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Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion has not been touched since February 12th. I'm starting to think we shouldn't have created it. The only nomination for deletion end in a SNOW closure after only two vote, it was started by Kalajan (who every knows is now banned). Maybe it should be "decommissioned"?-- † CM16tc22:14, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't around when it was created, but if I had been I would have Opposed. It's imo unneeded on a wiki this small - when things like this come up it can either go to AfD or come here. Thanks, Goblin22:16, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And here I thought I was the only one who thought that since I think I was the only one who said don't do it when it was proposed. -Djsasso (talk) 23:50, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(<-) It seems to me that they serve the same function and until there is a need to delineate the two, most users/admins would be monitoring both forums, anyway. New users would easily confuse which is the appropriate one to use. Having RfD and MfD just adds unnecessary bureaucracy. EhJJ (talk) 02:05, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A number of editors currently support this article´s demotion from GA. I have spent a couple of hours trying to fix the problems identified and would ask anyone interested to have a look to see if they still think it merits demotion. Cheers. The Rambling Man on tour (talk) 22:33, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've spent a fair bit of time informing new editors about how to correctly import a page from enWP. I've written instructions here on the procedure. I think this could be made into a guideline and placed into the Wikipedia namespace. Thoughts? Comments? fr33kmantalk01:17, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's a good idea for us to have instructions. What you wrote looks like it summarizes the process quite well and could at least be used as a well-developed starting point. I'd support making it into an Wikipedia space how-to, help or essay (but not an official guideline). EhJJ (talk) 03:13, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree. Someone should draft up some guidelines for other people to use when taking stuff written on the English Wikipedia for use here. There are several different ideas that I have that could be used, one of which would be that if they use information from the English Wikipedia that they include a link to the English Wikipedia in the edit summary that they use when they create the article. I always put a link to the English Wikipedia article that I use if I use information from there. Cheers, Razorflame14:54, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, so this Wikipedia needs a Typo Team like the enWP. The main goal of the enWP Typo Team (enTT) is, "[being] dedicated to making Wikipedia look more professional by correcting typos and misspellings." Also, you can find information of the enTT here. Also, the enTT has some awards, if you are interested. Best regards, The New Mikemoral (talk) 04:11, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You are more than welcome to create such a team in your userspace, however, we do not allow WikiProjects in either the Wikipedia or Template namespaces at this time due to the fact that there are not very many active editors here. Once you get enough active members on your WikiProject in your namespace, you are more than willing to propose it be moved to the Wikipedia namespace, but at this point in time, we do not have enough active editors to support many WikiProjects in the namespace. Razorflame15:01, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
However, a children's charity and the Wikimedia Foundation have produced a static safe selection from Wikipedia aimed at UK School children: see 2007 Wikipedia Selection for Schools.
The content we have may be interesting for the lower levels (meaning the first few grades of schooling); Would it make sense to make DVD-images of
The full content (meaning all articles, of a certain date)
The selection of articles referred to in the press release?
Of course, the selected articles (esp. those for school use) should be screened and cleared of Graffiti...
Looking at the ratio of active users to number of articles, doing a DVD image of the whole encyclopedia is almost impossible for us (plus we have to get rid of graffiti)... I don't think anyone will fancy going through thousands of articles for quality assurance. A selection of articles should be good enough. ChenzwTalk13:55, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Chenzw. We just have too many articles to do a whole DVD-image of the whole encyclopedia, plus with all the graffiti screening and quality assurance that would have to be done on each and every article; it would just be a big nightmare for most of the users on here. I would suggest that we take a few of our best articles (VGA/GA articles) and screen them for graffiti, and release those. What do you think of this idea? Razorflame15:03, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It would take a lot of work, but I think that this idea has real merit. The Wikipedia for schools project does have issues however, and a quick scan of it will show articles with major issues. Perhaps using it as a template for articles that we'd include here would be a good start. In this case we'd make simple english articles to correspond to those used in the WfS project. It'd cut down on some of the work. The major problem would be sourcing in the articles we'd include; many of our articles are not fully sourced. fr33kmantalk18:19, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We'd obviously have to pair it down and change some of the subjects for early grade levels. Things like neoclassicalism probably shouldn't be included. We'd need to make sure its of real use to teachers and so it'd have to be following some standardised curriculum of some form; US/UK/Canada? fr33kmantalk18:30, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Autoconfirmed users able to suppress redirects?
