Talk:Main Page/Archive1

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So, what's up with this? What's the goal of this wiki, precisely? Is it for use mainly, or only, by adult learners of English? Maybe we could discuss this on Wikipedia-L. --Larry Sanger

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Simplified English is essentially the same as having an 'executive summary' of 'long' articles in basic English listed at the head of a Wikipedia article.

No. It involves changing the vocabulary and grammar. Condensing is possible but not necessary.

It is a good thing. Encyclopedias are much to space constrained --> need for terse sentences with complex words.

I vote for 'subject verb object' sentence structure.

No, while SVO structure may be useful, it is rather more complex than that.

Larry: I agree, this should be discussed on the list.

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Now, I feel that I'm qualified to suggest _why_ this was started, since I was the one who asked for it. (Also, I'm an English teacher holding an MA in Teaching English as a Second Language.) Here is the original email to Jason Richey:

> > My name is Jeff Nelson; I'm an English teacher and technologist > > currently residing in the Middle East. I want to help start a section > > of the Wikipedia for beginners in English. It could start out with > > simplified versions of existing articles, using only the 1000 or so > > most common words in English.

In short, I wanted wikipedia articles that could be useful for my own students, whose reading ability is at the beginning to intermediate level. (Getting them to read articles from the main wikipedia was a disaster.)

Since then I realized a couple of things: 1. It would be useful to verify (without too much trouble) how hard a text really is. 2. We needed to either define a target level or make a way of indexing texts by difficulty, or both.

Therefore, I started doing research on freely-available resources about textual difficulty, which is most of what you see on the site right now. (Sorry, it's still a bit crude; when I have time I'll polish it up.)

There are recognized standards defining "beginner," "intermediate," etc. which I'm trying to locate.

--Jeff Nelson

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You could start by using simplified English on your title page.

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A suggestion for your consideration. We could first focus on completing a draft dictionary of the thousand words ... say get to 500 before article writing begins. Then articles could be requird to have multiple words or phrases in the title. This would allow every word to be clickable to the dictionary ... potentially of great assistance to beginning readers. This may require a software modification to resolve the clicking on article titles vs. words in the titles but I do not think it impossible. This project would be extremely useful to me in some other projects that I have in mind. Interesting good idea! user:mirwin

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Entries on versions ofreformed and modified English itself would help to train the contributors, whereupon the following set of steps could happen:

1. bootstrap the project using w:Basic English plus the w:E-Prime "become", "remains", "equals", and ban "to be" from the very beginning, everywhere - that's about 1000 words - those words can be used to define the other 1000 words required to define all English w:idioms (about 4000 of them) using limited senses of the 2000 words. At that point, the project consists of a w:Basic English and w:E-Prime dictionary, the entries include many idioms, e.g. "make good" and explain where asymmetric use, i.e. "make bad" is wrong.
2. find the most popular wikipedia items and rewrite them entirely in this 2000-word English, avoiding use of the idioms except where absolutely necessary. At this point contributors are relatively skilled at avoiding "to be", and the states of being implied by w:E-Prime.
3. move on to the most controversial items likely to pop up in discourse among people with little or no English, and cover mathematical topics fully since they rely on a language (math itself) that won't depend on English vocabulary much at all (no reason to believe that an English beginner is a math beginner, that's a separate scale) - this will create a core group of contributors who are dedicated to w:consensus process, not stupid ideological rhetoric (like the "NPOV as God, worship or be called troll" crowd over at the regular wiki)
4. solicit help from NGOs and institutions that know a lot about working with non-native English speakers in stressful situations, get their help at this later stage to build up articles on practical matters, e.g. splinting a broken arm, keeping a plasma fridge running, planting food crops, how a well works - ultimately, get a few of these on editorial board and get them using the simple wikipedia as their standard reference and teaching guide for non-native speakers.

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Just a few comments to those points hinted above

1. It would indeed be very useful to properly define the level in english of the aimed readers. I presume the 1000 words are those we are able to understand, rather than use ourselves. Huge difference. A 1000 words to understand a language is really not much, and probably do not include the "technical" words (job related) that we know, but do not use in everyday life. Indexing texts by level of difficulty would be great, probably better that just aiming a level of understanding.

