Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 3

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This is a copy of old messages from Simple Talk. They were moved here on September 5, 2006.

Project direction

Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:Project charter

New Main Page

Hello all. What do you think about this version of Main Page? It's based on polish Wikipedia Main Page by Toudi. I've just modified it (added some colours, etc.), and it is done now. Could it be the new Main Page? Greets, --odder 22:27, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

This section has been moved to User_talk:Odder/Main_Page.

I think it's ready to go now. Any further comments, make them quick. Archer7 19:03, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Is that so now you can write more, why not write write write so people read read read here we go

$1???

When you search, why does "For more information about searching Wikipedia, see $1." appear? Shouldn't it be something like "For more information about searching Wikipedia, see Wikipedia search help page?" EvilReborn 20:16, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Something to do with the MediaWiki software. --Thorpe | talk 21:51, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
It's a problem with the internal messages. I'll try to fix it, but it's quite difficult. Might need to ask Netoholic... Archer7 12:16, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
I think I know how to fix it. $1 is supposed to be a code for a plug-in text. Let me see if I can figure out the specific problem. Blockinblox 13:13, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorted by User:Blockinblox. The current link goes to EN, I'd prefer to have our own version of Wikipedia:Searching. I'll give it a go when I have a bit of time. Archer7 20:47, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Some Suggestions & Questions

Hi. I was wondering if:

1. A "#R" (Redirect) button could be added to the right of the "Horizontal Line" button. I find it rather beneficial, and the regular English Wikipedia already has it.

2. Nobody is in the #wikipedia-simple IRC Chat room. Do you think if the link to the chatroom was visible from the front page, people would start going in there?

3. Can anybody offer incentives to get others to start editing here, and our present members to edit here more?

4. Is the Simple English Wikipedia really reaching the intended audience? How do we know for sure? What is our traffic ranking?

--Shultz 04:16, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

On average, how long is it until someone responds? --Shultz 21:18, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
To comments here, it's normally next-day, but this could need some thought... Archer7 09:12, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, here's what I think:

  1. I'm fine with a redirect button, but I don't have a clue how to do it.
  2. A lot of our regular editors have started to use the IRC channel. Maybe it's a difference in time zones that's catching you out.
  3. I don't know where to start with an incentive scheme, I get satisfaction from working here and seeing people use what I have made.
  4. I can't get our Alexa traffic ranking because we are a subdomain of wikipedia.org and therefore there is only one ranking for all of the Wikipedia projects Archer7 20:45, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
My opinion:
  1. I'm pretty sure adding the #R button requires developer intervention. You'll have to post a request on meta.
  2. Archer7 covered the IRC thing.
  3. Incentives sound good, but really the work satisfaction is best. You could also recruit other places if you want to. I'd say that personal recruiting on user talk pages is best, but don't spam them.
  4. Good question. There should be a way to see the number of page visits to particular sites/subsites. I suppose if necessary we could add a counter to the main page or something. There are users that go directly to articles, but I would guess not many, since Google would give the EN link, not the simple link. Also, traffic doesn't prove whether we are reaching our target audiences, since we don't know if those people fit our target. We should try to find another way to find that out. --Cromwellt|talk 18:49, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

As far as IRC goes, I have it open 24/7 and very few people use #wikipedia-simple. #vandalism-simple-wp attracts a great deal more people, but still not that much. Perhaps a more prominent link would bring more people to the channel, but perhaps not.
Page load counting was phased out with the 1.5 version of MediaWiki. I've yet to see anyone discover an alternative at any of the wikis I edit. A counter, especially the graphic ones, are a small bit... tacky, but if it gets the job done... *shrug* --Keitei 19:14, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

A counter could be a good idea, but it would need to be hidden, perhaps with the results at Wikipedia:Statistics or something. Archer7 13:57, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
There's m:List of largest wikis. Maybe not that useful but at least we know we only get 92 page views. Aurora 07:56, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Broken display

The display of links is broken in Firefox for Mac—words overlap each other. The CSS must be fixed. 67.188.106.155 03:37, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Menu terms

   * Main Page
   * Community portal
   * World news
   * Newest changes
   * Show any page
   * Help
   * Donations


I have never seen the word "newest" before it popped up in the menu in this wiki. Why not use the phrase "New changes" or something else? LoopZilla 20:52, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm fine with 'New changes'. Anyone else got any ideas? Archer7 12:29, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
It crept in because it was changed from "Most recent changes". Aren't changes always new, by the very nature of them? -so whats so bad about the "Newest"? - by that very argument should we not change "Donations" to a simpler word, if there is? -- Eptalon 13:14, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
No, Eptalon, changes are not always new. Sometimes changes are very old. For example, the the change from a DOS-based system to a Windows-based system is a very old change (i.e. a change made long ago). "Newest" is a perfectly respectable word, as long as you speak American English. I don't know if the Brits use it. That page is for the ones that are most recent, therefore "newest" or possibly "most new" is the best word. But "new" works about as well, and is on the BE850, so let's change it. And yes, we should change "donations," not to mention "community portal," as has been previously discussed. --Cromwellt|talk 23:31, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Administrators, this section is a request to change MediaWiki:Sidebar. There don't seem to be any objections, so please do it. --Cromwellt|talk 18:49, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
No, it is a request to change MediaWiki:Recentchanges. 62.116.68.237 (en / de / commons) 16:06, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikiquote again

When I came about a question on Karl Marx, I imported the external references of the English article on Marx. This also refers to Wikiquote. As it has been pointed out by User:Cromwellt, there could be a simple wikiquote, which gives the quotes in full (like en wikiquote, but which includes explanations, like background, difficult words, etc.)

So the question is: Should we create a simple wikiqoute, or should we only refer to the en wikiqoute (which may be unsimple)?

IMO we do not have the manpower atm to run a simple wikiquote, though it would have its merit. -- Eptalon 12:34, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

It is actually not a question of whether or not we should create it. SEWikiquote already exists, it is just currently empty. There have been two votes to have it removed at m:Inactive wikis, and one vote (mine) to keep it open. I admit that I have not yet edited on SEWikiquote either, but I think it is definitely a worthwhile project. If someone does not wish to be a part of it, they don't have to be, but don't stop others from working on it. Thanks for your comments and your recognition of its merit, Eptalon. --Cromwellt|talk 18:49, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
I know I'm leaving it a bit late but a Simple English Wikiquote would be a big mistake. What people say shouldn't be simplified. Quotes are not simplified here, and how is it going to be of use to anyone? You can't include a simple quote in an essay, because that isn't what they said. Wikiquote also doesn't have anything near the demand of Wikipedia, and people just would not use it. I won't stop anyone from doing it, I just think it is an absolutely terrible idea. Archer7 15:50, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your comments, Archer7. You know I respect your opinion, which is why I want to explain. SEWikiquote will not paraphrase anyone's words. That is not its purpose. Its purpose is to explain quotes (which will be exactly the words the person used) using simple English, so that those with little English knowledge can still understand the quotes. Essay writers are not our main audience, but if they did use a quote from us, they would probably use the quote (as is) and our explanation of it. I agree that there is less demand at Wikiquote than at Wikipedia. That is the main reason we still have approximately zero content, as well as approximately two active editors (Michael, who fights vandalism, and me). But whether people will use it or not remains to be seen, and they can't use what doesn't exist. We need to make it before we can judge its reception. I still think it is a worthwhile project, so I'll work on it, and all of you are welcome to join me. I hope this explanation clears things up a bit, and hopefully you don't think it is such a terrible idea now. Happy editing! --Cromwellt|talk 20:12, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm. I'm still a little unsure, but you have cleared up it's purpose a lot. I was rather taking it as just simply writing the quotes in Simple English as well as English on a page, but if you actually say what they mean, that could be a whole lot more interesting. How would this fit into other Wikimedia projects, especially Simple Wikipedia? Archer7 | talk 20:26, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Voted keep on Meta. Every project is a gamble, I'll give it a go. Archer7 | talk 20:30, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your support, Archer7. To answer your question, SEWikiquote still keeps the same basic philosophy as SEWikipedia and SEWiktionary: provide information to people who know little English by using simple English. The only difference here is that it is regarding quotes, and the explanations are what are simple. But I think that corresponds to the relationship between English Wikipedia and English Wikiquote, more or less. We need a lot of help over there, so we're very glad to have you! --Cromwellt|talk 21:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Localised forms of English