I'm not sure why, but I was just able to suppress a redirect without being an administrator. Here I was, thinking you had to be an admin to suppress redirects. Did they change it to allow autoconfirmed users to suppress redirects as well? Razorflame22:18, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm I can't seem to do it, so I don't know what would cause you to be able to do that...a bug perhaps? Or, was the suppression right also extended to importers perhaps? Either way (talk) 22:24, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it would be considered a minor edit. Major edits are like completely rewriting an article, or replying to someone on their talk page, but it is all in the person's mind what kind of edit it is. I would recommend that if that was all you did on that page that you mark it as minor, becausse it was a minor edit. Cheers, Razorflame22:13, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What about making a Wikipedia prefixed page for this and calling it the Wikipedia:Article Improvement Drive? We could list a couple of articles a week on this page and have discussions on what we can do to improve each article there. That way, we don't have to clutter up this page with AID stuff. What do you think? Cheers, Razorflame14:59, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A decent idea as long as there is sufficient interest from the community in doing this. Right now I see little or no interest from the vast majority of this Wikipedia in generating good or very good articles. For instance, I spent a couple of hours trying to prevent the proposed demotion of Avril Lavigne, and two days have passed, no-one can be bothered to go back and check, despite notices (two of them) here requesting such. Unfortunately we have too many drive-by voters who seem to be getting involved in processes they have little understanding of just to be seen "participating", presumably with RFA or similar in mind in the future. I for one would very much support WP:AID. The Rambling Man on tour (talk) 19:18, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As you see I have created the link, feel free to change and improve; also perhaps list at the "What you can do" page (Community portal). We should also differentiate it sufficiently; this is not a request for dust collection (peer review) thing. We should rotate this at least every two weeks. --Eptalon (talk) 17:47, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Good, good. It needs to go in the template with all the various requests, translation of the week etc, since it´s probably now the most important article drive we have on this Wikipedia. The Rambling Man on tour (talk) 19:40, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Welcoming non-English speakers
Hello, is there some message for welcoming editors who do not speak English or speak only a little English? I recently left a message with one editor and I think in my haste I may have sounded rude. I think people should use mostly English here to facilitate communication, but I don't want to convey the impression that other languages are looked down upon. Because this is Simple English Wikipedia, we should be especially understanding of people who don't speak English well. Thank you. LovesMacs (talk)15:44, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think we already are welcoming to people who don't speak English very well. I don't think welcomes in other languages are a good idea and our basic welcome templates {{welcome}} and {{welcomeg}} are already pretty simple. fr33kmantalk15:53, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that it comes up often enough to be an issue frankly. Commons is, by its very nature, a multi-lingual site; we are an English site. Not all our readers are ESL students, many are just people who don't have good written skills but can speak English. As a former TEFL teacher (Celta), I would say that a precept of TEFL is to not use the students native language at all, but to encourage the use of English by only using English. I think our welcome templates are tried and tested and work. fr33kmantalk17:11, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I see what you mean, immersing someone in the language to promote its use and improvement. I'll comment on the other parts of this thread later. LovesMacs (talk)00:04, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Could we have a template that (politely of course) informs users that they're using the wrong language on an English speaking wiki? FrancesO (talk) 16:36, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You are free to put a template in your userspace and use it and let others use it also. There is the Template:Uw-simple that asks people to use simpler English, but it is not aimed at people who use a foreign langague. I personally think that the Japanese user knew what they were doing; removing text is not a language issue after all. fr33kmantalk17:11, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
New templates should be discussed first before putting them into Template-space; that's why I said to create it in your userspace. fr33kmantalk17:45, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Leave it for now and let people discuss it. FYI: The userspace are those pages that start with "User:", the user-talkspace starts with "User talk:", templatespace starts with "Template:", category with "Category:", wikipedia-space start withs "Wikipedia:" or "WP:". Each of these also has a "talk" sapce associated with it; for example "Category talk:" or "Template talk:". The mainspace is those pages that dont start with anything "Doughnuts" is an article, it is in mainspace. Mainspace also has a talkspace, "Talk:". Hope this helps, sorry for assuming you knew this :) fr33kmantalk17:56, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Proposal for new language template
FrancesO (talk·contribs) has suggested a new notice template {{use-english}}. The purpose is for use in those situations where an editor adds edits in a language other than English. This is different to an editor who edits in non-simpler English; for which there is already a template {{uw-simple}}.
Weak Support FrancesO's template does use simpler English, but the current one is just as good. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The New Mikemoral (talk • contribs) 20:20, March 7, 2009 (UTC)
Support This is a good start. I think there must be something simpler than "appropriate", maybe "right" or "correct"? It could also be reworded to say something about "the Wikipedia you want/prefer". LovesMacs (talk)00:13, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've been wondering how we can encourage the adding of citations from WP:RS for proper WP:V in pages? I've been wandering around the current pages and the vast majority of them are either entirely unsourced or vastly undersourced. As an encyclopedia this makes us practically unusable as a proper learning resource. As a doctor, I'd be struck off the register in no time if I relied on information that had no source backing it up. Many universities have out-right banned Wikipedia from being used by students as a source; and that's the enWP. What does the community think we can do to improve the situation? Cheers fr33kmantalk22:06, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Break Google from using it too much? :D I suck at finding references, so for all the good that I do this Wikipedia, that is the one area that I can't do much about. Sorry! But to all of those users that don't suck at finding references, I suggest them to work overtime :). Cheers, Razorflame03:49, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you are using Firefox as a browser, there is a great add on called "Wpcite" which means you can right click on a web page and it creates a formatted wiki reference with all the tags which you can paste in to your edits - here is a sample [1]— Preceding unsigned comment added by Peterdownunder (talk • contribs) 07:30, March 10, 2009 (UTC)
What would people think of starting an image of the week? It could help hook readers into reading articles in a similar way to DYK? I think that there is room on the front page if we moved things around a bit. It'd be a bit like commons: featured images but it'd just be the one per week. I think that'd cut down on overhead. Thoughts? fr33kmantalk15:42, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not needed here. I would prefer that that stays on Commons, because frankly, all of our images that we use here are borrowed from commons, so therefore, we don't technically have them here on this Wikipedia. Cheers, Razorflame15:43, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
e/c Such a section was only brought up a few months ago, and it was generally agreed that there are not enough users to sustain it: just look at our current processes like DYK, (V)GA etc. Also, there's no point to it imo as we don't have our own images. Cheers, Goblin15:44, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there all. I just wanted to let you all know that I broke the 40,000th edit mark here on the Simple English Wikipedia today. :)))). Cheers, Razorflame19:05, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks all. I figured instead of spamming this to everyone's talk page, that I would just leave a message here :D. Cheers, Razorflame19:16, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I hate wikispam; but ... I was going through the old archives of Simple Talk(interesting stuff to be sure) and quite a few former editors of Simple English Wikipedia are still active on WMF projects. I was wondering if we could invite some of these editors back to today's seWP. Some left due to problems they had with editors who are no longer here and some left for other reasons. I've created an example template for inviting people to rejoin seWP and contribute, once again, to this excellent project. What does the community think of this idea? fr33kmantalk02:39, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds good. But there is a problem: This retiered users probably don't look at their page here on sewp. It should be better, if you send the message to the talk page of the users, where they're now active. Otherwise the users don't get the message. Barras (talk) 15:43, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I just added some userboxes to my userpage, and I added some language categories. I was surprised to find that Category:User en, Category:User en-N, and Category:User es are hidden categories. For the most part, I find user categories to be annoying, but at least for me, language categories are actually useful. I think they would be especially useful here on sewp, where many readers may not speak English well. J.delanoytalkchanges14:46, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I found a broken image link for the main page (Main page/Article 2) VGA stub for Jimi Hendrix. I've fixed it by putting Image:Retrato de Jimi hendrix.jpg in its place. Hope this is alright with those who do the main page project. Felt it was important we not look bad to people viewing it. I've not done the research to figure out how this happened, someone else might want to do that. Cheers :) fr33kmantalk04:47, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Did you know?