2. Are the aimed readers rather educated in their own country or not ? I would rather say they are, for they are more likely to be the ones spending time flipping through an encyclopedia. Also, more likely to be the ones using internet. Am I being wrong here ? Is the aim only to support teaching classes, or is it also intended to support knowledge hunger on a more personal basis ?

3. If 2 is true, I'd say that the readers will stick to the encyclopedia because they can find there information they don't find in their own language, ie info dealing with items they don't use, questions their fellowmen don't tackled, concepts not given consideration, or because they can find other points of view on an specific issue (hum, what is a cheerio, what are the specificities of a condo, why do you play baseball, what is mormon religion, voting issues in english-speaking countries, creationism vs evolutionism...).

If !2, splinting a broken arm might be of interest. It sounds a bit like a technical specification manual though.

4. I am no linguist at all, and imagine teaching english to people of very different primary languages is a challenge. Similar sentence structures, common roots certainly make a big difference compared to asian or arabic languages. For my compatriots, the biggest issue is maybe the phrasal verbs. To take, to put, to carry, to watch, to look...no ? Okay, our challenge is to be able to remember the subtle or less subtle differences between take aback, take after, take apart, take away, take down, take in, take off, take out, take over, take to and take up. Need to avoid these in the encyclopedia, or... to add them in the dictionary with a full load of examples. Another point is the auxiliary modal verbs (will/would, shall/should, can/could, may/might, must/had to...). And maybe another painful hit : irregular verbs (to begin, I began, begun; to slay, I slew, slain). All these, we consider more of a problem than the average number of words in a sentence :)

5. Repetition. Is often said to be the key for understanding. It is useless, however, to repeat the exact same piece of sentence in two following sentences, in order to avoid using a linkword or coordinating/subordinating conjonctions. If the sentence "looks" easy to understand, better try an easy linkword. The latter often having fine differences, maybe it would be sound to stick to a handful of basic ones. I remember I learn very early on a few of these at school, moreover, therefore, although, either...or, more...than. I certainly was able to understand them before I had 1000 words of english, and it certainly improved the clarity of the text. If the sentence "looks" tough to understand, then the writer could try to repeat the same idea with different words instead.

6. Mathematics. Or physics. Or chemistry. Yeah sure, a hard core. But, I thought we were using a common language... until I followed civil engineering classes, and not only suffered from different units, but also discovered we were not using the same abbreviations and different "cabalistic" signs. Computer science might well be the only field with common languages, build by english native speakers, and used all over the world.

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It looks like the simplified English Wiki hasn't been touched in months. I am going to try rewriting the main page and maybe adding others. Feel free to participate. -Quintessent

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Are there any guidelines for using this? The main Wikipedia has documented various rules and style guidelines that editors should adhere to. I think we need the same thing here. Angela, May 29 2003.

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Are 'complement' and 'emphasis' big words? :) :)

Yes! Feel free to edit. Angela 20:54 11 August 2003 (UTC)

Have I managed to sound way too condenscending with my recent change? That was probably an utter waste of time. There's hardly anything here!!!

FWIW, I think it's much better now. Angela 03:31 13 August 2003 (UTC)

Simple English Users

See Simple English Users/Talk

The name for the Pump

Discussion moved to Simple Talk/Talk

What is known as The Village Pump at English is now called Simple Talk here. Please use that page to ask any questions.

Do not tell each other what to do

(不告诉自己什么做) What does "So, please do not try to tell each other what to do." mean? It sounds really dictatorial. What's wrong with giving each other advice? Newbies needs advices.

Or is that sentence saying that in articles, we shouldn't use that tone? --Menchi, August 20, 2003

I have no idea what that's about. Please rewrite! Angela.

Changed a bit. --Menchi, August 20, 2003

Simple English word lists

That top 1000 words is quite misleading and feels restrictive. Because it doesn't contain common words like "worry", "die" and "true", but has "therefore" (=so), "industrial" (=of industry), "legal" (=of law), and "certainly" (= surely). It really sounds like that list is ... out-of-sync with reality. I mean, as a ESL adult, I can tell you that half of the words I learned first aren't on the list, and half of the words on the list I didn't learn until much...much later.