I think that we can afford the luxury to leave localised (ie. British, American, Indian, South African,..) forms of English as they are. In real life, our target group will also encounter different forms how a word is spelled. Therefore, attempts to correct flavour (to flavor) are imo not the best edits. -- Eptalon 11:02, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I fully agree with Eptalon on this one. Certainly the differences between British and American English should not be eliminated (this is not an "American" wiki), and most other places on earth where English is the national or main language use a variation of the British form. Good call, Eptalon. --Cromwellt|talk 18:49, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm OK with that. Archer7 15:45, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

WikiReader

Some of you may of heard of the project going on at the moment to produce good quality articles in PDF form intended to be downloaded and printed.

I think the Simple English Wikipedia would get the greatest benefit from publishing our core articles only in printed form. This would mean that copies of our encyclopedia could actually find its way out into the world, rather than just serving the vandals. The majority of our target audience don't know we exist, yet the majority of vandals seem to. The way to solve this is to get out hard copies.

Unfortunately, we are not at a stage where we can even look at printing anything other than our core articles for various reasons, so here's what I suggest:

  1. Establish the firm simplification standard we all talked about in 'Project direction'.
  2. We all start simplifying English core articles, and if necessary rewriting our existing core articles.
  3. We check them ALL as they are simplified and leave notes on talk pages.
  4. We check them again. Lawsuits are not nice.
  5. Export them into PDFs and launch a download site.

I know it is a huge project, but I think it could be done if we put the effort in. Think about it: we put all this work into an encyclopedia, for it to go relatively unnoticed. I think that if we want to see our hard work out there making a difference, this is the way to go. We could make one hell of a difference. Archer7 15:51, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Notes on WikiReader

Hello, I fully agree that the possibility do download a certain article in PDF form, or to even have a searchable (off-line) medium (like a DVD or a CD) that could contain the articles would be a great thing to see.

However, I think the following must happen:

  1. In general, any article (in any version) should be obtainable as a PDF. That means that the conversion from Wiki to PDF is done by a script. It is done on the fly. For performance reasons, PDFs of articles that did not change may be cached in some way. Finding a midway there between cache expiry (ie. when to regenerate a cerain article) and cpu load (regenerating an article on the fly) is probably a difficult task. (To be done later)
  2. We need to agree if a certain article qualifies for inclusion in a bigger reference work (as above). Possible criteria for inclusion are a certain minimum length, a certain number of revisions/proofreadings and a certain Level of simplicity.
  3. Obviously ,we need to find a set of rules, when an article is considered to be simple enough.
  4. Once these two steps have been done, a script could then produce a downloadable media image (ie. a CD- or DVD image). This would be done depending on changes, probably between once a week, and once a month.

So, yes, I agree with what Archer7 said above. -- Eptalon 16:12, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I think that a script would be a huge drain on Wikimedia resources, with the automatic creation and storage. I think for that we could just add a link in the left-hand toolbox and have a script generate it when someone wants it, and delete itself afterwards. There is always the printable version in the toolbox if we could improvise on that. Archer7 17:43, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Do you mean the script generating the pdf content, or the script generating the "disk image"? - As to the first script, I already pointed out that finding a tradeoff between generating all the time, and caching in some way will probably not be easy. The scrpt generating the Disk image, otoh can also be replaced by us putting up a new image once a month. -- Eptalon 20:12, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm talking about the PDF generating script. I see no problem with a disk image. Archer7 21:41, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Interesting idea, though most of Simple Wikipedia's articles are lacking in both quality and content (as Simple Wikipedia currently has few dedicated editors), so there's very few articles (including the core articles) that could be published as PDF's. I think we should first concentrate on improving articles and persuading others from the main Wikipedia to help out, instead of focusing on a WikiReader project.--TBCΦtalk? 19:22, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
The first part of this project is improvingarticles up to a good standard, this is a long term thing. Archer7 19:31, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Before you start this, you need to decide who the target audience is. Who is going to want this wikireader? Are you going to sell it or give it away free? Are there any organisations who would sponsor it? How is it going to be promoted? Who gets to decide what the final content is? Angela 12:33, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

The target audience will have to be finalised in the above 'Project direction' discussion. We will then have to adapt our strategies to effectively meet their needs. I believe that WikiReaders should be free; one of the main ideas of Wikipedia is knowledge not being restricted to those who can afford it, although maybe 'encouraged donations' could be the answer. Sponsorship will need to be investigated further.
I noticed on Meta that free AdWords from Google Grants are being used in Wikipedia advertising. I personally believe AdWords to be one of the most effective Internet advertising schemes out there, perhaps we could look at that. Beyond that it becomes more difficult and relies on our decided target audience. For deciding the final content, we would need a review team set up. It will be difficult and boring on many occasions, but I believe hard work will pay off on this project. Archer7 15:04, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Copyright

The page footer doesn't say that Wikipedia is a registered trademark, like the main English Wikipedia does. Shouldn't this be changed? Perhaps more seriously, Image:Wiki.png is marked as being GFDL, when it's explicitly not (it's copyrighted to the Wikimedia Foundation). 86.132.121.26 18:20, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Done. Freshstart 19:46, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Mozilla/Firefox search plugin

I noticed that we were one of the few Wikipedias without a Mozilla search plugin, so I wrote one. It's currently awaiting approval, and should be appearing on Mozdev very soon. I hope this will help us grow as an encyclopedia. Archer7 16:23, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Slight problem. The plugin does already exist, it just wasn't showing up. Archer7 | talk 12:21, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Featured Articles

Do you think we should have featured articles like the big Wikipedia? I think we should, I was writing by latest article Deliverance and thought of how I was typing it, and was thinking about examples of good pages, bad pages and when they made fun of us on Something Awful (so that we can stop that from happening again), Some pages like Bulbasaur (He's Ash's best friend) and Romeo and Juliet (it's got Leonardo Dicaprio and cars and stuff!) are what I'm talking about.

You can place {{vgood}} on an article's talk page to add it to Category:Very good articles. Archer7 16:57, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Greenhouse gas

I saw a red link and created a new article to fill the void. There's not much there yet, and I'm not too happy with what I've written. Could someone please look at it and perhaps make some suggestions? I'm worried that the style and tone come across as patronising, and that there is too little content. I've never tried to write in simple English before, and it's a lot harder that I would have imagined. As I understand it, the content can be as advanced or as complicated as it needs to be, provided the language is easy to understand. The article hasn't achieved this yet, but with some help I think I can get it to a point where it's acceptable. --Howard Train 05:57, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

You've got nothing to worry about, it's a great page. Perhaps the sentence structure could be simplified in the last paragraph, I'll take a look at that. Simple English articles don't have to be as long as English articles, there are a lot of articles that size here. Archer7 09:43, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

CheckUser

Recent vandalism has needed CheckUsers to find out IP addresses of vandals. This would help us stop vandalism from more advanced vandals more quickly. Please say whether you support or oppose the two users here. Archer7 21:18, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I like the new design! Nice work!