Could I encourage people to visit T:TDYK? There is a need to fill up the next update template and there are DYK nominations that could use !voting on. It's really an easy thing to do and takes only a couple of minutes. Go there, review the nominations, check that the hook exists in the article and has a WP:CITE from a WP:RS for WP:V! Cheers! :) fr33kmantalk05:00, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
NewPageWatcher
I think we should have our own 'NewPageWatcher' tool so it would be easier for users to patrol new pages and add necessary {{QD}} tags if necessary. While not entirely the same as countering vandalism or rollback, I think that it could be beneficial to the wiki. --§Snake311(I'm Not Okay!)23:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It would take longer doing that manually. It's like pressing the undo button to revert vandalism when you could use rollback with only one click on the mouse. It could be more convenient for some. --§Snake311(I'm Not Okay!)00:31, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But for about the dozen bad pages per day, does it really warrant the need for NPW? It's not like we get hundreds of bad pages per day. fr33kmantalk00:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Given the number of new pages per day, and that most editors constantly review Special:RecentChanges do you feel that we need something extra? I, personally, think that we don't have enough new pages per day to warrant anything extra other than Special:NewPages; in fact most people don't even bother with that. Take a look how many new pages actually get makred as patroled. Most deleteions occur without the page being patrolled or even QD tagged. fr33kmantalk01:14, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Here! We already have the ability to mark new pages as patrolled; but most people don't watch it or even consider it. We get very few bad new pages per day that don't get deleted right away by an admin. There are many admins here who delete incorrect new pages before an editor gets a chance to QD tag them. Given this, do we really need any other tool than either Special:NewPages or Special:RecentChanges? I don't think so. I'd say (without doing the research) that less than 2% of bad new pages make it past the first 24hrs. fr33kmantalk01:23, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I remember when an admin about 9 months ago deleted a page that was marked for quick deletion the week before O_o. Anyways, I would have to agree with Fr33kman on this one. Nothing other than Recent Changes and Special:NewPages is needed at this point in time. Cheers, Razorflame02:15, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) We have the ability to mark new pages as patrolled? I can't (or don't know how)! I believe the default is admins only, so perhaps that may be why. It's built into NewPages at en.wp, but notably not present here. Regardless, to me, new page patrolling is more than deleting bad articles, but also tagging stubs, fixing article names (such as capitalization, etc.) by moving the article, making redirects when an article already exists, etc. This seems to get done as it is, but I wonder if it could be more efficient, thereby allowing the few regulars who are here to have more time for other activities (rather than checking articles that have already been checked by a different user). EhJJTALK02:18, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I just tried to make a newpage as patrolled with my non-admin account Fr33kmanTWTest (talk·contribs) and I could not. It's not really a big deal, however, because most pages are never ever patrolled and only admin created pages get patrolled automatically. I think that all that needs to be done with new pages is being done; tagging, redirecting, stubing etc. I, personally, don't see what it would buy us. I fr33kmantalk05:44, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think what would be considerably more useful is a patrol feature for recent changes. NPP on en is important because of the sheer quantity of bad articles in relation to editors. Here, it's more an issue of not enough editors watching the recent changes queue and things slipping through. I would absolutely, positively love a patrolling feature for recent changes. DefenseSupportParty (talk) 23:01, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If it's restricted to admins but they're (understandably) too busy to mark edits as patrolled, then why not open it up to autoconfirmed users? I don't see the harm. EhJJTALK11:51, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I didn't mean to come off as if I didn't support the proposal. Back when I was editing on en and doing NPP, patrolling pages was my bread and butter. I just see the situation here a little differently. However, I fully support patrolling access being given to all autoconfirmed users. DefenseSupportParty (talk) 13:57, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I had a misleading indent. I agree with you and meant it as a response to Fr33kman. I used to NPP on en.wp also about 3-6 months ago and marking as patrolled meant that we weren't all checking the same pages while others went by unnoticed. I feel the same way about Recent Changes on this wiki. There are too many for all of us to check them all, but if you know which ones have been checked, then it's easier to contribute (even if it's just 10% or so). So, any objection to extending this feature to autoconfirmed users? EhJJTALK14:06, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Belgian municipalities
About 6-7 months ago, an editor, JurgenG created a whole bunch of municipalities of Belgium here on the Simple English Wikipedia. However, after going through them, there are things that need correction on that page:
Some of them are incorrectly named. English Wikipedia articles are named differently than some of the municipalities.
They need copyediting.
