Wikipedia:Simple talk

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Simple Talk   post
This is the place to ask any questions you have about the Simple English Wikipedia. You might also find an answer on Wikipedia:Useful, a listing of helpful pages. If Wikipedia is not working or is very slow, you might find news about this at OpenFacts.	Shortcut: WP:ST
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Contents 1 Another question 2 Minimum number of edits for any votes? 3 Month, year pages 4 Current topic and current project 5 Adminship 6 MediaWiki error 7 Core article process 8 Two things 9 create username 10 I got Babel boxes working! 11 Deletion Policy 12 Template:Delete 13 Blockenation 14 Working together to make a list of Simple English words 15 Simple English Wikiquote 16 Can I link from my home page? 17 Sysop 18 I will run again 19 beatles lyrics 20 Administrator pages 21 This is a travesty. 22 Wikiprojects 23 MediaWiki:Newarticletext 24 Where is Simple English Wikipedia logo file? 25 MediaWiki:Autoblocker 26 Drawing the line? 27 Why are wiki admin people so nice and polite? 28 Can IPs be admins without creating an account? 29 Focus on Quality, not Quantity 30 Why Can't we upload images here? 31 MediaWiki:Recentchangestext 32 MediaWiki:Undo-summary 33 Star Wars and videogames 34 Grab your SCIENCE wizard hat! 35 Content feed for websites 36 Is there a way to completely block the uploading of images? 37 Infobox 38 How to write in Simple page?

[edit] Another question

Why do no articles have references? George Washington, Napoléon Bonaparte, Charles Darwin, Star, and others. Thank you, Dar-Ape 23:13, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I think that was the result of a dispute a couple months ago, but I don't know, because I wasn't here yet. I don't see any problems with adding them, however. PullToOpen ^Talk 15:02, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I think I will do that, then. Thanks, Dar-Ape 20:40, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Minimum number of edits for any votes?

I think we should impose a minimum number of edits (say, 50) on anything where there is voting involved. This is to discourage sockpuppetry. What are your opinions? -- Eptalon 02:49, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I strongly agree. I think a RfD discussion right now is also having a little bit of sockpuppetry going on. *cough* Bobo and Torra *cough* PullToOpen ^Talk 02:52, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Regarding that, I have told User:Blockinblox that these users seem to have very similar interests indeed... -- Eptalon 03:01, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

That, and a resident checkuser, ought to nip this problem in the bud. Only problem is, we still don't have a checkuser, to say for 100% sure what is going on, although it certainly does look fishy. Anyone who wants to try again for the 25 votes, or nominate someone to, can go right ahead. Of course the 50 edit minimum should apply there too! Blockinblox 03:27, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I would like a local CheckUser, but I don't want us to over-use it, IP information should be kept private if possible. If it's blatantly obvious what's going on, do we necessarily need a CheckUser? Anyway, I'm still not sure we'd get the 25 votes for a CheckUser in a reasonable amount of time. Although we have had a big increase in the number of regular editors, I still think it would take over a month, which I think is pushing it a little. Archer7 - talk 12:33, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Month, year pages

There are several pages (May 2004) that are variations of the basic year pages (2004). Should these pages all be consolidated into their appropriate year pages? I am thinking "yes", but thought it best to get a more general opinion on the subject. -- Creol 07:35, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd say yes. Archer7 - talk 12:26, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Current topic and current project

This week's topic to focus on is 'Buildings and structures'; it has been that since the beginning of March (my fault, I forgot all about it). How about we place that box on the recent changes notice as well as on the community portal?