I like this design better. I think it's even better than the original English Wikipedia's, but that's my opinion. Not only is it child-friendly, but I believe it's more universally aesthetically pleasing also. Lets hope the SE Wikipedia grows even faster. Again, nice job. --Shultz 15:26, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm with Shultz. The Main Page is greatly improved and I really like how it looks. Great job, Odder & co.! --Cromwellt|talk 20:16, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
You should fix the font-size of the "Applied Sciences" block. See Safari screenshot. Opera (like Safari, a standard-compliant browser) shows the same. -- aflm (talk) 17:05, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Someone simplify Baseball please

It's not simple. In fact, it appears to be a copy/paste from the original English Wikipedia. Can someone do something about Baseball please? --Shultz 15:27, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

IRC connection problems

I just downloaded mIRC and am trying to connect (to any server) but all I get is "Unable to connect to server (Connection timed out)" plus a help box that says the same thing. I would like to know what the problem is and how I can fix it. Help! --Cromwellt|talk 16:51, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Try to set up your firewall to allow mIRC connections. You might want to install a better (and free) client. Personal suggestions: Opera (easier and faster), Chatzilla (Mozilla Firefox plugin; I don't use it, but many Wikipedians do) and Gaim (all-in-one; IRC, MSN, Yahoo, etc). -- aflm (talk) 18:08, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
I like ChatZilla personally, haven't tried GAIM yet but I've got it. Archer7 | talk 21:12, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, after downloading mIRC, I was frustrated to see that it was not free. I would love to get Chatzilla (and plan to), but currently I have a Firefox extension manager bug which does not allow me to install extensions. As far as firewall settings, because I am on a connection by way of a school, I don't think I have access to those settings on my computer. If I use a different client, will that avoid the firewall issue? Thanks. --Cromwellt|talk 21:40, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
If you are on a school network, I doubt whether you will be able to use IRC, the port will probably be blocked. You should be able to find a web-based client somewhere. Archer7 | talk 21:57, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
The thing is, I can use MSN Instant Messenger without any trouble, so I'm guessing I should be able to use IRC as well. BTW, I fixed the extension manager issue I mentioned (a clean reinstall works wonders), but the webfilter they have doesn't like something about the URL to download Chatzilla (Access denied). And it also doesn't like "hacksrus" which has the local version, because the word "hack" is banned. I thought Opera was a browser. Is the IRC integrated into the browser? I really like Firefox. --Cromwellt|talk 22:31, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, Opera comes with IRC, email, RSS, news, and bittorrent clients integrated. -- aflm (talk) 00:58, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, I got to the site all right, but now I can't download the extension. I think it is the word "chat" that is banned. Since it is in the name of the extension, I can't download it. :( I also downloaded Gaim, but I can't seem to connect to anything, even though I am separately connected to Windows Messenger at this very moment. I'm confused and a bit frustrated. Maybe you're right about the blocked port. I suppose IMs don't use port 6667. Bleh. --Cromwellt|talk 23:21, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
You're stuck with a web-based client then. I'll find one for you, although you may need to use the IP. Archer7 | talk 08:27, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Forget the web-based client, here's the renamed Firefox extension on my webspace. Archer7 | talk 21:46, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for all the trouble you've gone to. I got it alright now. I'll try it out later and let you know if it works for me. --Cromwellt|talk|contris 21:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Core articles

We now have only 91 articles to go until we have finished the list! Nearly there. Archer7 | talk 10:24, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

63 articles to go. That's almost one new article every day. Archer7 | talk 22:39, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
47 articles to go. Archer7 | talk 22:06, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Completed. Now we need to go over them and make sure they're all good. I think that may be a bigger job. Here's a suggested process which we go through:
  1. Fix any immediate problems indicated by tags (like {{unsimple}}) or mentioned on the talk pages.
  2. Structure text
  3. Fact checking and sourcing. - VERY IMPORTANT
  4. NPOV
  5. Expansion - unfortunately necessary for almost all articles
  6. Simplify
  7. Check 'tone' - core articles cannot be written in a patronising tone.
  8. Spell check - I recommend Google Toolbar, but apparently it's causing problems on EN.
  9. Link
  10. Link to sister projects (use EN projects if absolutely necessary)
  11. Skim through for anything you may have missed.
Any thoughts?

MediaWiki messages

Is there a list of them somewhere? I was looking to see if I could fix the broken 'create this article' link on the Search page[1]. Freshstart 21:13, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I found MediaWiki:Nogomatch, but it hasn't changed since December. Anybody have any ideas why the functionality of that got broken recently? Freshstart 21:17, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Don't know what happened there, but the list is at Special:Allmessages. Archer7 | talk 21:23, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I think I've fixed it. Most likely it was a change in how MediaWiki handles the $1 variable. -- Netoholic @ 21:26, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Great. Thanks to you both. Freshstart 22:07, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

This is not directly related, but I recently suggested that we put a link to Simple talk on the navigation bar at MediaWiki talk:Sidebar, but no one noticed. Hopefully mentioning it here will at least get a reaction. --Cromwellt|talk|contris 06:16, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
I just noticed that all our changes to system messages seem to have been removed/changed to the default, even though the message itself still shows the Simple version, and the history shows it as the most recent edit. But something weirder is going on. For example, MediaWiki:Sidebar references "navigation" on the top line, as it should, but MediaWiki:Navigation, where the sidebar references, shows Blockinblox's "Getting around" as the message. If you look to the top left of this page, the message is back to the default, though. Same problem with MediaWiki:Randompage, MediaWiki:Talk, etc. This is possibly related to when MediaWiki default updated some system messages on 28 March, 2006. It seems like it was much more recently that this happened, but Netoholic's removal of Current events is still visible from 27 April, 2006. Maybe it was another software update or something. I would guess that any admin changing the page (just saving it immediately) may fix the problem -- that link removal seems to support the idea. Of course, completely fixing all messages that way is quite a chore since a large number of messages have been simplified since this wiki started. --Cromwellt|talk|contris 06:16, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
My guess is a temporary glitch that is suppressing the local Media Wiki. The modified interface was alright as of yesterday, this just seems to be a new problem as of this morning. Blockinblox 12:34, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
So it isn't just me! That's good to hear. I've been looking at that navbar while editing pages, and I noticed that on some pages it is the default, while on others (my watchlist, this edit page, etc.), local MediaWiki is taking precedence. I hope you're right that it is just a temporary glitch. Oh, and the other simple projects don't seem to have the problem. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 13:46, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Go into your Special:Preferences, and switch your Language preference to "en - English". This will restore the standard messages. There used to be a "simple - Simple English" option, but that seems to have been removed. In any case, "en" and "simple" give the same result. -- Netoholic @ 15:58, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Netoholic

I currently have a big problem with User:Netoholic, our bureacrat, and I would like your comments.

Background: User:Cromwellt has created a deletion template with a reason input, and nominated Wikipedia:Simple English Dictionary for deletion, as circumstances have now changed since its last nomination. User:Netoholic has reverted Cromwellt's edits without explanation, deleted Simple English Wiktionary and removed references to other Simple wikis because he believes the projects are worthless, and has attacked Cromwellt at every turn. While we were discussing this project's direction, I invited Netoholic to comment. He did not, and is now destroying any efforts to implement Simple English Wiktionary. He has even removed the links to other simple wikis from the Recent Changes template.