If anyone has any spare time, would they be willing to go through these articles and correcting these issues? I already have too many things to do on my plate here, so I'm going to have to pass this off to someone else here. Cheers, Razorflame15:53, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If someone can send me a list I can look into fixing the page names - i've got a couple of spare hours today ;). I'll look into some copy editing as well if I get the time. Cheers, Goblin15:56, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've checked up to B for the right name, but I need to shoot now. I'll continue when I get home tonight, and if I don't get them done continue tomorrow ;) Razorflame: can you run Darkicebot over them please? I might have missed some interwikis! Cheers, Goblin17:23, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I can do that, but not currently. I am currently at school waiting for my one class to start (at 3:30PM CST). I have to drive in with my parents because I don't have my license yet, so I get to school for my one college class like 8 hours early XD. At least they have computers for me to use :). Cheers, Razorflame17:41, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You actually shouldn't be removing diacritics from titles. en.wiki has not come to a conclusion on if they should be used or not. About 50% of the wiki is for and about 50% is against so the use or non-use of them varries highly. Since simple is aimed at esl people I actually believe if they belong anywhere they definately belong here. I will admit to being on the side that believes they should be used on en.wiki, however the use or non-use of diacritics is a massive battleground on en.wiki. -Djsasso (talk) 18:32, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That wasn't what I was suggesting. I was suggesting that he move the pages so that the page names correlate to the English Wikipedias' page names. Cheers, Razorflame Public (talk) 18:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well that is my point, the changes of his that I looked at only involved removing é in names and putting in e instead for example. -Djsasso (talk) 18:41, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, a couple of things. Firstly, "he" has a name. Secondly, if you don't like it, fix it and be clearer. Remember, we are all volunteers and do this in our free time - we don't all like being snapped at. (And yes, I see that as being snapped at.) I'll leave it to someone else to finish off. Goblin19:16, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And your point? I wasn't even commenting towards you, I was commenting at Razorflame's request. If you are taking that as someone snapping at you then you really need to reconsider taking another wikibreak to get your stress levels down. -Djsasso (talk) 21:51, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Goodness, grow up the pair of you! Both of you decide whether or not you want the wee mark above the e, then do it. Gobby, don't take things to heart. Djsasso, don't stir. Kennedy(talk) 15:14, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Can anyone tell me the point of this Wikipedia having a Manual of Style while neither the PGA nor PVGA process even suggests editors look at it, leave alone try to comply with it? Some articles (e.g. currently Bastide) are being supported by a number of editors despite numerous problems with the MOS alone, not to mention the dozens of complex words still remaining in the article. I suggest we either try to use the MOS (by heavy suggestion in PGA and PVGA, compare en.wiki, FA has to comply with their MOS which is far stricter...) or we might as well not have one at all. The Rambling Man on tour (talk) 18:38, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You have a point but don't you think you could make a clear proposal? Believe me, translating Bastide from fr.wiki was hard work (well done eptalon), even for someone like me who speaks French. Everyone doesn't always realize this, and a bit of hard work shouldn't be said to be poor (cf. RF's talk page). Anyway, I don't want to get into an argument. I'll listen to what you have to say, and help if necessary. Thanks, Yotcmdr=talk to the commander=18:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I propose that PGAs should follow our MOS where possible and that PVGAs follow our MOS precisely. That way we get a streamlined set of Good and Very Good Articles whose formatting is consistent. Therefore we get a professional looking encyclopaedia. I fully understand the challenge of translating Bastide from fr.wiki to here, all I´ve done is point out areas which I think are flawed before I can support it´s promotion to GA. It´s good to see so many editors chipping in to help, but the article is not ready yet, has too much complexity left in it and that´s why I´m surprised (or maybe I´m not any more) that it currently has sufficient support to pass regardless of the issues I´ve noted. The Rambling Man on tour (talk) 18:58, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Brace this post is probably longer. The manual of style is a lengthy, and somewhat difficult to understand document. It says that generally articles should follow a certain style (given in the document). The MOS has other issues, however. The main one is that the document was copied from the EnWP one, and adapted. Most of the adaptation was done by simplifying language. A very nice example: someone writing harbor (American spelling) must also use traveled, and not the English variant travelled. Given our target audience is likely grappling with the vocabulary and grammar, do you think this is a good choice to make? - Similarly, if someone talks about leaving their pants at the self-wash, what piece of garment are they possibly talking about? (trousers in the Commonwealth, undergarment covering the hip-area in the US) - I think you might guess what I am getting at. If an article follows (part of) the MOS that is probably good, but at the moment the MOS is not in a state where I could say that following it entirely would create a good standard. In such a standard, it would currently not be easy to see why it should be followed. Until this is the case, I do not subscribe to requiring MOS-compliance for GAs or VGAs.--Eptalon (talk) 20:42, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Eptalon, I don't find those particular examples anywhere in the MOS. Yes, the MOS says we should have continuity (i.e. use only British English or American English) throughout the article. That is a good thing. Is it a good choice to ask them to have continuity? Yes, I believe so. I don't understand what you're getting at with your example of pants. However, since potentially unknown or confusing words are supposed to be linked in GAs and VGAs, it would seem to be a non-issue. As the importer/simplifier of the MOS and co-author of the current GA and VGA criteria, I'm very interested in this issue. I think we were assuming that MOS rules would be followed, but perhaps it would be best to say it outright. · Tygrrr...21:40, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A bit off topic; Tygrrr: The difference can be either spelling alone (traveller/traveler), or semantic, as in the word pants in British English referring to something else than the same word in American English (Same thing can be seen with Spanish, the people from Hispanic America often use the word derived from the local language, while those from Spain use the official one).--Eptalon (talk) 21:47, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I´ll try to cover your points. For me, if a word exists in Brit Eng and US Eng with different meanings (e.g. your pants example) I would mandate that it is linked correctly to either a suitable Wikipedia or Wiktionary article which leaves the reader disambiguated. But this is merely the tip of the iceberg. The MOS has (or should have) so much more advice on how articles are formatted. We must work to a common goal, and a common format. Just going freestyle on the way, for example, references are formatted will lead to a junkyard of articles just doing whatever they like. Our best work (good and very good articles) need some semblence of continuity and at the moment there is no mandate whatsoever (other than diligent reviewers and more diligent and willing editors) to do anything about it. The Bastide article was supported 5-1 three days ago when it was rife with bad formatting. Maybe instead of us heading to fix PGA and PVGA (which are undoubtedly broken if Bastide is in a promotable state), we ought to spend time considering fixing our MOS, and then advocating its use. Otherwise what guidance do we follow? This Wikipedia is beginning to fall over. Gwib and Creol used to review articles with MOS and complexity in mind and never offered apparently sheep-like support. It made for better articles. Until we can start fixing these issues, and I am open to suggestions on where to start, this Wikipedia is doomed. The Rambling Man on tour (talk) 22:30, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(<-) To advance this idea the next logical step to me would seem to get a set of manuals, to replace the current MOS.