Also, how about we have a 'current project' at times when there's really big things to get out of the way (eg cleaning up a section of our important articles). If we have these on the recent changes notice, people won't forget about them (at least I won't) and I think we could get massive jobs done incredibly fast. Archer7 - talk 12:26, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adminship

I noticed on Special:Listusers/sysop that there are only thirteen administrators on this Wikipedia. I went to WP:ADMIN to see if I could find anything about minimum requirements before nominating, but there seriously isn't much there. I was wondering if people could post here what their own personal standards are when looking at adminship candidates. J Di 17:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

My minimum is 1000 edits, 3 months experience. Archer7 - talk 17:50, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

That's exactly what mine is too! --Blockinblox 18:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

There is generally no minimum imposed, but unless you have been around for some time, and you have done some editing, it will be hard to convince people. So the 1000 edits/3 months sounds reasonable. --Eptalon 22:53, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MediaWiki error

There is an error on MediaWiki:Explainconflict, and it could probably be reworded to be simpler anyway. It says "There two edit boxes below." when it should probably say "There are two edit boxes below.". J Di 18:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorted! Archer7 - talk 18:10, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Core article process

Right now, if we get our "important articles" looking good, I think we'd be a good encyclopedia. Although we are improving very rapidly right now, and people are now using us for reference, I don't think we're at the point where we can say we're good. Here's a process I suggested we go through with each of our articles a few months ago which I found decaying in the archives with no response, along with a few extra things I thought of:

1. Copyrights - no point sorting it out if it has to be deleted anyway
2. Expansion - unfortunately necessary for almost all articles.
3. Structure text
4. Categorise
5. Fact checking and sourcing. - VERY IMPORTANT
6. NPOV
7. Simplify
8. Check 'tone' - core articles cannot be written in a patronising tone.
9. Spell check - I recommend Google Toolbar, which checks articles on the 'edit' screen
10. Link.
11. Link to sister projects (use EN projects if absolutely necessary)
12. Images where appropriate (we need a lot more, they're much more important for our target audience)
13. Skim through for anything you may have missed, check talk page etc for other problems
14. Post on review page, possibly promote to a very good article.

I hope to automate a lot of this process through scripts, eg an online spellchecker, readability tests, wordlist lookup tools, and simpler things like direct links to save typing for searching Commons and other projects. I'm not actually sure if I can write that sort of code, but it's an idea. Your opinions please! Archer7 - talk 20:58, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Here are my points to note:

• Each article should have at least one outgoing link. This is not counting interwiki links, links to a category, or links resulting from the use of a template (like stub).
• Each article should also consist of at least three sentences.
• Reduce red links (articles not there yet) in other articles.
• Categories are only useful if they contain 3-4 articles, or more. Smaller categories should be combined into bigger ones.
• Shorter articles can be merged into bigger ones.

-- Eptalon 23:01, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

In case some of you haven't noticed on recent changes, I'm tryng to set up a test of this at User:Archer7/Core article process in the form of a 'wizard' type thing. It basically guides you through every step to make a good article, in order (so you don't mess up things you've already sorted) so in theory you can use it on almost any article however bad it is and it'll be good by the time it comes out. By the time you've used it a few times, you'll know most of the steps and will be able to just skip through to the automated scripts (that I need writing). At the end, you just post it for review with a nice checklist so everyone else can check it. I'll try to have some sort of basic system sorted out soon so you can take a look. Archer7 - talk 11:19, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Two things

Congrats to everyone on reaching 12,000+ articles! This is great!

This page is now around 90kb, which is very, very large. How about archiving the really old stuff that has no important recent comments? Just any idea. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 19:37, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. I have done it. --Captain Obvious, a.k.a. Dar-Ape 04:28, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

• The 12,000th article was by me, it was knight.--Tdxiang 04:30, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] create username

I think the create username page could be hard for some people. It requires math. RichMac 12:44, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Some of the people who visit this page don't speak English, but they aren't stupid. Math is THE universal language. A 3 in English is the same as a 3 in, say, French. (Also, this page needs to be archived soon. My browser is having trouble editing it.)PullToOpen ^Talk 15:12, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking more along the lines of school children. RichMac 23:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I got Babel boxes working!

I copied Template:Babel over from English Wikipedia. Now users can write "{{Babel|en|fr-3}}" and have Babel boxes on their user pages to tell people which languages they speak. I did this for Simple English Wiktionary, too. If there is no box for your language, go to English Wikipedia or another Wikipedia and copy it. Copy a page like "Template:User fr-3" from English Wikipedia to Simple English Wikipedia and then there will be a box for your language. To copy, click "edit this page" on English Wikipedia but don't change the page. Use your computer mouse to copy it. If you can't easily copy with a computer mouse, ask someone to do it for you. On Simple English Wikipedia, search for "Template:User fr-3" or the language box you are looking for. If it says there is no page, it will say you can create the page. Create the page and put the computer words from English Wikipedia there.