On the 26th of May, Netoholic left this on Cromwellt's talk page, after he had renominated a page for deletion. I thought this was incredibly rude, and asked Netoholic to explain [2]. I received no reply, yet Netoholic continued to revert Cromwellt's edits. This went on for some time, until Netoholic turned quite nasty. I told Netoholic to calm down, yet he continued to revert and attack Cromwellt. I blocked Netoholic for 24 hours for such bad behaviour. I have since found a few interesting entries in m:Proposals_for_closing_projects. He has ignored all of our discussions here regarding the other projects, and nominated all three other Simple English projects for closure, without even notifying any of us.

He should not be our bureaucrat.

Here's what I want to happen:

  • If you value the other projects, oppose their closure.
  • Demote Netoholic to a normal registered user (including no CheckUser rights), and block him for 3 months.
  • Promote one of our admins to bureacrat level.

I am obviously furious about this, I would appreciate everyone's comments. Archer7 | talk 13:08, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate Archer7 bringing this issue to the community, and I will add my comments. If they are too long, read the TLDR (too long, didn't read) version at the end.
This problem with Netoholic that Archer7 mentions has a much longer history than this week, though Archer7 summarizes this week's manifestations very well. It started when I first became active on this site in January 2006 (I already had an account, though). I commented on Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not that since the Simple English Wiktionary exists, we should use it, and I mentioned associated changes to that page. Netoholic said that that is not how things go here (how he thinks they should go, of course). About this time I nominated Wikipedia:Simple English Dictionary for deletion, since I felt it had been superseded by SEWikt. He voted oppose, but let it go through the process, and after an inconclusive result, he kept it. Fair enough. I did complain on the log about that choice and another, and he responded with modifying the What Wikipedia is not page, saying that Wikipedia is not a democracy. True or not, it smells of someone pushing a non-democratic agenda. I will not detail here the many places and times this issue has arisen, but since then, he has been firmly against SEWiktionary and all other simple projects, out of pride, I think, not because he has anything against them. He and I also clashed over non-core articles, but consensus being with me, he accepted a compromise. Recently, I felt I had community support for references to SEWiktionary, etc., so this week I started changing things that way, including renominating the SE Dictionary page for deletion, for the reasons I mentioned on its talk page and RfD. That's when the events of this week started. Even when I appealed to policy, process, and consensus, he reverted almost everything I did, repeatedly and without explanation. He didn't even explain to Archer7 when asked to.
One other thing: the deletion template I created at first was poorly chosen, since that is the speedy delete template on EWikipedia. Netoholic explained his revert of that edit, and he was right. So I created a different one which he has not touched.
TLDR version:
  1. The problem started when I came, in January.
  2. Netoholic wants to run things here his way, no matter what others say.
  3. I thought I had community support for my changes this week, but Netoholic rudely and repeatedly reverted almost everything I did, even when I appealed to policy, process, and consensus.
  4. He was right about my first deletion template.
What I think should happen:
  1. Even if you are neutral about the other projects, oppose their closure for the sake of those working on them.
  2. Demotion of Netoholic to a regular registered user (the block is up to the admins, but I wouldn't oppose it)
  3. Promote one or two admins to bureaucrats. I nominate Archer7 and Freshstart.
  4. I also nominate Blockinblox for CheckUser so that we can avoid the scenario Netoholic mentioned in his self-nomination for CheckUser. aflm would work if Blockinblox declines, but we probably only need three. Ricky81682 or Angela would also be eligible in my mind, but they haven't edited since May 7/8, so they may not be around enough.
That's what I think. --Cromwellt|talk|contris 23:14, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I started a new section below, please see there (since this is going to be lengthy). -- Eptalon 10:26, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Userboxes

Please help my movement to make userboxes on Simple English Wikipedia! --Sarahgal 18:20, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

See this comment: User_talk:aflm#user_boxes. -- aflm (talk) 20:40, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Just because userboxes have been problematic and debated on English Wikipedia doesn't mean we can't accept them here, at least for now. Babelboxes technically count as userboxes, but I think we should definitely have them, whether we have the other ones or not. However, if we do allow general userboxes, we should only include the ones people are actually using, not import any and every userbox from English Wikipedia. This should be a very small list at the moment, and preferably will expand slowly with the number of users. --Cromwellt|talk|contris 23:18, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I know of at least 4 SE admins who have agreed that Userboxes are more trouble than they are worth and are not allowed on SE Wikipedia. They are an immense distraction and impossible to maintain with our limited resources. -- Netoholic @ 04:02, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Ideally, you would get them to mention that here. Failing that, please list them. As long as you're correct, they shouldn't mind being mentioned. --Cromwellt|talk|contris 10:14, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I think userboxes are a bit useless. Archer7 | talk 10:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm not set on having userboxes, mind you, other than Babelboxes. I just think they can be fun or even useful for some users (I mentioned to Jorgechp that I speak Spanish, and he was very glad to talk to me; if I have a userbox that mentions my skills with Javascript (purely hypothetical), a user with that type of problem could find me for help), and they are harmless, especially if we only allow the ones people are actually using. I also have to wonder how they can be such a huge distraction to any user if that user doesn't use them or mess with them and never will, except if given the chance to delete them. You do your thing, let others do theirs, same as on the core article issue from a while back. As far as maintenance, what is there to maintain? Users add them only as they use them, the boxes stay on their userpages, and we have one page with the full list. I volunteer to keep track of it for now, with some help from Sarahgal perhaps, and I'm sure one or two people will be enough for a long time. If this gets voted down, of course, or nominated for deletion and the consensus says to delete, I won't be that upset, but if someone likes it, where's the harm? Oh, and admins are not the only ones whose opinions count. --Cromwellt|talk|contris 11:01, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm OK with the Babel ones (tho' I don't think we need to construct the complete set of however many hundred would be necessary to cover every language in the world before they're needed), but otherwise I consider people's time spent editing Userboxes, and donated Foundation resources used to display Userboxes, far better spent on actual article content. (EG from EN[3] a dozen edits and still is so low contrast as to be barely legible.) If some day we have so many active editors, that some of them want self-report psychological or other medical issues that may have some bearing on their editing, Categories seem like a less obtrusive, lower-impact way to go. Freshstart 03:37, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I think that, other than the Babel ones, they cause more trouble than they are worth. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:45, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I am an admin and I am one of those who agree with the consensus here, that Userboxes are just the kind of cruft that this project does well without. But right now, there is a user creating several particularly tacky userboxes, despite the above consensus. I will make a note for him to hold off making any more until there is consensus to have them. Blockinblox 19:19, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
After looking at some related discussions on English Wikipedia such as, I have changed my stance on userboxes here. I agree that they should be kept out of the main and template: namespaces, but I feel that they should be allowed in the user: namespace (including possibly some archival subpages), with perhaps some form of links between them. However, I think that Netoholic's wholesale deletion of the boxes recently created was inappropriate, despite the apparent consensus here. He should have migrated those boxes to the user: namespace rather than deleting them. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 22:11, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't think Neto's done anything wrong here, just following consensus. Haven't you only just suggested migrating to the user namespace in that note? I'm still against userboxes because once they start, they will get out of control. I once saw a userpage that had so many userboxes about the user's political views that it could have probably started a war. Things like This user hates George W. Bush instantly turns almost all of his supporters against that user. The president-hater would then have any edits on something like the Iraq War in people's mind as certainly not NPOV. Although userboxes can be useful, I just think they create huge divides in the community. Archer7 | talk 22:34, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
True enough, Archer7. Thanks for the feedback. It isn't very fair of me to blame Netoholic for not following an alternate solution which had not been previously mentioned. I withdraw my complaint, as you can see above. Let me say this: I think we should migrate all non-Babel userboxes to the user: namespace (preferably a subpage of the users who create them) rather than deleting them, or at least give that user fair warning (at least a week) before deletion. I also think we should create an official policy regarding userboxes. See Wikipedia talk:Userboxes for my comments and User:Cromwellt/Userboxes for a proposed policy. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 22:46, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
I think we should only allow Babel boxes and Wikipedia/Wikimedia-related boxes (eg administrator, Wikiquotian etc). Even Wikipedia boxes can create divides, so they must be tightly controlled. Archer7 | talk 11:09, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm definitely with Archer7 on that point. I forgot about Wikipedia/Wikimedia boxes. I even have three on my userpage, which I would prefer not be deleted. :D But I'm all for tight control as far as that's concerned. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 03:04, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Conflict resolution proposal for admin disputes

Hello I started this as a response to the Netoholic section above. First, let me state, that I am unaware of a way to sort out disputes between administrators, especially if both of them claim to be the one who is right. I think the main thing to see about doing something which has more impact is consensus. I do not think that a straw poll on which of the two admins has a more legitimae position is the right thing to do either.