One of them is concerned with formatting, and formatting alone. In there, we would for example specify, that for citations, the different citation templates should be used; if a citation is used more than once, it should be named, and later be referred to by name.
The other is concerned with language-issues (as I pointed out above).
Once both are in a state that we can make them into guidelines, we can talk about requiring their compliance for GA or VGA. But as stated above: the current manual is not in a state where we can require its compliance for the categories of articles mentioned before --Eptalon (talk) 22:40, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) I agree with TRM about linking ambiguous words. We would tend to shy away from using words that have multiple meanings in the same regional version of English, why then sould we not link words that mean different things in different versions of English? Pants is a good example of this because is does mean two different items of clothing depending on which regional version of the language an editor is using (trousers in the US/Canada and underpants in Britain). Of course the way around this is to use trousers and underpants rather than using the word pants. I think examples such as this should be linked to the intended meaning or its intended meaning should be explained inline surrounded by parentheses. I do think that people support an article at PGA/PVGA with the intention of increasing the exposure of the encylopedia to readers, and in furtherance of that goal then disregard certain flaws in article. I know I did. Perhaps now is the time to rework both the MOS and the PGA/PVGA criteria? (me 2ps worth)fr33kmantalk22:46, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that we need to fix this Wikipedia´s MOS. I don´t see a problem with language issues if we continue to mandate the linking of complex terms - by complex we ought to incorporate "ambiguous" terms as well. Fair? As for formatting, that´s by far the biggest problem and needs by far the biggest solution. If, as you say, it is not in a good state, then we should deprecate its use and head for the "other way" here, i.e. if a policy or guideline does not exist here, see en.wiki for advice. The MOS there is fully comprehensive and isn´t that complex. Either way, we are "promoting" articles which have no real uniformity and are therefore showing this Wikipedia to be not just a poor cousin of en.wiki, but unprofessional too. The Rambling Man on tour (talk) 22:47, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I'm dense, or maybe just biased, but what is wrong with the MOS? I don't quite see what's "broken" about it. · Tygrrr...00:33, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I did not know that meaning of dense yet ;) - In my opinion (this is just my opinion), the following things are broken:
The MOS makes certain assumptions (taken from the EnWP one), that should not be made in the context of this audience. It is fine to tell native-language English speakers to be consistent in using either American English, or British English, or the English of the Indian peninsula, or the English used in Belize, or the English used in South Africa... . Many of our editors (me included) are not native speakers of English, however. They are learning English and it may be difficult enough for them to get a syntactically correct form. We cannot expect them to use traveler because they used harbor (both are American English). This requirement could quite easily be reworded to say: Use whatever (correct) form of the word, but only use one form. That is, if you settled for writing traveler, write it like that all the time, and do not use traveller; independently of this, you might settle for harbour.
The MOS needs to make a difference between formatting requirements, and those related to the use of the language as a whole; I have already outlined this above.
We should try to make things as simple as possible; that is cut down the rules to the strict minimum. Any rule which isn't strictly needed should go the way of the dodo.
Tygrrr, you did a great work simplifying the MOS, it is only very recently that I found out that the MOS as it is now should not be used to base requirements of (V)GAs on, for reasons cited above.--Eptalon (talk) 12:23, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To discuss point by point:
Have you read the section Wikipedia:MOS#National varieties of English to which you are referring? It says exactly what you are saying (i.e. If you chose to use the spelling "traveler", use that spelling throughout the article). The MOS says that articles should be consistent throughout. It does not demand that a user who is new to English must know the difference, but it says that someone who does know the difference should make sure an article is consistent throughout. Frankly, that is something that (V)GAs should do.
Everything in the MOS is about formatting. It is a style guide. Which section do you think is about language as a whole?
I feel that it is currently at a strict minimum. There are many sections on the original (en:wiki) MOS that link to a "main" article (i.e. for more information see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Punctuation). I didn't feel we needed to go into that much detail when I imported so I did not create these tangential WP articles. Specifically which rules do you think aren't needed?