There are lists of the top 2000 words that are more appropriate perhaps. For instance, Longman's American Idioms uses only the most common senses of these 2000 words, to define 4000 idioms - it lists the 2000 words in the back along with prefixes, suffixes, etc., that they use. So with these 2000 Longman's believes they can explain all the quirks and culture of all American Idioms. Presumably they could explain all British, Australian, Canadian Idioms also with the same 2000 words. I think also they use only direct verbs, present tense wherever possible. So that may be a more logical vocabulary to use here than 1000. Or at last, we can make a rule to deliberately edit down to 2000, but, to generally prefer the top 1000. What's not a good idea is writing only child-level articles to stick within 1000 words.

So, should we even put such an inappropriate link there? I think we all inheritently have a basic idea what are easy words and what are not. And if we don't, we'll become en.Wikipedia.org without the scientific articles one day or another anyway. *joking* --Menchi, August 20, 2003

I agree, I have a problem with trying to stick to those words. It's unrealistic to expect people to check against the list every time they write something anyway. Perhaps some more info on what Simple English actually is would be enough for people to use their own judgement on which words to use. Angela

Um, well yeah. Theres Concordancing software (see WP) but this is a hassle maybe. I dunno. I think such a tool might be useful, but as Angela, you mention, there are silly caveats. But consider that each of those 1K words has a separate tense. If its a noun - death - it also has a verb - to die, dying- etc. Same vice versae. To say something like "He death april 15, 1980" - might be preferable than going into all the fancy tenses. He [died on]... etc. Not superfancy, but maybe too fancy for words. Simple words :) I think we should talk simple here. All the time. Maybe this is good for practice. Also it makes a precedent. -Stevertigo

If we are going to follow the 1000 word rule at all, then separate tenses should only be used if they are regular changes. For example, to add -ed for past tense would be allowed, but irregular changes (go--> went) would not be allowed unless 'went' was also on the list. I agree with the idea of trying to use simple language on talk pages as well, although I think I do anyway - I'm too used to writing for 7 year olds! Angela

Then you should not stop here. First rule is: "no put-together-words" Second rule chose big words for take-apart-ablility. Third rule is: no two-piece sentences. Use a lot of -. Use lots of ,.:;"' and on... -Stevertigo

Too many rules. It's meant to be simple. :)

Yeesh! OK. Stevertigo

I was only joking. They should be written up on a rules page somewhere - maybe the How To Write Simple English Articles page? Angela, 23 August.

Can we at least agree that what we call Simple English is somewhere between the 1000 words and the defining vocabulary of 2000 words? Also we should decide whether to use E Prime and thus ban to be. Just to say that we are aiming for an eventual vocab between 1000 and 2000 words is good for now. And note that even when there is a defining vocabulary some words get explained in context, or as footnotes in the idiom dictionary.

Let's move all this to Simple English or its talk file. We need to keep all this in one place.

New Software

See MediaWiki/Talk

Simple English Wikipedia Policy

See Simple English Wikipedia Policy/Talk

Conversion to MediaWiki

Simple English was only put on the new software on December 18, so there remain some things to be fixed.

Still to be fixed:

• fix links
• fix and add interlanguage links
• upload pictures and replace the existing image links

Mostly complete:

• remove the /talk links from articles
• move talk pages to the talk namespace
• move user pages to the user namespace
• move user talk pages to the user talk namespace
• move capitalised titles to proper title names
• move Wikipedia pages to the Wikipedia namespace

Why so condescending ?

I went throught WP Simple English and I was appalled by its condescendence! [For those non familiar: condescendence is a dominating attitude, someone thinking he is superior tries to help, but he is more rude than really usefull because he sounds despising.]

We agree that the section should be written by people at ease with English, for non-native English speakers -- with access to Internet. Believe it, among those, there are some people who don't know a 1000 words of English, but who rule a whole country and would beat any logical GRE score of yours. Why explain to them that:

"You don't have to spend any money to do useful things for astronomy."

as if you were adressing a retarded person?

Maybe you were aiming at simple-minded Americans, with access to Internet, in need of a dictionnary. If they come across a word they don't know, I think they would rather turn to someone around or a dedicated paper-dictionary.

IMHO, most "simple:" users are (should be) native-language users, who look for a definition they cannot understand using Google, because of vocabulary. This suppose we should look actively for links toward the others WP -- links I do not see at all. Remember we are addressing people like you, with less vocabulary, that is all. Anyhow, people who would not get that :

"Only add text which is released under the terms of the GFDL"

That's a good point. Only the language needs to be simplified, not the ideas. Angela 21:42, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

wouldn't it also be fun to do a children's encyclopedia as well? Then we could explain everything from scratch? --BozMo 21:03, 9 May 2004 (UTC)BozMo

The real question is: Is the whole concept of "simple English" condescending?