So instead of throwing dirt at each other, we should take this chance to get at least a guideline how to do such things here.

For the time being, Netoholic is our bureaucrat. He had this position when I came here (End of Nov 2005). I assume he got that position for what he did here. When he was elected, the users that were active then, probably had a reason to elect him. However, since I have been here, Nethoholic has not been overly active, at least not in areas well visible to the public. He also has remained noticeably silent about this conflict, perhaps in an attempt not to escalate things.

User:Archer7 has just recently been promoted to be an Administrator. He seems to be quite active, and even through his status change has continued to edit articles, just as normal users do.

Cromwellt is the user whose edits sparked all this.

The blocking of an administrator through another admin came as a surprise to me. Personally, I do not see the comments made by Nethoholic as insulting as Archer7. Archer7 might have overreacted, or misjuded the gravity of the situation. However, let us assume that his judgenment was right, and his reaction adequate. What tools did he have to calm down the conflict? - The bloking was more or less the only tool (here in wp, not counting email). Since Netoholic was blocked to calm down the same decision should have been taken for Archer7 (who was in a similar state of mind).

That the decisions that infuence this project (namely, to discontinue SE Wiktionary) are taken at meta, and not on SE Wikipedia (which is probably most affected by this) are unfortunate. The only thing that could be changed in the short run would be to mention such votes going on (and decisions being taken) here on the talk page.

My proposal for resolving such a conflict

  • There is a page where such conflicts can be pointed out (by anyone who sees them)
  • Each of the involed parties voices their opinions regarding that conflict on that forum
  • A board of selected users (that can be named by both parties) decides on what to do.


Short version (on the current issue Archer7/Netoholic/Cromwellt) for those without the time to read

  • At the moment, we do not have Netoholic's version of what actually happened.
  • It is therefore hard to decide, if Archer7's reaction (24h block of Netoholic, for perceived rudeness towards a user) was adequate
  • There are not that many tools available to calm such a conflict. A short-term block (to let users calm down) is one of them.
  • The question whether Netoholic's bureaucrat status is warranted is something completely different.

Of course, all comments are welcome -- Eptalon 11:09, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Eptalon, I want to thank you for your comments. I am more than willing to submit to the decision of a sort of informal mediation panel. In fact, I have been hoping for something like this almost since these issues started back in January. I would only like to note again that I felt my edits were done according to consensus, and I still feel that way. --Cromwellt|talk|contris 11:35, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I may have over-reacted, that's why I've asked people for their opinions on this. I think it may be best to put the new bureaucrat nominations on hold until we have discussed this and decided on a course of action. I have invited Netoholic to comment here and I admit that I probably should have calmed down before posting. However, I do feel that this issue says something about whether Netoholic is suitable for bureaucrat status, as bureaucrats do set an example to users, and must follow community consensus like everyone else. Archer7 | talk 12:57, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
ALL admins should "set an example to users". All a bureaucrat needs to do is make sure that the adminship promotion process is done fairly and responsibly -- in that respect, my status as bureaucrat cannot be called into question here. As an admin on this wiki, I do want to set an example for the rest of the users here. That means that I will not promote usage of an extremely bad project like SE Wiktionary. I also will not allow a user, like Cromwellt, to distract productive activity towards improving our articles. Cromwellt has made working here unpleasant with his persistent complaints, "policy" suggestions and polls, and other procedural nonsense like his resubmissions on Wikipedia:Requests for deletion and untimely Bureacrat nominations on Wikipedia:Administrators. I have been part of this project for a long time (Aug. 2004). Cromwellt has made practically no actual improvements to our articles. He created his account a long time ago, but it was only in Feb 2006 that he became active. His purpose for coming here was to promote SE Wiktionary, and he is still fighting that fight. He's a single-minded troublemaker on this wiki. I will continue to discourage his disruption, because that is the example I want to set for other users. I want them all to know that this project has direction and purpose. Cromwellt should spend a lot more time making SE Wikitionary as good as possible, and not spend his time here promoting that project. If SE Wikt were any good, he'd not NEED to do any convincing or promotion for it. -- Netoholic @ 22:50, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Some of my thots on the recent dust-up

I really have no idea where best to put this (anyone should feel free to move it if they think there's a better place for it), as related discussions are all over the place, but here goes.

  1. I pretty much came to the same conclusion as Eptalon, that, when faced with a lack of response (at least that's public on the wiki) from Netoholic regarding Archer7's expressed concerns[4], Archer7's options were pretty much limited to a 'cool down' block. I will add that, while no admin forced the same 'time out' on Archer7 with a block, Archer7 appears to have voluntarily walked away from the issue for a similar amount of time (approx 10:31, 27 May 2006 to 13:08, 28 May 2006--a couple edits, but nothing directly related, and one actually in support of Neto's position on a tangentially related issue).
  2. Netoholic is to be commended for not taking any actions for the duration of Archer7's block of Neto, which only would have made things worse.
  3. It seems like much of the dispute boils down to Cromwellt being firmly committed to the existence of SE Wiktionary, and Netoholic being at least as firmly committed to the non-existence of SE Wiktionary. I am unaware of any active SE Wikipedia editors other than Netoholic arguing to shut down SE Wikt. Thus, some of Netoholic's terse anti-SE Wikt comments, and labels like 'troublemaker' don't seem to reflect community consensus, and (IMHO) unnecessarily inflame the discussions. "single-minded" also seems like a somewhat unfair characterization, given Cromwellt's active participation in the Babel box guideline discussions and vandalism reversion.
  4. I guess, as a disclaimer, or for openness, or whatever, I should let people know that my personal opinion is that SE Wikt should be given a chance to develop, with link support from SE Wikipedia. EN Wikt activity lagged FAR behind EN Wikipedia, but eventually picked up with its 'sister's' help, and I think the same thing will eventually happen with SE Wikt.