Template:Babel looks like just words, but really it has computer words to tell the computer how to make boxes. To make Babel boxes work on another Wikipedia, copy "Template:Babel" to the other Wikipedia. (Use "edit this page".) Also copy "Template:User en" and "Template:User en-3" and other templates like that. Then it will work. --Coppertwig 01:25, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion Policy

I'm currently revising the deletion policy to make it clearer and more descriptive. If anyone objects, feel free to either comment and/or revert.--TBCΦtalk? 19:13, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I've heavily expanded the quick deletion section, making it similar to the one used on the English Wikipedia but with simpler words. Any comments?--TBCΦtalk? 23:57, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Excellent! It explains everything in detail, which is always nice. Good work. PullToOpen ^Talk 00:09, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

The deletion policy is at Wikipedia:Deletion policy. --Coppertwig 22:22, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I understand; I'm only stating that I've been expanding it, not that I don't know where it is.--TBCΦtalk? 02:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Delete

I've moved this template for two main reasons:

• There are two possible deletion methods, not just quick deletion .
• QD is shorter (thus more convenient to type) than the word "delete".--TBCΦtalk? 00:32, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Not entirely true. QD is shorter than delete, but QD is currently redirecting the D template as well, and longer than D. Pages tagged with D are showing a redirect instead of the delete message block. With the changes to Delete, D (and possibly other templates) will need to be corrected. -- Creol 02:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Never mind. It was just the one page and an odd template double redirect issue. I redirected Template:D from T:delete to T:QD and T:D seems to be back working as is should. (D is still shorter than QD thought :) ) -- Creol 02:08, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

"QD" is not Simple English. "Delete" and "Quick delete" are easier to understand and remember. Maybe the templates can have more than one name each. --Coppertwig 22:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

How is "QD" not Simple English? It's an abbreviation of "quick delete".--TBCΦtalk? 23:36, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

"QD" is not suitable nor intuitive. It can stand for anything, not just "quick delete". ...Aurora... 13:44, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

What else could QD stand for that's related to deletion? Also, the English Wikipedia uses similar abbreviations such as "Db".--TBCΦtalk? 16:01, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Blockenation

There's a template to inform users of their block ({{block}}), but there isn't one for them to contest it ({{unblock}}), at least not where they are told it is. If the template exists, could somebody sort this please? And if not, should one not be created? J Di 15:49, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Working together to make a list of Simple English words

Is this a good idea? I may make a list of words. I may start with the 1000 most frequent words, and mark the BE850 ones. Then I may make two pages on Wiktionary: one page will not change. The other page people can change, to take a word out of Simple English and put another word in. Then we can work together to make a list of words for Simple English. I say more on wikt:Wiktionary:Simple talk#Working together to make a list of words. --Coppertwig 22:29, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

What exactly is the point of making such a list if we already have a list of BE850 and BE1500 words?--TBCΦtalk? 23:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Simple English Wikiquote

I just took a look at Simple English Wikiquote. I had misunderstood it! It is a worthwhile project! It is not about collecting quotes in Simple English. It is about collecting quotes in English (or maybe other languages?) and explaining them in Simple English. This is a worthwhile project! But there is a proposal to close it down at meta:Proposals for closing projects!

The reason Simple English Wikiquote is worthwhile is that many people may not understand some famous quotes in English and can benefit from Simple English explanations. Some people voting to close it down say that there's no use collecting quotes in Simple English. They just don't even understand that the project is not about collecting quotes in Simple English!

Others say that if someone doesn't understand a quote in English, they should read a translation of it in their own language. They fail to understand two things: first, that there are many people who can read Simple English but can't read any other language (or not well enough to understand translations of those quotes). This includes some children, some adults who can understand ordinary English but are baffled by expressions like "come what come may" or archaic terms in some famous quotes, many deaf people who have difficulty learning to read because their own language has no written form and they can't hear the sounds that make alphabets meaningful; and other people. Also: if someone is learning English, an explanation in Simple English of a famous quote would help them understand the quote without switching back to their own language; switching back can interfere with learning a new language. --Coppertwig 03:08, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Can I link from my home page?