Ack! I actually read the astronomy page and I DO agree it IS condescending...

Condescending and utterly useless. I thought these articles were supposed to be 'translations' of the original article, to which this bears no relation. That is the principle on which I am working anyway. Shantavira 14:41, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

As a tutor working on a voluntary basis with adult students, most of them orally fluent in English, I find this site a blessing. If you have ever worked with an adult literacy project, you will understand how very, very hard it is to find material that is both of interest and at a satisfactory reading level. I think the whole argument of "condescension" is a little suspect in any case. I studied French for a number of years, and even as an adult, I did not find "la plume de ma tante" offensive - it was just material I could read. I believe those coming to this project with respect for their readers will naturally be sensitive to how condescending they sound. Just my 25¢ worth. DWindrim 20:35, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

That is to say, Denni. Denni 21:14, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

HOWEVER! Astronomy was an extremely condescending article, and is now considerably less so. Denni 00:13, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

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I protected the Main Page because it was continually being blanked or edited to something useless. --Cprompt 02:46, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Unprotected for now, unless someone is persistent in damaging it.

--Cprompt 03:20, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

--[Adipex] - January 31, 2004

I would imagine that this concept will only be able to be implemented for communities and am surprised I am even allowed to post here. I have seen a lot of Wiki pages left open to EVERYONE and this will not be a good thing when someone invariably becomes angry and destructive. This is a great, great concept otherwise.

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Wrapping issues

The following was brought up on the Latin Wikipedia, which is where our page design came from originally:

...do you realise that on a 800x600 screen, the title "» V I C I P Æ D I A « · » L A T I N A «" wraps onto a second line.

The same happens on our main page because of the spaces between letters in the title. So, I've replaced the spaces with nbsp to stop individual words being split up when it wraps. Does this look ok to everyone? Angela 20:47, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yep. Now it forces the browser horizontal scroll to expand, always making a word in a line, not broken. -Menchi (Talk). 07:59, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If possible, you should use the 'letter-spacing' CSS style for this, and not hack it together with non-breaking space characters.

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Table of languages

The other languages section on the bottom of the page does not link to the complex English section, but does link to Simple. Can this be fixed at all? SimonMayer 01:31, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Main Page subject links

I removed Esoterism and Spatial science b/c, despite my ready grasp of English (and my studies of physics and philosophy), I could not tell you what these things are. They also have no simple articles written about them. I also added two- and three-word descriptions of some topics which are difficult to grasp. (what is archaeology, after all? not just the study of buried cities, of course, but that's a stab at it...) Sj 10:58, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

and I hope my simplifications of the main page aren't condescending.

Translating Articles & Links

Where possible, I will be bringing articles from the existing Wikipedia and modifying the vocabulary level. However, the process leaves the new page bleeding red. I'm sure the regulars here have given this some thought -- how do you want to handle it? Delink judiciously, leave the words linked as they come, create stubs? I have no real preference, though I like the first choice least, and would do the latter if I didn't see the need to get some real content happening here. Thoughts? Denni 04:02, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia should aim high and we should aim for all of these articles to be created, someday. I think that Simple should have more links than en, because a lot of the users will fail to understand some basic words.
SimonMayer 21:17, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I agree. Link everything that could possibly need to be linked, and we'll worry about articles later. If people are reading and find a red link we can hope they would go and fill it in if they could, so red links should increase article creation. Whether or not to create stubs is another matter, I personally like stubs, once you have a stub people can just add a line at a time until you have a big article, before the stub is created those same people will ignore it. The other side to the arguement is that red links make it clear an article needs work, blue links to stubs don't. -- Tango 21:59, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Good point, Tango. It also allows the possibility of doing something here that isn't happening on the main Wikipedia. I think it's unfortunate the Wiktionary has become a separate entity; I'd much prefer a seamless interface. So, for instance, an article might look like this:

Article

An article is a written description of a person, place, or thing.