Where to go from here is difficult. As for SE Wikt, I think SE Wiktionary should keep it's links from here until/unless it is shut down via a consensus decision following the discussion at Meta. Similarly, to me there seems little point in changing related policies and guidelines here, until that decision has been reached. As for dispute resolution, there does appear to be a need for a less drastic medium than a block. And there seems to be a need for a way to get notices of related Meta discussions posted here more reliably. Freshstart 03:07, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

While it is true I do believe that SE Wiktionary should be shutdown, as being generally redundant and unnecessary, I can live with its presence. What people need to understand is that I am confronted with is the singular effort of Cromwellt to radically change how SE Wikipedia operates so that we would be forced into using SE Wikt as a linked resource. He's pushed for deletion of Wikipedia:Simple English Dictionary - in fact renominating it for deletion several times. He wishes to provide links to SE Wikt exclusively (or at least side-by-side with links to EN wikt), even though SE Wikt is not remotely good enough (SE Wikt=~400 entries, EN Wikt=~147,00 entries). He's become involved several times with artificially "crafting" policy changes here (SE Wikipedia project direction, Userboxes, Babel, policy-tagging, deletions), all the while he barely contributes to the actual content work of this project. This is why I've become impatient with him, and why other people should open their eyes and discourage him as well. I don't care if he continues to edit here, but he needs to improve his balance before I can respect his ideas as much as I respect those of the real workhorses around here. -- Netoholic @ 04:59, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I really don't see what the issue with having both SE Wikt and EN Wikt put together. Also, the fact that it is not good enough in its current state does not mean it could eventually be. Of course, given that consensus is against Netoholic, I'm not sure exactly what you are arguing Net. However, I do object to you main argument about Cromwellt: that he doesn't work on the encyclopedia itself. I mean, I readily admit that personally I have only a few edits on the actual encyclopedia so I take it a little personal if you are saying the only thing that matters is work on the encyclopedia itself. I will agree that Cromwellt should not add any policies (Regular English having them is not a reason to create them here) without discussion first so I hope he will at least agree that any new policies he wants to add (or simply copy over) should be discussed first, probably at Simple Talk. Templates being created and then discussed in deletion reviews is the proper procedure but I don't think policies and dispute methods should be created without discussion first. I mean, how are admins supposed to help around here if there is no way for us to learn about things like Category:Disputed policies unless we simply follow you around all day? I mean, there's not that many policies around here, so it's not like we have a ton of disputes on policies already, unless I'm not aware of something else going on around here. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:13, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Some findings

It looks like it comes down to me, to decide what to do. So I expect the rest of the commubity to at least comment of what I did. It looks like this conflict was sparked by a misunderstanding. Cropmmwellt seems very much committed to SE Wiktionary, and in thze spirit of that, didn't see the value of a wordlist, and therefore nominated it for deletion. Nethoholic, based himself on the decisions made in meta (which was not communicated enough here) and did everything he could to oppose the deletion of the wordlist. Crommwellt's other activities on this wiki are mostly related to wiki-internal discusssions, templates and policies. Actual edits of articles seem to occur less frequently.

This whole back and forth seems to have started around January of this year. Based on this, Netoholic left the messages that seem to have led Archer7 to apply his 24 hour clam down block.

Archer7, on the other hand, did not have many options, so given the state the relationship betweeen Nethoholic and Crommwelt was in,he applied the block. From my point of view (I may be wrong) this was the only in-wiki option he had (I don't know and I also dont want to know about email exchange). Since he was pretty emotional about this himself, he more or less stayed away from Wiki for about the same period of time.

What follows from above

  • Archer7 did not overrreact. He chose to execise the only power he had, a 24h calm down block (which he observed himself, although not through blocking).
  • Netoholic was right in that he did not escalate the conflict into an admin war. He also left good advice on Archer7's talk page. I think this advice can be taken as a base for working out a policy on how to deal with admin conflicts.
  • SE Wiktionary is still smaller than the English one, mainly because of lack of manpower. If we therefore chose to link to a Wiktionary, we should link to the English one, where the SE Wikt does not exist. I have not checked, but EN and SE Wiktionaries should also crosslink.

Unrelated comments

  • Policies and guidelines should be based on consensus. It would therefore be good to only decide on them or appliy them once the more active (>100 edits a month) users commented on them.
  • We should have as few policies and guidelines as possible. Its therefore dangerous to assume a policy from the english (or any other) wikipedia can be applied in spirit here.
  • Given the current state of the (active, non-vandal) edit population, we do not need another bureaucrat.

-- Eptalon 09:44, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with all of that and I appreciate you trying to sort out this mess, but I am still rather angry with Netoholic about what happened, and I think it could happen again quite easily. Netoholic STILL hasn't stopped attacking Cromwellt, calling him a 'single-minded troublemaker'. I'm not quite sure what you mean about him acting on the decisions made in Meta - the only thing I can find at the moment is Neto nominating it for closure, despite our decision to improve it and use it a lot more here. I also feel the 'good advice' was simply a rant (although I am guilty of that too, see 'Netoholic' section above. I'm not saying we need more than one bureaucrat, I'm saying we need a replacement, the way things are going at the moment. Deleting Simple English Wiktionary without discussion simply because he is against the project's existance and the fact it was written by it's main contributor in my opinion is abuse of admin powers. Thanks for trying to clear this up Eptalon, and sorry for bringing it all up again, but I'm still not happy about things. Archer7 | talk 10:28, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
My duties as bureaucrat (promotion of admin candidates, assigning bot status, and renames) have nothing to with the SE Wiktionary debate. Seeking to replace me as bureaucrat is nothing more than petty retribution, much like that lame, baseless block was. -- Netoholic @ 14:00, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Not so much bureaucrat, admin powers. If somebody is attacking another user and refuses to explain, I have to block them, even if they are a bureaucrat. And I'm tempted to do it again. Archer7 | talk 15:10, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
When I try to write this in the little time I have (you will see my monthly edits almost haöved), I try to be as impartial as possible. I try to not favor one party over another. I have not yet looked at meta, but I think something I read seemed to indicate that there was a decision reached there, to shut down SE Wiktionary. My personal opinion about it should not influence anyone in the decision. It is irrelevant what I think. I agree with Netoholic that the special powers the beurocrat status grant him should not be called into question here. I do however also see Archer7's argument that there should be a civilised tone between users of this wiki. Cromwellt, whom this is all about is a normal user, and should be treated with civility (heck, we even treat vandals with civility). In order to replace our current bureaucrat, he'd need to step down, and I am usure that there is a candidate in the current lineup who is able to replace him. Besides, we want to avoid emotional discussions about this replacement, our decision needs to stand up against the scrutiny of peers. In short, this wiki is (in my opinion) at the moment not in a position to replace a bureaucrat. The task at the moment, is to resolve this conflict. -- Eptalon 15:47, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I can see this is going nowhere. I can't say these issues are resolved (far from it), but after 15 days I've calmed down enough to resume my activities over here. We are obviously not going to make any progress here. Archer7 | talk 09:21, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Netoholic has started to delete Wiktionary references again. Administrators please check deleted edits to see the full picture. Archer7 | talk 08:24, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
No... Cromwellt came on here on June 23 and ADDED a shit-ton of Simple Wiktionary references. I put most back to the way they were. Simple Wiktionary still has only about 400 articles. It is a shitty resource and I won't mislead our readership towards that project until it stops sucking. Sorry to have to spell things out so plainly. -- Netoholic @ 13:57, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
I would recommend checking my contribs and his contribs for the best picture. Contrary to what Netoholic says, my SEWikt references were five (if you count an unsuccessful attempt), which is far from a ton, and he reacted to all of them in one way or another:
  1. ref to SEWikt on Wikipedia:Project charter that followed from the related discussion (deleted ref)
  2. unsuccessful attempt to make Template:deletedpage point to SEWikt, explained on talk (commented)
  3. creation of Wikipedia is not a dictionary (only removed policy tag)
  4. creation of "Move to Wiktionary" template (deleted)
  5. inclusion of that template in Wikipedia:Template messages (reverted)
That last one he reverted along with three other edits that I don't think he was even against. One revert of someone else is when he reverted Archer7's revert to my description of the Simple English Wiktionary. That's a wheel war for sure, but Archer7 took the best way out in bringing it up here instead of fighting back.
I would also like to know why Netoholic reverted my unrelated edits to Wikipedia:Rules and Wikipedia:Recentchanges. On "Rules", I only put "Core articles" under "temporary guideline", which is what the community agreed when we created it (he chose not to participate). Sounds like he never wants us to grow beyond the core. On "Recentchanges," I was only advertizing proposed rules. He was the one who said I needed to advertize those more, so now why won't he let me? Does he have somewhere else he would prefer I use to advertize? --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 07:10, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Infobox image help

Anyone know why the "240px" command is being ignored at John Adams, or how to fix it short of adding a "size" variable to pass to Template:Infobox President? Freshstart 02:16, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Messages/links now vanish after logging in?!?!?!

