Is that OK to go ahead with? Or, anything else to be changed? Thanks all. It's just a login page. People may login on another wiki. But for first time visitors, I think something like this shows a more welcoming face than Esperanto etc.--Gotanda (talk) 02:30, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

@Gotanda: I support the above suggestion. --IWI (talk) 16:32, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Support The above is good. --Belwine (talk) 16:35, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

I have to ask why Indonesian? That does not seem like its on the same level as the others and seems to put an over emphasis on that region by having four asian-based languages (five if you count russia)? Seems like it puts us in the opposite problem of being too asia centric instead of too euro centric. English, Spanish and French while starting in Europe are the main languages for countries around the world not just Europe whereas I can't say the same for Indonesian. I would probably drop both Indonesian and Russian. -Djsasso (talk) 11:31, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
I happen to agree with Djsasso --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:59, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

With just under 200 million speakers and then with roughly mutual intelligibility for most Malaysians for this purpose that makes about 230 million. Four European languages (English, Spanish, French, and Russian) and three/four Asian (Chinese (two scripts) Hindi, Indonesian) seemed not out of line. Africa is relatively lightly represented with Swahili and to some extent Arabic but is also covered by the colonial languages. That was the thinking there. If it has to go, it has to go. If it stays, I guess it should also be localized to Bahasa Indonesia. Too bad this conversation stopped when it was pulled off Simple Talk in the first place. My priority for this proposal was to make the login more inclusive and get rid of the current design which seems more than a little odd and doesn't represent us well. --Gotanda (talk) 05:19, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Personally, I would never be without German, which is one of the two most important languages of science & technology, and is almost the lingua franca of east and central Europe. Don't forget that Arabic covers north Africa pretty well, while none of the native African languages do the job at all well. English (and sometimes Arabic) is the lingua franca of countries below the the northern coast. The argument against such languages as Malaysian is that they have no reach, and virtually no international use. You can't judge these things by population of the country of origin alone. Hindi is probably a better international language than Mandarin. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:41, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Excuse me for coming in a second time. I think we should do more than I suggested above. We should consider listing each language in English, not in its own script and language. Many will not know that Cymraeg is Welsh, that Gaeilge is Irish, Scots is just a dialect of English, that Ido is goodness what, but not a regular language, that the oriental script is not just Chinese, but Mandarin... and so on. Not only should we cut out some of the nonsense, but list properly in English the links to the world's greatest languages. If that language uses a different script then that can be added in brackets. There really is no upside to listing in scripts which most of out readers cannot decode. Improving the usability of this side-list is important. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:32, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

If you mean the interwiki links, they are written in their own language so that people who actually can read those languages can find the link to the language they understand. It is important they are in their own language to help users that actually need those languages and can't read English and for some reason ended up on our pages. People who can't understand those languages probably don't need to know what they are links too because they won't go there anyway. -Djsasso (talk) 11:10, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Macdonald-ross makes a good point as well. How many speakers in a given country is somewhat irrelevant if the languages have little to no reach beyond their own borders which is why I suggested on going with the lingua franca from the countries our stats say our visitors are coming from because those choices would actually be helpful to our readers as opposed to just looking like we are trying to be broad based. As for why the login page is the way it is, what we have is just the default languages from the WMF, they were not chosen specifically for simple. Not sure why they are what the WMF chose for the default but they are. Esperanto I assume is included because it is intended to be the cross-language language but other than that no idea. -Djsasso (talk) 11:04, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure I get that transborder reach is more important; having a very large number of speakers in just one or two countries is important enough. I would like to ask you to reconsider this, dj, "just looking like we are trying to be broad based." I have not proposed this for appearances sake. We should be broad based. I think that the languages presented at the login matter. And, that a better selection makes the site more welcoming, more accessible, and more inline with larger Wikipedia goals. As far as number of visitors from country by IP goes, I think that is less useful for reasons I have already outlined in the previous discussion: one, country/ip address does not equate to language of the user; two, just counting the current users is a feedback loop--it's a bit like looking for your dropped keys under lamp post. Making the login more immediately appealing to a greater variety of people may help us get beyond our current reach rather than just concentrating on it. There can be some changes around the edges of the list, but any of the proposed versions of that list would be better than what we have now. It can always be improved later. --Gotanda (talk) 09:00, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