Hi. Are commercial links allowed from personal home page? Example Brass parts ,Brass fittings and India animations — This unsigned comment was added by User:212.138.64.173 (talk • contribs) .

External links to commercial organizations are acceptable if they can serve to
identify major corporations associated with a topic.  - En:Wiki's What Wikipedia is not.

I can not see how links to pages of a small company dedicated to resale (Wholesale or Retail) of an item would count as a major corporation dealing with the topic, especially if they are linked from a User page were they can not be On-Topic. Wikipedia is not a place for advertising. (side note: The no advertising bit realy should be listed on WP:NOT) -- Creol 10:06, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Added note: I'm fairly certain that the question is in reguards to User:Darrendeng's and User:Johnhardcastl's userpages as well as the external link on the page Screw. -- Creol 10:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sysop

Next election I want to try to become a sysop. Even though it is early I am going to start to run for it now, even though I am not a canidate yet. I think I will be a great sysop because I have a lot of free time to be here, will be tough on vandalism, and am not tolerant of people being rude. If you have anything to ask me ask me on my talk page please. Have a nice week and god bless.--Sir James Paul 20:22, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

There are no formal admin elections. If you want to be an administrator, nominate yourself with a short statement on Wikipedia:Administrators. However, right now I don't think you're ready, you still have a lot of things to learn. Archer7 - talk 20:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I just nominated myself to be a sysop. I believe we should give vandals one warning, and if the vandaliz again block them for at least 2 weeks, we need to get vandals off wikipedia. If that person vandals again ban him from using wikipedia. If someone is rude give that person a warning, and if he is rude again block him for at least 3 day's, so they can cool down. After the first block every time a person is rude I would block him with no warning. I will protect a user page if that person asks me too. Have a nice week.--Sir James Paul 20:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but that just isn't how it works. Admins need to consider all sorts of things when blocking people. Is it a school IP, and are we blocking all the good contributors that edit under an account? Is it a dynamic (changing) IP, so the block will have no effect? Lots of vandals have gone on to become really brilliant users of Wikipedia, and banning after two incidents is too extreme. Also, I think you can't just say that someone is 'rude'. On Wikipedia, we can only communicate via text. This means that we can't tell much about the way people are trying to say things, so people can easily sound rude when in fact they're being quite reasonable. Incivility should never be blocked that harshly anyway. And finally, blocks should not be viewed as a punishment. The 'Block' function is not there to teach people a lesson, it is there to be a technical restriction if people are causing too much trouble to deal with, or need some time to cool off. A ban is also different to a block (see Wikipedia:Bans and blocks). As I said, all this can be learned over time, so keep working for a few more months and then maybe. Right now, I'm afraid I'll have to oppose your nomination. Keep up the good work! Archer7 - talk 21:08, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Now I know how it works and I will be able to do things right. I am a very quick learner and will always ask for the advice of other sysops. When I become a sysop I will ask other sysops how long they think that person should be blocked. I think it is fine to ban someone after 2 blocks, 3 warnings before the first block. --Sir James Paul 21:40, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I will run again

It does not take a really smart man to know I am going to lose my election to become a sysop. I am going to study wikipedia guidelines and will run again next month. This election has been a major help to me and will, I hope, help me win next time. --Sir James Paul 22:57, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• Next month seems to short. Try another 3 months or so, when the community has approved of you.--Tdxiang 09:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] beatles lyrics

Would you have some of their lyrics (I mean, songs) sung in other languages but english? — This unsigned comment was added by 200.149.241.72 (talk • contribs) .

