Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 10

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I know this comment will fall well below the usual standard of comments on this page, but I was on the Norwegian Wikipedia today and noticed their fancy 'GFDL' logo in the footer. Who wants to steal it? Archer7 - talk 15:17, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If it is labeled GFDL (look it says it right on the image, it must be GFDL) then is it actually stealing it? -- Creol(talk) 16:29, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose not, but that takes away the thrill of it... Archer7 - talk 16:35, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Just nicked the code, now waiting for community approval :) Actually, it's not under GFDL, it's in the public domain. GFDL shouldn't be used for images apparently. Archer7 - talk 18:56, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I like some of the stuff from the Italian's Monobook.css i.e. the edit tabs etc. --NigelJ talk EN 05:04, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Really? dario vet --vector ^_^ (talk) 05:25, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ummm... they were rounded last night... weird. --NigelJ talk EN 20:16, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Interwiki Issues Strike again

Due to an update in AWB, Interwiki issues have arisen again.

In this case it's thinking that be-x-old is actually a standard link instead of an interwiki, I discovered it while running NigelJBot, and I'm in the process of fixing the edits. I've asked the AWB devs if they can kindly put out a bug fix for this issue (in other words be careful). --NigelJ talk EN 01:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pictures in your userbox

In Simple English Wikipedia, how do you add pictures to your userbox from Wikimedia Commons? Panda Bear 19:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind, I figured it out. Panda Bear 23:41, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

sugar

"When we eat regular sugar, our mouth breaks it apart into the smaller sugars." "When we eat starch, our body breaks it apart into smaller sugars. This starts in the mouth." Look at these two phrases. One sentence says "our mouth breaks it apart into the smaller sugars"; the other says "our body breaks it apart into [the] smaller sugars. This starts in the mouth." What starts in the mouth -- the body or the breaking? Also, what breaks the sugars -- mouth or the body? Coffsneeze 00:41, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The body breaks it apart through enzymes. I'd say the first sentence should be made more like the second. Archer7 - talk 08:49, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

City/Village?

Hello! I saw that Langnau im Emmental is in the Category:Cities_in_Switzerland, but it isn't really a city, just a township, because it has just 8000 inhabitants. Does Wikipedia differ between city and village...? (the same problem exists by the article Muri bei Bern..) Thanks for responsing! Niceli 13:40, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cities and towns get confusing mainly due to the terms mean different things in different places. Germany for instance has the same word that means both city and town (plus another word for big city). Even within the same country, different locales have different opinions. Each US state is in charge of setting its own requirements (if it has any). Pennsylvania has little to no difference between the two terms while in Virginia a city needs to be "incorporated" and actually becomes its own county when that happens (the "City of Virginia Beach" is a county all by itself, for example). In many cases, within the same article on en.wp you can find a place listed as both a city and a town so there is no help there differentiating the two. Idealy I think the Germans have the right idea, just use one term. This is especially effective here because we realy do not have a large number of articles cities in one location and when we do, it is easier to break them up by location (state, district, county, canton, whatever) than to try and figure out the local legalities as well as official name. (some cities are recognized as a city legally, but are named "The Town of" (Town of Ocean City, Maryland is just enough to risk heads exploding trying to figure out which it is..). And this is all before trying to figure out how to deal with villages and hamlets. "Municipalities in" would likely be the most accurate format, but it is just a tad too long, "Cities in" tends to work out best in my opinion. -- Creol(talk) 17:25, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Today,the distinction is made by the number of inhabitants; generally, hamlet, village, town/city, and the only thing that is different between a village and a city is that the city has the right to have "City of ..." in tis name. In Central Europe, there are cities which had received Town privileges in the middle ages. This gave certain rights to the city. Such "cities" are still cities today, even though quite a few of them have less that 10.000 people (which is the limit currently applied in most places). To distinguish hamlets from villages: In hamlets, the economic activity is usually centered around one kind of industry (eg. a sawmill). As to city rights (or town privileges as it is termed here), there was usually a charter specifying this. This charter was made from a prototype. In Germany, there were the prototype charters of Lübeck, Magdeburg and Kulm- most cities had their charter modeled on one of these three. As for here, I think we should not makje the distinctioon between city and town. --Eptalon 11:39, 20 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Socrates