The blue links are standard wikilinks to articles. The yellow links would link to a definition in the Wiktionary, (which would appear in a pop-up window) and the red links would allow creation of either an article or a definition. Ultimately, it would be nice to have both articles and definitions available through a pop-up dialog/left-right mouseclick/click-click&hold, or whatever. I can see someone wanting to look up the meaning of, say. philosophy without running into a 3000 word article on Freud and Jung. Am I asking way too much of Wikipedia? Of course! But a person's reach should always exceed her grasp. Denni 01:02, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

You are asking much, but right on target! There is a hypertext editor called [Thinker] in which every word can be used as a link target. It should be possible to do this using HTML only, while not underlining and highlighting every word. This relieves the author of explicitly marking up every occurrence of intended link targets and still lets the reader use every such occurrence. It should still be the norm to explicitly mark up relevant references for the reader's benefit. Whether Thinker gives any indication of whether there is a page at the end of the link, I do not know. A disadvantage would probably be the size of the HTML (times four, maybe). A better technical solution than using HTML href anchors would be to have the browser implement this. The "invisible" default link for each word should point to the dictionary entry for that word. This might be user-customizable, so that the links point to an interlanguage instead of to an intralanguage dictionary. Additional functionality for explicitly marked-up words might be attached to little graphical symbols or letters following the reference, as the asterisk in "Xyz*". Rainer

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Format suggestion

A number of the links here will do little more than attach to definitions of words. I suggest the following format:

'''Word''' means (simple definition here). ''Variation'' means (modified meaning). Other words with the same meaning are ''[[word1]]'', ''[[word2]]'', and ''[[word3]]''.

See analyse and foolish as examples.

Just for continuity's sake, and to make the job of filling in those poor little links easier. Denni 00:13, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

Seems a good idea. Angela

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Does the width look ok on all browsers now? I'm not sure why it was ever set to 85% when it could be 100%. I think the main page could do with a "coummunity" section as well, with links to things like wikipedia:Simple talk, wikipedia:cleanup, wikipedia:requested articles, help, policies etc. Angela 20:52, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. -- Tango 21:07, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

Some Ideas

I am brand new here, quite active on English, but only 1 article on Simple so far. I have a suggestion that we begin to start interlinking more (to English Wikipedia, English Wiktionary and German Wikipedia for example). If I were a semi-English speaker and understood an article in it's entirity, though felt somewhat dissatisfied with the length - an English wikipedia link would be very useful. I bring this up due to my having noticed lots of articles are not linked. Also, it seems a shame that we simply duplicate English images - I recommend Simple wikipedia support the Wikimedia Commons project - an idea to have all media on a single database. --OldakQuill 09:36, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Rollover text

I have noticed that the rollover text (what appears as a caption when you put the mouse over a link) on Simple still has the en settings: recent for newest etc. Since I think these may be used for the visually impaired I would have thought we need to correct them but I really have no clue how to do this. One for Angela? --BozMo|talk 12:16, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Please make suggested changes at Wikipedia:New messages in 1.3Wikipedia talk:MediaWiki namespace and any administrator can change it using the MediaWiki namespace. It's the messages that start "tooltip-" that you want to change. Angela 23:27, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

WikiP in other languages

The list of WP in other languages now appears three times on the front page and seriously squeezes out other content. Can't we agree that one is enough? --BozMo|talk 12:38, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I assume you're not using the monobook skin since in looks fine it that? I've reduced the number of interlanguage links to match what the English Wikipedia does. Is this any better? Angela 08:45, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Now looks fine, thanks. I don't actually know what you mean by the monobook skin: can you point me to an explanation? Thanks again --BozMo|talk 12:10, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC) How squashed it looks may be screen size of course...

Actually, I don't think it was related to the skin. When I wrote that I assumed you meant the links were at the top and bottom of the screen, which is why it showed three times, but then I realized it was probably due to duplication in the interlanguage links. Monobook refers to new style skin that was applied recently. You can choose others in your preferences, like "standard" or "cologne blue". Angela 22:04, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

date & time on main page -- discuss!

I strongly suggest the use of the date & time on the main page. I would prefer the date to be linkable as well. This serves two purposes. 1) An indicator of today's date, like you would see on the TV news, or daily newspaper. 2) Clickable dates. The user can click on the date and see what happened on this day in history. Since every day is a different date, this serves as an interesting method to find out about history.