Most Wikipedia's do not list lyrics to songs. Simple:wiki currently does not even have an article on any Beatles song. Even checking English wiki I could find no mention of non-English version of their songs. -- Creol 03:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Lyrics are copyvio.--Tdxiang 09:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• • Unless the lyrics are in public domain.--TBCΦtalk? 02:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Administrator pages

How often are Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress and Wikipedia:Administrators#Current issues and requests looked at? I reported an IP WP:VIP yesterday, and nobody has commented on it yet; and administrators have been deleting pages and making edits since I posted a request on WP:ADMIN. J Di 14:56, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Seems life has its own pace on this wiki. No rush, no everlasting backlog like on en:WP:AIV, pages aren't speedied immediately (so that the n00bs can have their 5 mins of "fame" before they get bored). Pretty peaceful, quiet and simple. :) Миша13 21:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Since when have pages ever been speedy deleted immediately... J Di 22:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This is a travesty.

Enough said.

[edit] Wikiprojects

I understand that we are a small project but I still think that we need wikiprojects like on wikipedia. The projects that I think we need are Wikiproject Religion, Wikiproject Science, Wikiproject Politics, and Wikiproject History. The wikiprojects will have members, articles that need to be made, and articles that need to be improved. On wikipedia I did not know what to write about and the wikiprojects I'm a part of helped me out. --Sir James Paul 18:50, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't see a point in having WikiProjects on this wiki because there aren't many active contributors. The Projects would just make article development more difficult. J Di 20:01, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Perhaps we could target specific areas with a current project/topic, as I suggested further up this page. Archer7 - talk 20:05, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I am involved in a couple of WikiProjects on the English Wikipedia. IMHO, the Simple Wikipedia, at this time, does not have the number of users needed to make individual WikiProjects work. There are, however, a number of things that could be considered.

1) Doing Simple Wikipedia-wide collaborations and similar projects (Wikipedia: Collaboration of the Month?). If these work well, then consider doing more focused efforts, such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Science.

2) Consider creating some sort of structure for finding editors with similar subject interests. It could be something like the notice boards on the main English-language Wikipedia, or it could be just categories (with optional Babel-like templates?). )Wikipedia:Science Interest Group and/or Category:This editor likes science?.)

3) Try recruiting some editors from some of the most active WikiProjects on the main English-language Wikipedia for collaborations. You could, for example, identify a core group of articles on animals that need work, and then ask for help from w:Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life (and its numerous subprojects). I would suggest starting off slowly by doing quarterly interwiki collaborations. For three months, you would try to improve important articles on animals, and then for the next three months, it might be articles on countries (recruiting help from editors for the WikiProjects for each country).

^BlankVerse 08:44, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MediaWiki:Newarticletext

I think some links to a few help pages should be added to MediaWiki:Newarticletext so that people might create more encyclopaedic articles. Wikipedia:Useful and Wikipedia:How to write Simple English articles seem like good ones to add. This a good idea? J Di 20:45, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a great idea. Why not a link to Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Deletion policy as well?--TBCΦtalk? 16:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I have no objections to that. J Di 16:55, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I've changed the format and the text, making it similar to the one used on the English Wikipedia but with simpler words.--TBCΦtalk? 19:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Looks good, but there's a tiny error. It says "read the the instructions". J Di 21:33, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where is Simple English Wikipedia logo file?

Where is the logo file? (URL) --yes0song 04:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

here -- Creol 04:34, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• To be more precise: here.--Tdxiang 03:38, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MediaWiki:Autoblocker

I think MediaWiki:Autoblocker could be simplified a bit, and removing the bold on the block message might make it look better.

You have been autoblocked because $1 was recently using your IP, and they were blocked by an administrator. $1 was blocked for the following reason: "$2"

Thoughts? J Di 16:39, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Drawing the line?

Even though Wikipedia isn't censored for minors, I think we should draw the line somewhere. For example, on the masturbation page, there is image there (at the time of this comment) that is outright pornography, even if it is within the scope of the article. I'm leaving it there for now, but we need to draw the line of what we allow on this site. PullToOpen ^Talk 02:20, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

We have a line drawing of that one, the person editing keeps reverting back to the live action picture. Revert back to my or J Di's last edit and the line drawing is there. Censorship bad, but a little better taste (Line drawing > porn image in this venue) is not a bad thing. -- Creol 02:30, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why are wiki admin people so nice and polite?