"His mother was a nurse who helped women give birth to children." If his mother was a nurse who helped women give birth to children, then she's a midwife, to be specific. Coffsneeze 01:11, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nurse is Simple English, while midwife isn't. That may be a reason for writing it that way. --rimshottalk 08:47, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I feel that midwife, while not in Simple English, is a fairly common concept. It is perhaps even more common in cultures outside the US. "His mother was a midwife, a nurse who helped women give birth to children" would be preferable, or maybe simply "His mother was a midwife".

problems with making an account

Dear Wikipedian,

When I want to create an account which I called 'Adam P', it tells me the name is already in use. I think it is not true, because when I fill in 'Adam P' and then I click 'Go' to check that, it tells me that the name does noet exist. Could anyone tell me what is going on? I prefer when you answer me at my talk page. Thank you.

I hope to hear from it soon.

Kind regards,


85.147.58.245 19:36, 11 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]


P.S. Apologize for my bad English. I am a Dutchman and the only place where I learned English was at school.

If you look at this page you will see that both "Adam P" and "Adam P." are in use. You may use "AdamP" instead.
By the way, there is nothing wrong with your English! Huji 18:31, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The recent changes in the "Simple English Wikipedia"

how can I add a list of the last 5 articles added to "the Simple Wikipedia" in my User Page ?? .. and add another list of the last 5 changes ??.. so that i can view the recent changes in the wikipedia.. thanks in advance Ahmad510 11:05, 19 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try {{Special:Recentchanges/5}} Majorly (talk) 12:10, 19 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Majorly, but what about the articles ?? Ahmad510 12:16, 19 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, my mistake. Try {{Special:Newpages/5}} Majorly (talk) 12:39, 19 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks alot Mr. Majorly Ahmad510 14:35, 19 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Changing the Wikibooks template

Hello, I just delted Energy conservation at home/Saving energy at home (per RFD; it can be found in Simple Wikibooks here. one of the pages that link to it is Renewable Energy. I removed the link there, and tried to include a Wikibooks link. The problem is now that wikibooks links to the regular english wikibooks (which is probably a sound decision, given that Simple Wikibooks is still quite small) - However, I think a template is needed (like wikibooks) that links to the Simple Wikibooks (so I can reference that article there). What does the community think, did I miss something? --Eptalon 10:53, 20 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If there isn't a template available, one should be created. I don't know if there is one. Majorly (talk) 11:46, 20 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Popups?

Okay, I'm from Wikipedia, I still edit there, but I just became a new user here and was wondering, are popups used here? As in, you move over a link and it shows the preview of that page? Cause if so....could someone show me where to get that all sorted out? I mean, I did on Wikipedia ages ago and now I can't remember how I even did it. Any help would be. Thanks Captain Drake Van Hellsing 10:31, 23 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I added popups like this. You should take your standard.js and add something like that there. If you are using a skin different from the standard skin, look here on where to find the right js file. --rimshottalk 10:53, 23 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've been trying to priview that same code you did, by copying and pasting it into my one, though, when I do the preview, it puts it up in the top left, some of the writting that is whilst the create page and all that have a gap in between that and the page. Is it suppose to do that? Cause it came out like this Captain Drake Van Hellsing 11:07, 23 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Looks fine to me. Note that the two lines at the bottom are my personal settings for popups. You don't need them. Other than that, does it work now? --rimshottalk 12:38, 23 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Still nothing, cause the first two lines don't appear in the box for some reason, yet, the other parts do. Wold that have anything to do with it at all? Captain Drake Van Hellsing 22:27, 23 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, never mind, it's doign it now ^^ Captain Drake Van Hellsing 05:54, 24 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Image in pump

I can't get the image to go smaller. Please can someone give me a hand. Soaringgoldeneagle T C en 16:02, 23 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have re-added the picture. The formatting I used was this: [[Image:Fuggerei-Waterpump.jpg|thumb|right|200px|A hand-pump]]. · Tygartl1·talk· 16:26, 23 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The "frame" atribute of the image tag causes it to ignore the sizing setting. If you use frame, you have to make certain the image is the correct size since you can not resize. "Thumb" is most often a better choice. (Plus "thumb" automatically also includes "right" and "200px" so you do not need to include them)-- Creol(talk) 21:04, 23 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Soaringgoldeneagle T C en 14:48, 24 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Time