I still fail to see how making sure articles follow our formatting rules is a bad idea for (V)GAs. They should be standard to all articles, and are especially important in the articles were are claiming are our best. · Tygrrr...14:58, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(<-) The same spelling system and grammar rules should be used throughout an article.- I do have to write 'traveler' because I write 'harbor'; Oh and by the way how do you call that pastry that is made of dough, torus-shaped, with a hole in a centre? - And which of the 4 spelling variations are allowed supposing you use Commonwealth spelling? (doughnought, donought, donut, and doughnut are all correct, if memory serves me). And how do you expect an English learner to know this? - To move this forward, this could be replaced by Always spell a word the same way. There may be many different ways to spell a word, but to be consistent, it should always be spelled the same way in an article. --Eptalon (talk) 15:24, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well this would be en:WP:ENGVAR which is already technically a guideline here due to our guideline which is follow english guidelines/policies when one doesn't exist here. So we really just need to simplify that article and move it here. -Djsasso (talk) 12:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Stopping editing the PGA and PVGA pages
Hi there. From now on, I am no longer going to get involved with the PGA and PVGA processes here. I will leave that to the "professionals" from now on. Razorflame22:04, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I can see this is (in)directly aimed at me. Well sorry to see you do that, since this Wikipedia needs more Good and Very Good Articles, but it needs them to meet certain standards which, admittedly right now, are very poorly defined. The fact that an article needs to be editted by more than one editor is a criterion while no adherence to any kind of style is mandated (or even recommended) shows this to be "interesting times" for this Wikipedia. The Rambling Man on tour (talk) 22:32, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The process itself wasn't to mandate any particular formatting rules because some of the more in-depth formatting rules would actually end up making the page more complex instead of less complex. Instead of making the PGA and PVGA processes more complex, you should think about what you can do to make it simpler, yet not promote articles that shouldn't be promoted. So far, contrary to what you believe, I have not seen a single article promoted to GA or VGA status that shouldn't have been. Sure, some votes shouldn't have been started, but all of the pages that we have that are GAs and VGAs are good enough for me. Articles don't have to be perfect to become a VGA here. That isn't what we are striving for. By looking for every little flaw in our systems here, you are actually making our lives here more miserable than they were before this whole thing started. If you think that the PGA and PVGA processes are that flawed, then why do you still participate in them? Why don't you just stop? I would rather not be invovled in a process that is starting to become more like the English Wikipedia's because I would rather make pages or copyedit articles that already exist. That is my reasoning for not wanting to participate in the PGA and PVGA processes anymore. Razorflame22:56, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly, it´s the article which is supposed to be Simple, not the formatting. We are appealing to Simple English readers, not just Simple English editors. I am not mandating making PGA or PVGA more complex, actually more straightforward by providing a guideline as to how to best format a page, thus reducing ambiguity or complexity in similar articles (good or very good ones especially) being formatted completely diffently. As for promoting articles that shouldn´t have been, why has the demotion page been so busy recently? And as I pointed out, the Romania article needs many more references, it has many claims which I have identified on the talk page which are simply unreferenced and in most circumstances would be considered original research or point of view. I am tempted to tag them as such. I am not here to make anyone´s life miserable, just to make this Wikipedia as good as it could be. I want to participate in flawed processes to improve them, not just to get myself a shot at another RFA or anything. That´s exactly why I´m still here, because I think there´s a huge amount of potential here but it needs guidance. en.wiki has many flaws but it doesn´t take the FA or GA process lightly, which is good. We shouldn´t either. Good luck with whatever you do choose to participate in. The Rambling Man on tour (talk) 23:04, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Manual of style, continued
Hello there, this is a friendly post, about the same subjects as previous posts; it will be a little longer (as most of my posts)
This is a small community; processes, if they are formalized, should be simple and straightforward, rules should mostly be self-evident (they chose to do it that way, but thats one of two options, they simply took a choice); something along these lines is known as Occam's razor - avoid complexity when you can.
What we currently have as to style guidelines does not serve the needs of this community well. For this reason, the current Manual of Style should be reworked (also with a view of making the guidelines optional/compulsory for certain kinds of articles). The current MOS should be split into two, one concerned with formatting, the other with language.
Until we have a new set of guidelines to work with, we should continue to apply what we have, where possible. This also means that for the time being we do not change the rules for GAs or VGAs.
Once we have the new guidelines I think it would be on the community to decide whether they want their showcase articles to follow these; If the community decides against their use in (V)GAs, we simply have a MOS that is good for this community, other, these rules can make our showcase articles better.
Avoid complexity by all means, but minimise ambiguity in process and article formatting.
The MOS here is completely ignored by any process we have. We may as well delete it and depecrate to en.wiki´s MOS for the time being, although we will still have no processes that refer to it, i.e. it is entirely redundant.
I agree that until we have new accepted rules for GA and VGA we use the old ones. But we also have the policy of WP:IAR which may be invoked if articles are promoted by drive-by supports which pay little heed to the overall integrity of this Wikipedia.
If we don´t advise the use of the MOS or mandate it for VGA, we might as well not have one. There´s a good reason the en.wiki mandates its use for FA - professionalism. Do we not want that here?
So basically, you are threatening to depromote any articles that meet our current guidelines that you don't feel should be GAs and/or VGAs through the use of IAR? Not what I want to see from such a respected user as you. Razorflame23:28, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, I am promising to use consensus to promote articles, not hard and fast rules. Right now an editor is opposing the promotion of a potential GA based purely on a personal preference that GA´s should have images. That´s not in the criteria but the GA process simply sees that as an oppose from a named editor regardless of the reasoning. It´s yet another example of a process which needs to be fixed. The Rambling Man on tour (talk) 23:32, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It would be a good idea to require (some, depending on situation) articles follow the MoS as a criteria for promoting to ensure uniformity. As the MoS is extremely comprehensive, it would take quite a few months (or even longer) for the community to finally decide on a version of the guideline for us. Maybe someone wants to create a page for this kind of planning? ChenzwTalk11:16, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Operation Focus
I'm sorry to say this, but this project has some real issues. I've just gone over the Knowledge groups on the Main page and almost all of the links contained therein have no (ie: ZERO) references to back up the information contained in them. We can not call ourselves an encyclopedia if we can't back up what we say. Without sources, we're not much better than a blog. I think we need to join together as a community and fix the problems with citations in this project. I propose that we start a focus group that contains all editors and that we have a blitz that firstly fixes all the links in Knowledge groups and then decides the focus that the community should have. No offence to anyone but page after page of stubs on rivers, asteroids, little non-notable towns and many other subjects are not going to keep us alive as a project. We have to focus on literature, science, medicine, social science, geography, history and other subjects our readers really need! As it stands at the moment, we are not usable as a knowledge resource to anyone. I've not done the research but I'd guess that less than 10% of our pages are properly sourced and that makes us next to useless as a reliable resource. We have to fix this.
I hate to be so blunt, but we need to fix this site; and deep down, I think we all know this!