If I'm logged in, it just says "From Wikipedia" at the top of all the pages instead of the long message (I forget the wording), and I don't see the 'from Commons' text/links on the Image pages, and I don't get the 'check for double redirects' text and links after moving a page. WTF? Freshstart 03:23, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can figure out, some weird kind of bug has reset everybody's interface preference to Abkhazian. This interface in not developed and is identical to the default interface. The only workaround is for everyone to manually reset his or her interface to "English", which for some reason now produces the "Simple English" interface ("Simple English" having disappeared as a choice)... Blockinblox 14:33, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, that worked. Thanks. Technology's great, when it works. :/ Freshstart 18:52, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Please tell me who inserted the giant human phallus on the main page, so I can yell at him on the talk page. Thank you in advance.207.166.54.91 16:51, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

And I speak abkhaz, so please put it back the way it was. 207.166.54.91 16:53, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

The phallus pic has been removed from the main page for a *very* long time, and you are not the only one who had a strong negative reaction. But that is actually what vandals are looking for. So rather than fall into that trap, the best reaction is to revert the problem (which here is already done), block the vandal (which I think is also already done), and then forget about it. Oh, and feel free to work at Meta on the Abkhazian interface, which currently has little or no difference from the default, which is in English. No one has gotten rid of it, that's the way it's been since its creation. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 23:54, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

CommonsTicker

Especially since we have relatively limited editor-hours available, and by policy we rely entirely on Commons for images, this seems particularly useful for us, so I've submitted a request[5]. Most of the other relevant info is on (or linked from) Wikipedia:CommonsTicker. A useful example of the info provided by the tool is Wiktionary:Wiktionary:CommonsTicker. Just a few hours ago I found an image redlink on one of our pages caused by a deletion[6] at Commons[7] which is the sort of thing that is reported by the tool that is good to know. Freshstart 02:10, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

In the two weeks the Ticker has been operating I have removed or replaced image redlinks in more than 25 articles. Clearly seems to be a valuable tool. Freshstart 18:18, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Language

I think everything is in Russian... emma 07:47, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Everything not in Russian! Is just your perception. --Blockinblox 18:38, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

D'oh!!! my bad!! :D. i somehow managed to set my preferances to "preferred language - Russian"... sorry for yelling at the sandbox and everbody else and generally being an idiot... please ignore me.

Abuse reports

I'd like to act as an abuse investigator and contactor (see en:Wikipedia:Abuse reports) for all of the Simple English projects. This would involve investigating abuse from IPs and compiling this into a report, then contacting ISPs and requesting their assistance. I've done it twice before, but I'd like to make it a bit more official so people know where to go when things get really bad.

Any thoughts or objections? Archer7 | talk 09:36, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 22:35, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Requests for undeletion

I really think we need a page on Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion. That page would be mostly for pages deleted without going to RfD which should not have been deleted. It would work the same way as RfD, just do the opposite process, just like it works on English Wikipedia. I already have one page to put on it: Project Gutenberg. Maybe it should have been cleaned up/simplified, but Project Gutenberg is a valuable and well-known repository of online books in multiple languages, and definitely deserves to have a page. Obviously, discussion is more than welcome. That's why I put the comment here, rather than make the page myself. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 21:02, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Please write this article if you so ddesire. It was deleted because the one revision posted was unredeemable. It was basically a insult of Wikipedia, and not worthy of being the first version. -- Netoholic @ 05:55, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough, Netoholic. I appreciate your willingness to let me give it a shot. I know that stuff copied directly from English Wikipedia without simplification is a nuisance and sometimes it is better to just delete it and start over. BTW, my recommendation that we create a "Requests for undeletion" page was not meant as a stab at you. Many of your deletions are perfectly appropriate, and it would be silly and a waste of time to force all deletions to go to RfD. However, sometimes accidents happen, and/or it is worthwhile to have a forum to reconsider deletions, whatever admin may have done them. I still think an undeletion request page is a good idea. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 03:11, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
There is not nearly enough undeletion requests to warrant such a page. Like many of the "policy" changes you've initiated, premature "optimization" is not necessary. -- Netoholic @ 03:16, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
How do you know how many undeletion requests there are? How can someone request an undelete when there is no forum to make such a request? I could make at least two more such requests off the top of my head, but because there is no forum, I have not done so. Those are two of the possibly large number of requests you haven't counted. I don't know if it is a large number, but until there is such a forum, I don't think we'll ever know. But now that the suggestion has been made, I'll leave the decision in the hands of the community. I find this highly ironic: You took initiative long ago when you changed pages (policy pages, mind) like Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not to conform to your vision of the project. How are my changes and proposed changes any different? Simply in that you don't happen to agree with them. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 05:41, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
You have two very good ways of requesting undeletion - contact an admin on their talk page (preferably the admin who deleted the page)... or post RIGHT HERE on Simple Talk. And as far as documenting policy, I've contributed to a lot to this project, for a long time[8]. You have not[9] - heck, I had 3-4 times as many article edits in my first month as you have had in the 5 months you've been coming around here. I don't come on Wiktionary and start making up rules... so don't you come here. Your "noise-to-usefullness ratio" is becoming too much to handle. Contribute to the article namespace, or walk away. -- Netoholic @ 15:06, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree that here and talk pages are the current methods of requesting undeletion, and I think they are reasonable for the moment given our size. Edit counts are not a way of measuring how useful a user is to a project. Telling users to go on articles or walk away is not acceptable. You are welcome to come to Wiktionary and help us build policies to make it work better, or even help us ad content to make it 'not suck'. Please be nice to other contributors. Now I've said I'll stay out of this, so it's up to everyone else now. Archer7 | talk 20:05, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Netoholic, at first I thought you were angry, but upon rereading, I don't think you are. I'm glad, because that was not my intention. Thank you for those ways. Maybe Archer7 is right that we don't need it. Some ideas are accepted, and some aren't, and I'm okay with that. Your time here does not even prove that your ideas are in line with the project goals, and even less so since you have chosen not to contribute to that discussion in any way. Your monthly average versus mine reflects that you have more free time than I do. Oh, and you are simply incorrect in your count. In your first month, you had about 400 edits. I have made over 800 edits in the time I've been here. It took you about three months to reach 800 edits. Your choice not to go on SEWiktionary and start suggesting changes is up to you, and has absolutely nothing to do with my right to do so here. As long as you follow protocol, I do not mind you working over there, even if it is entirely in the project namespace. However, given your attitude about that project, I have a hard time believing that any edits and suggestions you make there will truly be constructive or in good faith, which means that they likely will not be accepted by the community. I am sorry that you think my "noise-to-usefulness" ratio is so poor. I'm glad that you are just now coming to that conclusion, when I thought you had reached it sometime in January or February. I disagree, but I won't defend myself: my work speaks for itself, and I don't think the other editors here agree with you. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 20:33, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
TLDR version:
  1. Maybe Archer7 is right.
  2. Time here does not even prove you agree with the project goals.
  3. Monthly average comparison proves only that you have more free time than I do.
  4. Your count was wrong: I have 800 edits and you made about 400 edits your first month, not 3200-3600 edits; you took three months to reach 800.
  5. Whether or not you suggest changes on SEWikt (which is your right) has nothing to do with my right to suggest changes here.
  6. I'm sorry that you think my "noise-to-usefulness" ratio is so poor, but glad that you've just reached that conclusion.
  7. I disagree, but won't defend myself, since my work speaks for itself and the other editors also disagree, I think. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 20:33, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
I said "article edits"... of which I had 225 in my first month and you have only 80 in about five months you've been here. Your incessant arguing (as exhibited here and spread across other pages) is -exactly- the kind of useless noise I'm talking about. -- Netoholic @ 15:17, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Netoholic and policy