I guess we will have to agree to disagree, I think it is substantially more important to be useful to the people actually using the site rather than just trying to look welcoming to people who may possibly come here. I think that is a detriment to the people who are actually coming here which could lead to the shrinking of our userbase due to not being as welcoming to them. This is where the appearances sake comes in, we are just trying to look welcoming for people who may or may not come here while actively being less welcoming to people who do actually come here. But yes, I think the language being transborder is important because it means more countries reached by that language, thus more of the world being covered by that language, rather than a small single country. -Djsasso (talk) 11:43, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Looking at the list of countries with visitors, I think we should definitely add Hindi, because India is the country with the second most visits. I think it's reasonable to keep German, but remove Esperanto, as almost nobody uses it. Also add Russian, because Russia is the non-English speaking country with the most visits (after India). I think we can probably remove Italian, but doing that is not necessary. Even if we don't make all the changes as originally proposed, it would be good if we do this. Assuming, of course, that we keep multiple languages on the Login page. Lights and freedom (talk) 17:49, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

OK, I'll support this. We seem agreed that at least this should be done. Macdonald-ross (talk) 19:46, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Yeah I can get on board with that. -Djsasso (talk) 20:44, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

DJ and Mac, several users supported my suggestions. You seem to have changed up the list. Can one of you provide what you now think that list should be so that everyone who weighed in before can have a look and see if they still support or oppose? Thanks, -- Gotanda (talk) 04:30, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Can this still be done? Add Hindi and Russian, remove Esperanto, Italian, and maybe Dutch? Lights and freedom (talk) 17:01, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Talk page messages

Our talk page message is large and vulgar. I think it may deter users from sensible use of the talk page. I almost never see any use of the talk page after that notice is put up. We should replace it with a two-line wording which is friendlier to the eye. Indeed we should try and educate users to make constructive suggestions on the talk page, which is rarely done on this wiki. In general, IPs can't make direct changes to En wiki pages, and their talk pages are informative and helpful to the work on the topic page. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:44, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Which talk page message are you talking about? --Auntof6 (talk) 09:04, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

The many talk pages where a regular editor has deleted some silly or inappropriate comment. As it looks for this particular page:

... but in general it shows without the archive section. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:01, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

That is why these headers are put on the page, they give links on how to appropriately contribute. -Djsasso (talk) 13:56, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Would the fix here be to have some high level topic specific talk page headers? i.e. History, Sports, Geography, ect. That might make discussions on those topics more likely?--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 00:02, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I think that would just be wasted effort with little benefit. Talk pages aren't used much here because there aren't many editors. Lights and freedom (talk) 04:30, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I would tend to agree with this. Really we started adding these to talk pages more often mostly so admins didn't have to keep deleting vandalized talk pages and if I recall correctly we thought it was more welcoming if someone else stumbled onto the talk page than the typical deleted page message. To be honest we likely don't ever need them on this wiki because there is rarely any talk on talk pages. -Djsasso (talk) 03:08, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

I mostly meant that there is no need for topic specific talk page headers. Lights and freedom (talk) 05:08, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

I understand, I was expanding on my thoughts. -Djsasso (talk) 10:52, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Articles

Can someone check the Alutor language and Alutor Numerals articles. I can't make much sense out of them. I think the Numerals article has the wrong title, but I have no idea what's with the Language article... Etoza (talk) 14:10, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

That's strange. It is about Algerian Arabic, but it is titled Alutor Numerals. Darubrub (Let me know) 17:20, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Twinkle's rollback does not work on user contribs page

It's a useful Twinkle feature to revert multiple edits of an LTA or a persistent vandal quickly from their user contributions page. However, the feature seems to be broken on Simple English Wikipedia. It would instead redirect me to https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/(article name)&twinklerevert=norm. Is there any fix to this? --*Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page ♮ 10:53, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Call for Election Volunteers

Hi everyone,

Would you like to get the right people elected to the Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees?

Voter turnout in prior elections was about 10% globally. We know we can get more voters to help assess and promote the best candidates, but to do that, we need your help.

We are looking for volunteers to serve as Election Volunteers. You can read more about this role here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2021/2021-04-29/Call_for_Board_Elections_Volunteers

Election Volunteers should have a good understanding of their communities. The facilitation team sees Election Volunteers as doing the following:

• Promote the election in their communities’ channels
• Organize discussions about the election in their communities
• Translate messages for their communities

Do you want to be an Election Volunteer for Simple Wikipedia or any of the Wiki projects, and connect your community with this movement effort? Check out more details about Election Volunteers and add your name next to the community you will support in this table or get in contact with a facilitator. We aim to have at least one Election Volunteer for Wiki Projects in the top 30 for eligible voters. Even better if there are two or more sharing the work.

If you have any questions or comments regarding this role please reach out to me or any of the board governance facilitators.