Just out of curiosity, is there a way that you can put just the time in signatures? Isis 21:04, 24 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I know you can put just the time and date. I sign with my sig template and then use ~~~~~, 5 tildes, for the date and time. Hope that helps. -  BrownE34  talk  contribs  00:40, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Links in titles

Hello, community. I have made a minor addition to How to write Simple English articles. This addition says that elements that structure the article (like titles) should not contain links. --Eptalon 16:32, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's a nice idea, but how do we track down articles that don't follow the rule? --Choosnink/(Beep!) 17:03, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is a basic problem here: Flagging such articles automatically is not a problem. However, if the link is removed (automatically), the result may be an article with no outbound links, which is a bad thing to have. Robots coded to this purpose can not rewrite sections (in an intelligent way). Therefore automatic tagging is not an optimal solution (as it only creates work for the few editors we have). There are two options I see that can be done:
  1. Rewrite the respective section to move the link from the title to the paragraph directly following
  2. Mark the article, or section with a cleanup tag, if there are links in titles remaining
Those are just options; also the page I changed is a guideline, not a policy. --Eptalon 17:46, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Words category

Relief was listed on Wikipedia:Requested articles. Choosnink Has created the article, so it no more needs to be listed there. My question is, is that article (and other articles in Words category) going to be kept, or moved to wiktionary? Do we have defined standards for it on Simple En WP?Huji 16:56, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Huji, I was trying to find a category that fit for them and there are no basic words category, I'm not sure should be created. If you feel it should be removed that is fine but there should be some other category to replace. Words is the one I found. --Choosnink/(Beep!) 16:59, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well it is not that I think "Words" is a wrong category for these articles. It is that I think those artciles are not encyclopedic, but rather, they are more dictionary entries. However, this is "my" opinion. We need to discuss it, or refer to a previous consensus, in such decisions. Huji 17:33, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If found another category about 850 Basic English words, but that doesn't sound so encyclopedic either, at least in opinion. This is just my opinion, but words will have to do until resolve this. I'm not sure what to do this, though. --Choosnink/(Beep!) 18:55, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Very good articles

Hello, Community.

We have worked hard, and come up with over 15.000 articles in this project. Some are shorter, some longer, but most that survive the first few days have a reason to be here. Of course, some of the articles are generally easier to understand and better written than others; this is directly related to how much editing has been done to them.

In order to show to the world that some articles are better than others, other Wikipedia projects have developed the idea of featured article. This idea wants to say exactly what I have written above, that the article is better than others.

As some of you may know, this is my third posting to that effect. I have come up with a list of things a very good article should have. This list can be talked about by any named editor. There is also a discussion about the first few articles that have a chance of being very good.

So if anyone of you gets bored enough, please tell your opinion, vote for the articles, or tell us about other such articles that you think should be very good. --Eptalon 18:56, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Please no votes on each entry ;-))) Just keep it simple : each administrator nominates up to five he prefers ; once the list established, each admin may veto one entry ; and here we go... ONaNcle 07:22, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Eptalon, whatever you do, don't stop nagging us about this, I think the Vgood system that you've set up now is great but also very important. ONaNcle, I don't quite understand what you mean about this voting (sorry, maybe I should be up-to-date on this...). Can you explain that? Archer7 - talk 17:16, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Rules

This might be discussed previously, but I think I like to bring it to your attention (again) now. In the other Wikipedias, there is a policy about writing sourced information in a ?? way. However, in Simple English Wikipedia, we face lots of articles which basically contain a translated/simplified text based on what is found on other wikipedias.

Articles being written from scratch do need to cite sources, to show the validity of the content, and to give the reader a way to read more about each aspect of the issue. Articles being imported from another Wikipedia like English Wikipedia, still need to cite their sources for the same reason, and because there is no guarantee what is found on En WP is correct (although sourced.) How would a reader feel if he reads incorrect statements in Diabetes mellitus, which are there only because they were translated from a version of en:Diabetes mellitus which contained the wrong information (which was fixed later on)?

So all in all, I think we should reinforce the necessity of citing sources, for example by translating the required RULES from En WP. Your comments are appreciated. Huji 18:25, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Any comments please? Huji 15:48, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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