I think this information should be made available, as it has direct bearing on the discussion regarding Netoholic:

The major changes to policy in the past have been made by Netoholic himself. Angela has imported some policies and simplified them, but hasn't changed anything, though she did discuss some differences long ago on Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not. Netoholic has changed many policy, guideline, and help pages to reflect his vision of the project, without asking for the input of others. Then he tells others that that's the way it is, based on the pages that he himself has changed. Nice system, don't you think? I don't know the technical word for that, but it isn't right. One of the most obvious is WP:WWIN, where all of the major changes (new sections, etc.) are his work. Sure, he's been here longer than I have, but I don't need tenure to know a problem when I see one. Do we want an admin that uses tactics like this? Actually, Netoholic's edits to the Wikipedia: namespace (566 at last count) dwarf mine (186), though I admit that the proportion of total edits is much larger in mine. Funny how he gets on my case for having more edits on the Wikipedia: namespace than in the main namespace, when he has more deletes than edits to the article namespace. While it is true that there is plenty of vandalism to undo, it can't all be vandalism. Additionally, deletes are of a whole page, while edits may be to a single word or less. Are we sure we want an admin (not to mention bureaucrat) who deletes more than he contributes? As I mentioned earlier, I'm not questioning if he should be an editor, just if he should be an admin/bureaucrat. If one is removed, the other must be also. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 20:33, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

New warning

I've left a new warning on a talk page of a suspected sockpuppet giving people some idea of the possible consequences of vandalising Wikipedia, and I'd like to make it a template for use on people we suspect are going to start massive sockpuppet attacks or have already done so, to let them know what they are possibly in for before we have to do something drastic. It would only be for use in those circumstances, as it does sound very mildly threatening as the people it would be given to would need a stern voice. I just think that most vandals have no idea what they could be in for before they've gone in too far. Let me know what you think, I think this one needs to be discussed. Archer7 | talk 19:53, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand what is going on with user Sammy and Sammysammy. The vandalism was committed by user Sammy, but user Sammysammy was the one who got blocked for it. I left Sammy a warning, but since his only edit was vandalism, maybe he should have been the one to get blocked. Blockinblox 20:55, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
I should have blocked both on noticing a sockpuppet created. Sorry. Archer7 | talk 09:08, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Generally new templates

I think the following would be useful:

  • When we tell somebody they did a test (the test-template), we should be able to specify the page they tested on
  • the stopvandal template is lame, and should contain some of the info of that new warning suggestion above.

-- Eptalon 21:36, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I think the new warning should only ever be used when we suspect a massive sockpuppet attack is imminent from the user or whether it has already begun. Say a few kids are messing around adding rubbish, suddenly they're threatened with having their Internet connection shut off. The chance of them going on to become good editors is pretty slim. I don't really see the point of specifying the page, how would that make things easier? Archer7 | talk 09:11, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Spambot?

Just an idea if you're interested. The spam we get on Talk:Main_page is from IPs across the world. Of course this could just be one person using a proxy, but could it possibly be a bot designed to send out a list of sites to a set list of pages? Our spam is always in exactly the same place, but it can vary from massive PPC search engine links to a single link. I'll try to track it down (although I don't really know what I can do if I find something). Archer7 | talk 09:55, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Advise please

Hi, I am user meta:user:Walter. I make the newsletter Wikizine. The target audience is for everybody of the Wikimedia community, especially the non-English members. My newsletter is written in English. My command of English is not very good but nevertheless I seem to be using sometimes words that are not even commonly know by English speakers. I am willing to do an experiment and try to write Wikizine in Simple English. It must be easy to do, I can not spend a lot of time on this. Wikizine is basically a one man show so things must advance quickly. I have found this online to check the text;

There you can select different wordlists. I would like advice about what wordlist I best can use. I want tho make the text more easy to read but not to change it in to baby talk. Greetings, --Walter 22:02, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I really recommend that you read Wikipedia:How to write Simple English articles. When you use wordlists, it is quite easy to stop it turning into baby talk. The main things you need to remember are:
  • Vary your sentence construction, don't make lots of short sentences. Don't make them too long or complicated either, but a mixture of basic sentences keeps people interested and stops them feeling patronised.
  • If you want to include a word and it isn't on one wordlist, check another one. All of them are fine and most words understandable.
  • Read through it yourself and see how it sounds. If it sounds wrong in your head, it will probably be wrong in someone else's. Although there are lots of rules we try to follow for Simple English, there is no set way that will definitely work all of the time. If it sounds wrong, try changing the sentence structure, or use another word.

The main lists you can use are the BE850, BE1500 and Special English. Archer7 | talk 20:19, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Bot

I'm thinking of running a bot for general maintenance, similar to NetBot. It wouldn't be used very much at all (probably less than NetBot), but I'd like to hear what everybody thinks before I want to use it. Archer7 | talk 16:22, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Best Article and Best Picture

We should have a Best Article and a Best Picture on our main page. GangstaEB talk contribs 18:23, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Given that we dont allow immage uploads, I think a best picture (aka. picture of the day) is kinda overkill. But if we getr together a way to rate articles, we could have a top 5. We could also have a most popular (if we get to the web hit count). -- Eptalon 21:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree about the pictures, but I think a best article would be good. We could use the ones in Category:Very good articles. Archer7 - talk 01:21, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Esperanza

User:GangstaEB has now launched Esperanza, a new member organisation. I think that this would be great to hold the community together. A few months ago we were a very close community, yet our rapid growth has seen that move away slightly. I think a member organisation like this would help to bring everybody closer together.

Our Esperanza also awards the barnstar to reward other contributors. However, I do realise how this could easily get out of control, and both me and GangstaEB agree that one member organisation and barnstar is enough given our size. I have also been nominated to serve as the admin-general.

Join Esperanza on Wikipedia:Esperanza! Archer7 | talk 18:46, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Admin-only uploads

Shall we ask the developers to make uploads admin-only? I'd also like to 'block' use of Image:Autofellatio_2.jpg with Blockinblox's method of uploading Image:Example.jpg to the same file name. Archer7 - talk 14:29, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Uploading an image to "block" another image is ineffective, and disruptive to the purpose of the Commons. All we need to do is police the upload log, and block vandals. -- Netoholic @ 19:29, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
But surely we have no plans for such a photo for that particular topic, or of a middle finger. I know it seems like it's disruptive, but I just can't see any use for such a picture. What do you think of admin-only uploads? Archer7 - talk 19:33, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
I want to leave uploads open for sound recordings, i.e. Spoken articles. I think that function may still hold a lot of value as a tool for people needing to understand Simple English. -- Netoholic @ 00:01, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough. Could also be useful for PDFs I suppose. Archer7 - talk 00:10, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

New vandalism channel

Hi, just a note to say I've placed a new vandalism-monitoring bot (pgkbot clone) in #vandalism-simple on freenode. It monitors both the Simple Wikipedia and Simple Wiktionary; instructions are in the topic. Cheers, Tangotango 10:00, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
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