This is s serious question - editing this board is very technically difficult especially for light posters, so many rules and things to learn. So how do you manage to stay so polite and helpful in the face of such utter and complete incompetence by the general community of wanna-be editors? Is there a special wiki-college out there where trolls and vandals are trained to be responsible adults and turned into nice admin folk? Does this require brain surgery as well? Excalibur 12:26, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess this is not easy to answer. However, what you learn as a person contributing regularly, is that most of the time, people take pride in their edits. They are proud about the articles they wrote, or they helped to make better. Guaranteed, this is a process, and it takes some time to learn. When rules are made, most of them should make sense, and should have the backing of the community. All it takes is time. And for those people that do not want to take this step, and vandalise pages, It takes only a limited number of offenses, until they are completely block. Being civil does not cost much, but it pays in the end. -- Eptalon 16:31, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Can IPs be admins without creating an account?

Can IPs be admins before creating an account, or do we have to create an account? This is what haunts me. --71.231.130.56 19:50, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Technically, yes. But we'd never do it. Also, we usually don't give rights to sockpuppeteers...*cough* PullToOpen ^Talk 19:52, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

As PullToOpen said, this is not a technical problem. It is about trust. Imagine, a computer in a public place somewhere. Anyone walking up to that computer would be a Wikipedia admin? - By creating an account, there is at least some from of identification involved. Also, claiming authorship on articles is much easier with an identified user. -- Eptalon 20:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think it may be a technical problem in addition to all of the above, I'm sure MediaWiki would scream at me if I dared put an IP address in the box... Archer7 - talk 20:17, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh. So your saying is I need to create an account and verify my self. As an adult, I think Identification is not needed, it's personal info. --71.231.130.56 23:08, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

The community does not need or want any personal info of you. All you need to do is pick a nickname. After some time, your edits will speak for you. -- Eptalon 23:13, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Now I get it. If I were say "CopperToneXtreme" and I vandalised, would I still be able to qualify for adminship under a nickname? --71.231.130.56 23:16, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

In you situation , I think creating an account could confuse things a lot. However, I think we can let you so long as you notify an admin immediately of your username, or post a message here. Archer7 - talk 23:19, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

If you did vandalise, it would negatively impact your admin chances. However, being an admin isn't everything. In fact, it's hardly anything, you just get a few of extra tabs to make clicking the wrong thing a whole lot worse. Archer7 - talk

Oooh. By the way, just because I'm not a nicknamed user, why can't I personalize my signature, which I have no IDEA ON DOING THAT. --71.231.130.56 23:57, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I think thats a problem of the Wikimedia software. You only get ot see certain options if you are logged in. But do not fear; the admin team is currently working towards finding a solution to your situation. -- Eptalon 21:27, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Focus on Quality, not Quantity

When new users come here, they often do not know where to start. Useful things that this wikipedia needs (and that strangely, few people want to do):

• Simplify articles. Make sentences shorter. Replace difficult words with easier ones.

• Cleanup articles. Make sections with headings, use some markup. Also each article should have at least one interwiki link, and one outgoing link (to somewhere else in this Wikipedia). Quite a few articles do not.

• Extend existing articles. If you do not know much about the subject, look it up in another Wikipedia.

• Users cannot delete vandalised articles. In some cases, valid subjects are vandalised.I recently saw and deleted a Frederick the Great vandal page. Normal users could simply fight the vandalism by replacing the page with a stub about en:Frederick II of Prussia. This stub can be marked as such, and extended later.

use the other items proposed in the sections in the community portal.

Wikipedia is not about how many articles there are. It is about the quality of the articles.

-- Eptalon 21:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why Can't we upload images here?