Best,Zuz (WMF) (talk) 11:33, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi, Zuz (WMF)! I'm interested in this role - I am currently looking the guidelines and the requirements for it. I am however, not as active on weekdays, I am more active on weekends, would this affect the role much? Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:03, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Hello つがる, thank you for expressing interest in the Election volunteer role. And no, your availability on only weekends will not affect the role. More than one person can sign up for this role. So everyone can work within the time that works best for them. Regards,Zuz (WMF) (talk) 09:31, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Template Error Help

As I am going through articles on checks; this page 2021 FIFA World Championship is throwing errors on the template and are visible in the article. I am not familiar with them, so I am asking for help on this. Thanks! PotsdamLamb (talk) 15:49, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Afghan categories

I need some help with something. I want to merge Category:Afghan leaders with Category:Afghan politicians (which I just made), but I don't know the best way to do it. Is it okay to put monarchs in the politicians category? If anybody has more experience than me, they can fix it. 2601:640:4000:3170:A92B:B732:D71B:29DF (talk) 20:23, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

@2601:640:4000:3170:A92B:B732:D71B:29DF: I don't think it is appropriate to merge, but I've added Afghan leaders as a subcat of Afghan politicians. Regards, --Ferien (talk) 20:25, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

@Ferien: Shouldn't it be the other way around? You don't have to be a politician to be a leader. Or does "leader" mean something here other than "a person who leads"? --Auntof6 (talk) 00:24, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

The equivalent on enwiki is w:Category:Heads of state of Afghanistan, which is a subcat of w:Category:Afghan politicians. The categories in the heads of state category are similar to the ones we have in Category:Afghan leaders. Category:Afghan monarchs is in Category:Afghan leaders because the monarchs led the country at that stage and so - I think - they are politicians, they are involved in the politics of the country. --Ferien (talk) 10:19, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Good articles, again...

Hello, I just wanted to point out that there are a few articles in the Proposed good articles section. Some of them may be closer to being promoted than others. This is simply a message, so that editors can have a look and add their thoughts on the different candidates...--Eptalon (talk) 20:59, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Why does the WikiLove feature not exist on this wiki?

That would be a real helpful feature. Why doesn't it exist? SoyokoAnis - talk 15:11, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't think there is any particular reason why, it just doesn't.

I've never used it before, I tried it out, I like how it works, it would be nice to have it here... --Ferien (talk) 15:57, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I also wanted this feature here. --Hulged ⟨talk⟩ 16:00, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

We discussed it and decided not to implement it. If I remember correctly, it was because it requires upkeep and we didn't want that extra burden on our small wiki. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:55, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Yea, and I personally don't see a need for it either, I usually just go to the barnstars page and get the template(s) there anyways --Tsugaru Let's Talk! :) 🍁 23:41, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Enabling Twinkle

Hello I am autoconfirmed and I used twinkle today but I disabled it and I forgot how to re-enable it. Please help me. -Leo (let's talk) (my help) 19:13, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

@Leo12350: Go to your gadget preferences and you should be able to reenable it. :) --Ferien (talk) 19:16, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, thanks. BTW I was looking to ask you that on your talk page. Anyways, thanks. -Leo (let's talk) (my help) 19:18, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Anything comparable to Resource Exchange: Resource Request here?

Does Simple English Wikipedia have anything comparable to Resource Exchange: Resource Request on the regular English Wikipedia? Futurist110 (talk) 23:36, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

No. We're much to small of a wiki to run something like that.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 23:41, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Do you know if any Wiki other than the English Wikipedia has anything comparable to this? Futurist110 (talk) 03:26, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately I do not know. I'm not fortunate enough to know more than 1 language. We do have a few editors from other languages who frequent here, maybe they will know. My possibly uneducated guess is that it'll be a no across the board, as nobody can quite match the English Wikipedia's activity level. And certainly that undertaking is resource intensive.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 03:34, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Medal Table Help

Please see my help request at David de Gea. Thanks! PotsdamLamb (talk) 15:43, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

• @Djsasso: - Thanks for fixing it. I used the template that I thought would work. I am still getting used to them. Thanks for fixing it. Next time, can you please comment and ping so I know. I almost forgot about this request! Thanks! PotsdamLamb (talk) 07:18, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

How much further should this article be simplified?

I created and translated this article using Simple English, but do I also need to simplify this article's structure, or what? :