I think this is a valid point. This may be an accurate learning tool, but without proper citations it can never be taken seriously. Even looking at en.wikipedia, which has much more thorough citations than simple.wikipedia, it is still not taken completely seriously by the public. After thinking about it, we must seem like a bastion of misinformation/faulty information.
I'm going to focus on referencing the articles I have any knowledge whatsoever about. As for the other articles, we need more than one or two people working on this. DefenseSupportParty (talk) 08:52, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think anybody besides sysops can access the search logs. If they can, I think it would be a huge advantage to dump them to a page so people can find the most accessed/searched articles. It would help immensely in setting priorities for article creation/betterment. DefenseSupportParty (talk) 09:54, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) I've lost the link, but I know there is a toolserver tool that we can use to determine what pages are being looked at. Regardless, I think you can understand that no sources=no verification=no reliability. Much of the information here may well be true, but without citations no one can prove it. Right now, we would not be able to accept ourselves as a WP:RS!! That's not a good position to be in! fr33kmantalk09:59, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely agreed. I don't know how simple wikipedia feels about Task Forces, but I think a Citation & Verification Task Force might be in order. I spent a lot of my time on en.wikipedia, and a clearly focused task force can accomplish a lot. Either way, something does need to be done, especially starting with the front page articles. I added references to atheism, and it didn't take long. If we can just get five or so people working on it on a regular basis, we could fix a lot of the problems. DefenseSupportParty (talk) 10:07, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I know you do dude! You, and everyone else here, have nothing but respect from me; but ... now is the time to fix it. We need to stop the people who want to shut us down before they can even open their mouths! :) Regarding task-forces, I think we need to begin to insist that all editors begin to add citations for anything they add to an article. I happened to have memorized all the {{cite}} templates but today, I just learned that FireFox has an addon that does it all for you. This leaves no room for excuses. If someone was to physically stand in front of us and assert many of the facts exterted here, we'd make them prove it. Let's do it here also!! fr33kmantalk10:19, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
God, that's a lot of colons to type :p. I like the idea, but there are problems with it. Insistence isn't enough; is there going to be a template to put on user pages if there are no citations on an otherwise exceptional article? It doesn't seem productive to threaten blocking a user simply because the don't cite any sources.
Moreover, what about short stub articles? I created an article on GPRS Tunneling Protocol today, that is literally one sentence long. I could have found a citation for that, but it was simply to fix a redlink. Would I be under the hammer for not including a citation?
I'm not saying it's a bad idea, on the contrary, it's a great idea, but the problem is in the details. Insistence is one thing, but there needs to be a clear set of rules if that is going to be the case. Cheers. DefenseSupportParty (talk) 10:44, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(unindent) Well, I never even thought about blocking users for not adding citations. I believe in engendering cooperation rather than coercing users with threats. I fully believe that every active editor here wants nothing but the best for this project. I'd only ask them to put their money where their mouth is (so to say) and prove it by making a reliable encyclopedia, rather than just one with lots of pages. With regards to stubs; so what? If it is a fact, then it can be sourced. The current rules allow an editor to remove anything that is unsourced. This goes, regardless of length of article or who inserted the fact. Finding sources and citing them is a "practice" thing. The more you do it the easier it becomes. I think I'm personally pretty good at it. Some of this is down to my profession and the fact that I can't do squat without proof of why it would help my patients. The same should hold true here. WE say we are here for schools, but we can't offer them a reliable project, because we don't verify our facts, we just insert them. fr33kmantalk11:06, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Valid point on the stub thing. Furthermore, I'm glad blocking isn't being considered. However, I think a template for reminding people to cite their sources should they not in a new article wouldn't be a bad idea. It would keep me in line if I saw a reminder on my talk page.
Also, you're absolutely correct about everything you said. We need to be reliable above all else. The only problem I realistically see is actually engendering the users to cite sources. A template reminder would work pretty well for users who have been here or on another wiki for a while, but I doubt it would convince first or second time users to actively source.
Finally, that may help in the future, but we're already to a lot of articles, and very few citations. Remedying the articles already afflicted by the disease is going to be harder than preventing the spread to new articles. It's going to take a ridiculous amount of work to go through the articles we have now and properly source them.
I agree that retroactive is problematic (although not insurmountable), but we could at least begin with the links on the main page. It's pretty bad that our front page has most of its links that are unverified. A tag could help; I just hate tagging the regulars :) fr33kmantalk11:22, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be happy to help out with this too. :) Although I agree we would need focus on which articles needed sources. It seems kind of helpless to just do random page over and over again; if we focused on, say, a group of categories at a time, this could be approached methodically and with a purpose. FrancesO (talk) 14:55, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Stub types
Did I miss the discussion where we allowed more detailed stubs such as bio-stub, uk-stub etc? If we're going to do this then we should do it properly, eg consider correct categories and sub-cate for these stubs, and probably discuss a fundamental and Simple stub family tree before rolling it out wholesale. Apologies if I missed the discussion and presumably the community consensus to go this way.... The Rambling Man on tour (talk) 04:54, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, they already exist. All the stub type categories are hidden categories, which is why you don't see them on the articles. I believe this was done because it was cluttering up the articles the stubs were put on. Cheers, Razorflame06:26, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Proposed icon system! (that actually works)
Thanks to the French Wikipedia, the icon system can finally function without having to go through an {{icon}} template. You can see the code here. It finally solves the problems of icons overlapping cleanly. obentomusubi06:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think would look nice for very articles ( for good articles), and for semi-protected pages. I personally think a glossier button look is more chic. Ideas? obentomusubi06:59, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it looks nice. The replacement of the protection icons is more tedious though; you have to go through all the (broken) protection templates. ChenzwTalk08:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
True. In fact, I think we should have one universal protection template that you can specify which type it should be. (i.e. {{protected|semi}}). Some time next week or the week after, I'll try to allocate (dedicate) some time to fixing these. obentomusubi08:41, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
change