Why can't we upload any images here and why don't you put copyright? You are just as capable of deleting and licensing like en. Why can't you have it here? Is there a reason? --71.231.130.56 00:46, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Netoholic was the one who decided that policy a while back, when he was bureaucrat. I guess he didn't have time to do all the licensing tasks and checking, and no one else has ever volunteered to do them either. Commons specializes in that, so anyone who can get an image on Commons can use it here, much simpler. Blockinblox - talk 02:02, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK, policy is to use images from commons, and upload to there; This also simplifies license checking. -- Eptalon 10:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, fair use is not good. It causes trouble for everyone involved, and everything we need is on Commons anyway. Archer7 - talk 10:40, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MediaWiki:Recentchangestext

Unless there is a problem with the links I have added to Wikipedia:Recentchanges, could an administrator please remove the "change this message" from MediaWiki:Recentchangestext? Thanks. J Di 13:08, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. Archer7 - talk 15:15, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MediaWiki:Undo-summary

Could somebody please pipe the links in MediaWiki:Undo-summary? Undo summaries look don't look to hot and are unnecessarily long when the default undo summary is used. J Di 21:28, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. Also fixed the 'and the only contributor was ...' in the deletion summary, which I sort of messed up a few months ago. Archer7 - talk 21:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

The second link isn't done properly. The person's username or IP appears when it should say talk. J Di 21:53, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Star Wars and videogames

Do you need some articles related to these two topics? Canderous 23:04, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Grab your SCIENCE wizard hat!

I would really like to beef up the science portion of this wikipedia but suck at organising myself, and have no idea what "core" topics should be done first. It would be nice if I could get some people to work with me on this and give feedback on where we should focus. I also think some of the science pages though simply written for the sake of language, are too simple to clearly give an impression of the topic they are talking about. Simple doesn't have to mean stupid! The only page I've had a go at is Nuclear_fusion and I have no idea if this is the correct level of English to use or accurate enough to give an impression of the true science :< Anyone who is allready working on science articles on here that wants to boss someone around and see their own goals met, please just leave me some talk on my en.wikipedia talk page hope to hear from you lovely people! MattOates 22:59, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Content feed for websites

Hi, we run a network of education websites in Ireland and I saw how Answers.com worked with Wikipedia to provide Wiki-referenced content on their pages. Does anyone know is there a process to approach Wikipedia to set this up? I can't find any info anywhere..

Thanks

Kevin

As we're licensed under the GFDL, you can steal our content so long as you comply with th license. You can use a database dump and host it on your systems with our free MediaWiki software. It doesn't need to be editable either, MediaWiki is very flexible and you can place restrictions on just about anything. Database dumps don't contain the very latest versions of pages, but what we really don't like and very rarely allow is when people directly grab their information from our server, using up tons of our bandwidth. I believe Answers does do this in some form or another (probably set up to be very light on our bandwidth), but I think they've sorted something out with the Wikimedia Foundation. I really would advise just using a database dump as you'll get all the content you need with very little work at all, but if you are really really set on the idea of taking it direct from us, you'll have to contact the Wikimedia Foundation, who will arrange it as a paid service. See Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia and en:Wikipedia:Mirrors for more information on re-using content. Thanks, Archer7 - talk 09:54, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is there a way to completely block the uploading of images?

Can we/ should we (in is it technically possible, and morally feasible) block the uploading of any content? - I deleted about 45 image uploads yesterday; all of them were also in commons. People should upload to commons, not to here. Hence it would be good to block the uploading of content, if this is technically possible.

What are the community's tohughts on this? -- Eptalon 14:45, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

• There should be a strict upload block for images, because there's commons. The life of brian 16:11, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
  • There is a way to do it, but Netoholic said that he wanted it left open for the Spoken Article project. I suppose it could be made admin-only, but that's incredibly inconvenient for people trying to contribute. Archer7 - talk 18:10, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
    • But there were no spoken articles uploaded in the lat 2 months. Maybe if people were interested in the spoken article project, then yes, but otherwise no. The life of brian 18:28, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox

There are not infobox of any type. How can we create them?--BMonkey 14:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

There are infoboxes, see Category:Infobox templates. J Di 15:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How to write in Simple page?

Hi, it has been a long time since I was editing here. Is there a page or guideline on how to write in Simple? I hope I can add more techniques to the page. Thanks DaGizza 23:33, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Try reading WP:HOW if you haven't done so yet. zephyr2k 23:35, 19 December 2006 (UTC)