U.S. economic performance under Democratic and Republican presidents

If so, I could do that while keeping the tables in this article intact. Futurist110 (talk) 04:17, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Specifically, if necessary, I can outright remove and/or shorten some sections and the intro in this article. Futurist110 (talk) 07:13, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Issues with this page: I don't want to get too far into this, but the page should show population growth, which is very significant in various ways. Even more significant is the effect of WWII on global competitiveness. It's no surprise that Truman did so well, with the main competitors knocked out!! In any event the page is just a data page, but it suggests by implication that the main factor in the economic results is the political leadership. This might be true for some presidents but not most. Suppose a thirteen-year-old reads it. What are they supposed to think about its data? Isn't there an interpretation of how the data makes sense? I think there isn't, but if there is I'd like to read it. If not, why have the page at all? There are things which are so, so important, such as the exporting of manufacture from the U.S. (and the U.K., incidentally) to Asia, the re-entry of China (and Eastern Europe) into the world markets, and goodness knows what else! We should point out some of this. The world is not a level playing field... Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:26, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I have now simplified this page further. To be honest, I made it clear that the reasons for this were unclear but this nevertheless appears to be a sufficiently notable topic because it's sometimes discussed in the media. For what it's worth, I personally think that a large part of the reason for the economic overperformance under Democratic US Presidents is that they tend to come to power when the economy is, on average, is in worse shape than for when Republican US Presidents come to power. But that's simply my own unsourced speculation and thus I can't actually include this in this article. Futurist110 (talk) 21:00, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Oh, there's no question about notability. It's not so much that I want these questions answered, but rather what I think about is the implication that the choices of President were the main issues in determining the U.S. economy. As to unemployment rates, well Johnson did have an aggregate total of 2.7 million serving in Vietnam, (peak was over half a million)!! I don't think they were counted as unemployed!

There's a useful concept "graininess" which argues that the graininess of the world makes most generalisations vacuous. The classic attempt to make sense of amounts of huge information in a few simple ideas was Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Anyway, I think you should caution that much went on is not in the figures, and that how they are interpreted is often debateable. Incidentally, you should put the acknowledgement on the talk page. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:38, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

List of scientists

I think List of scientists is too broad, so it should probably be replaced with a set of links to all the lists of scientists in individual subjects: List of biologists, List of mathematicians, List of physicists, etc. Is it okay if I do that? Lights and freedom (talk) 21:39, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

@Lights and freedom: I wouldn't do that, because List of scientists has them grouped by country. That's different from grouping them by field or specialty. You could certainly add links to the other pages to the "Related pages" section of List of scientists. --Auntof6 (talk) 01:41, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Okay, I've added the links. If anybody thinks it would be better, I can sort the countries by continent. Lights and freedom (talk) 02:42, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Enabling global sysops on this wiki

Hi, I propose allowing Global Sysops to work on this wiki. It is currently not enabled because the community has more than 10 admins/3 active sysops, but I strongly recommend that the community opt-in because they often help in combating spam and vandalism (eg GRP/LTA). As an en.wikibooks admin, I can attest to the work they do and have no issues with them at all. This will also allow stewards to block routine spam/vandalism (which they cannot do now as per the global rights policy). Thanks in advance, and please ping me if you need further input, since I don't watch this page.

P.S: Global sysops won't interfere with normal Wikipedia matters (for instance they do not have access to Special:UserRights) - their role is codified in the policy page and is more or less handling spam or vandalism. This wiki can also use its global rights policy (Wikibooks' version) to make any restrictions if needed (such as not allowing use of editinterface). They're there to help you. Leaderboard (talk) 14:26, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't see why not. If someone is seriously vandalising and no-one can stop it, global sysops can help, and when I am requesting deletions on smaller wikis, I always notice that global sysops are very quick to respond. Thanks for suggesting this Leaderboard, I was thinking about it after I saw your discussion on wikivoyage a few weeks ago! --Ferien (talk) 17:39, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

• If a bunch of admins come here and say "yeah we are swamped and could really use the help" then I think I would be easily persuaded otherwise, however my initial thought is thanks, but no thanks. In our current sysops team I count 3 global sysops, 2 stewards, and a whopping 7 checkusers in addition to another 8 sysops. In my humble opinion, that is plenty of hands to deal with what feels like a relatively manageable level of vandalism on this Wikipedia, and we have many people who are well versed in cross wiki spam and dealing with LTA users. In short, I don't think opting in would hurt the wiki, but I'm not convinced we really need to.--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 19:51, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

  @Gordonrox24 Very true, and sysops are in different time zones so there is usually a sysop active and ready to stop. SoyokoAnis - talk 02:45, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

  Even if that's the case (and I'm not the best person to judge on it, though I did have to flag stewards in the past when trying to handle cross-wiki attacks since no local admin was around), as you noted, GS can still help and I don't see their inclusion as detrimental. If indeed that assertion is true, all that means is that GS will use their powers less. Leaderboard (talk) 07:16, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

VIP

Twinkle reports as null when I try to report IP ranges (see my recent diffs). How can I solve this? Darubrub (Let me know) 17:03, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

It's an issue with Twinkle that will likely be solved when we import from enwiki to solve a few issues in our current system. (I have no idea when that's going to happen but it is probably going to happen soon...) --Ferien (talk) 17:37, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Black hole promoted to Good article...

Hello all, I took the liberty and promoted Black hole to Good article. The last few changes were small simplifications, and the otiginal nomination was from last year. Congratulations on all those who contributed. --Eptalon (talk) 07:56, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Great job! SoyokoAnis - talk 02:42, 11 May 2021 (UTC)