Remember Simple News folks! Articles and announcements and RFA news required! I will also do an interview, yet to be done, I'll catch someone on IRC this weekend! Kennedy10:23, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
oooooh, orange juice, my favorite juice....although who can be surprised since I live in Florida...In my opinion King of places for orange juice.-- † CM16tc17:13, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Aw, come on guys lighten up, were done with that now, we're working now. There's nothing wrong with having a little laugh.-- † CM16tc18:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there all. Today, I've started a new campaign to help improve the moral of the editors on this Wikipedia. It's called Today's User Ratings. Every day, I will select 5 users and rate them on a scale of 1 to 5 their usefulness towards this project. If you receive a high rating (4/5 stars), then I think you are very useful towards this project. If you receive a low rating (which shouldn't happen too often), I don't think you are that useful to this project. Most editors should be in the 3.5+ star range, so I hope you enjoy this :). I kind of mondelled it after Fairfield's Wikipedian of the day user subpage, so I hope you enjoy it :P. If you want to rate a user for a particular day, feel free to use the talk page of the userpage to propose a rating for a user. I will look through them and see if they are appropriate. Feel free to add your own ratings for the 5 users that are currently up. Cheers, Razorflame17:17, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Considering your rating for me and the way me and you started out last year...me and you have come A LONG way in being acquaintances, Razor.-- † CM16tc17:20, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't like this. Please don't rate me. What you're saying is that X is more useful to this project than Y, so, Y must be useless?. "If you receive a low rating, I don't think you are that useful to this project." - Errr... WTF? Either fix it so its not causing distress to users (it has already, see above) or I'm deleting it. Thing is, giving someone less points than someone else, and saying that they are less useful, is definately going to cause distress. Kennedy09:23, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, quite true. One way to fix this is to make it some kind of editor showcase instead. Do you want to integrate it into Simple News? It is different from the interview as you do not need to contact that particular editor but just look through their contributions. ChenzwTalk12:37, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think "Stars of the day" are silly, and this sounds it too. I have no wish to be rated, this is an encyclopedia, not a Facebook application... Majorlytalk20:15, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Very well, you may delete the page. Sorry, but I just thought of making some place to help boost the moral of users here. Sorry for trying. Cheers, Razorflame20:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Help from an Admin?
Could an administrator please message me? I need help with something. Nobody is responding to my topic, so I need direct help from an admin. Thanks! :) obentomusubi00:22, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Is this about the icons JavasScript being inserted into Common.js? If so has enough discussion been done for this change? I see two people saying that they "look nice". I don't see that consensus decided for this change in that discussion above. I think more people should chime in on the discussion; unless this has already taken place somewhere else, in which case point me to the discussion. Cheers :) fr33kmantalk21:02, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't chim in, because I don't think two people commenting its nice is enough of a concensus to make a change like this. I personally don't care if the change is made or not unless it breaks something which I think Chenzw was making a reference to it possibly happening. As an admin I wouldn't make that change until a much larger discussion happened, another admin might feel differently. -Djsasso (talk) 22:58, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Administrators can only give the flood flag to themselves; they are unable to give them to other editors. Furthermore, most editors only flood for a short time, so if you can stand a few minutes of many changes in a row, then you should be fine. Cheers, Razorflame19:21, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Then how come Chenzw gave you something similar? And no I can't stand it, like stated in the proposed template....it makes it harder to watch for vandalism.-- † CM16tc19:54, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No it's not our main purpose is to build an encyclopedia but if we ignore it we become unreliable and then we're building an encyclopedia for nothing.-- † CM16tc20:02, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
@CM, Chenzw is a bureaucrat, so he assigned the bot flag. Bureaucrats can grant and revoke the bot flag to and from non-admins when needed. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 20:01, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't like it. I'm not a fan templates designed for us against established editors and well meaning newbies and anons. The only templates I really think should exist are those designed to protect the project by discouraging bad behaviours such as disruption, warring, copyright, vandalism etc. I'd not like to use a template against a good faith editor just trying to help. A quiet customised chat on their talkpage would be better. fr33kmantalk20:53, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree with Fr33kman. The people flooding are generally established users here. All you need to do is leave them a note saying that they should request a flood flag (say that five times fast). "Hey, I've noticed you're making a lot of rapid changes, you should request a flood flag from a bureaucrat at their talk pages..." etc. Either way (talk) 22:49, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I think this wiki is too overly concerned with flooding the recent edits page. I mean you can go back many hundreds of edits in the recent edits, so things won't be missed. And if they are its not the end of the world, someone will eventually notice. I mean the entire recent changes log on en.wiki fills up in one second.....it takes forever for the full recent edits buffer to fill here. -Djsasso (talk) 22:48, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A warning template is not the right way to go about this. Giving an established user a "warning" will obviously make these editors angry. If you must tell someone to get the flood flag, I would suggest telling them in a non-templated way to avoid drama. Malinaccier (talk) (review)01:45, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As I've stated above, only administrators can grant the flood flag, and they can only grant it to themselves. Flood flag has nothing to do with this. If I feel like I'm going to be making a lot of changes that would flood the recent changes, I ask a bureaucrat for the bot flag temporarily. You'll see that I've done this many times in the past. Flood flag is administrator only at this point in time. Cheers, Razorflame01:47, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Done The Typo Team is now founded. --The New Mikemoral (talk) 00:15, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Weak Support FrancesO's template does use simpler English, but the current one is just as good. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The New Mikemoral (talk • contribs) 20:20, March 7, 2009 (UTC)
would look nice for very articles (
for good articles), and 
for semi-protected pages. I personally think a glossier button look is more chic. Ideas? obentomusubi 06:59, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
? Suggestions? obentomusubi 08:23, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Keep. Looks like we'll live to see another year.-- † CM16 t c 16:48, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
-- † CM16 t c 17:02, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