I'd like anyone's opinion about whether they support this idea or not. I strongly support this idea and will not agree to it's removal from the main page unless many people don't agree with this idea for the main page. 81.86.110.57 03:29, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No, it doesn't belong. Too many Month/days are still red links. Wikipedia is not a newspaper, it is an encyclopedia. There is no relevant reason for such a large display. -- Netoholic @ 06:22, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'd also point out that whatever timezone you chose, it would be incorrect for most of the world. The moment the date changes also varies based on timezone... this would be confusing. -- Jtheory

Protection of main page

After several attacks on the main page I suggest that the main page is protected like in en: and most other wikis. Instead of directly editing the main page, parts of the page are edited through various templates. Other parts of the main page should only be available for administrators to edit. This is not completely waterproof but at least presents some hurdles to vandals. --Eddi 20:41, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes: Protect main page

• Yes. --Eddi 20:41, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Netoholic @ 23:11, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC) -- I think I am leaning this way. I don't like protection either, but our front page should remain fairly stable. Any changes not available via the Template inclusions would probably be a major layout change requiring some buy-in. I'd like to leave some sort of notice on the Main page about how to request a change, though.
• Yes: User Patze from German Wikipedia. Some people are posting disgusting contributions which have nothing to do with Wikipedia. This is not supposed to happen, especially not on a main page.

• Yes, But... -- User AskTbird, a prolific but anonymous donor. The front page can remain locked, but it needs to explain a) what Simple English is, in a grammatical sense, and b) how to add or edit a page in Simple English. A tutorial page might help. Do we conjugate verbs, or keep them in present tense? Do we have compound/complex sentences? Is there a word limit for sentences, paragraphs or articles? Or is Simple to be simply described as "keep it simple"--?

No: Don't protect main page

• Angela No. Protected pages considered harmful. There are very few admins here, so it would never get edited. Most wikis do not have their main pages protected.

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Nice, but the template was already reverted and the photo was still on the main page! I edited it, added some HTML comment and saved back - now the photo is gone. WTF? --62.233.196.88 12:24, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm a bit ashamed of this ...

This Simple English for language learners ... I mean, why not to do it properly? Nobody wants to use this sort of crap (sorry for the profanity) as a learning tool. It seems that the contributors and regular writers undermine and underestimate the readers. It's like considering them retarded. I am not a native English speaker, quite far from it actually. My British friend who moved to my home country (which is irrelevant, but I might say it because my language is considered the 2nd hardest after Japanese (subjective)) for sure wouldn't enjoy a similar Simple Finnish wikipedia ... Damn! This idea is great! Let's have a Simple version for every language in the wikipedia project! Simple Navajo, Simple Swedish, Simple Russian, Simple Whatever!

Whose idea was this Simple Wikipedia in the first place? This is embarrassing! I hope the discussion would encompass to discuss the future direction and the whole future of this part of wikipedia. I wish this to be put under reconsideration.

Addon: I might bring something useful to this mess, as I am here anyways. In the mainpage you say "Biggest Wikipedias", well, as a foreigner I would see it much more logical if it would say "Largest". Considering our brainless readers know the word "Large" and prefer it before "Big". Biggest? What the heck.

Presumably most of the Simple English writers are native Englishmen and women, who have no idea of teaching languages anyways. Put somebody doing better guidelines and put someone in charge!

--80.221.68.205 22:43, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there will be any other simple XXX ikipedia since simple english is invented language, not part of english itself. Let's see, is there any simple Japanese(if you say it's hard)? Or simple Indonesian (my native language) that a very simple language.202.69.101.170 09:09, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Just in passing, YLE do have a news broadcast in what they call "Special Finnish". Deutsche Welle do the same thing for German. It's not at all unheard of. 80.229.170.237 10:29, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I only recently found Simple English Wikipedia and I for one am very impressed by it. Wikipedia is all about taking knowledge and making it accessible to as many people as possible. Language can be a barrier to that and Wikipedia has been committed to breaking that barrier since the creation of the very first non-English wiki. Simple English is the logical extension of its 229 sisters and works toward the exact same end. That Wikipedia tries to effectively serve even those with learning difficulties, weak backgrounds in the language, or who just find traditional Wikipedia plain old confusing should not be a cause for embarrassment but a mark of pride; Wikipedia continues to distinguish itself from other intellectual endeavors in terms of accessibility. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:TonyJoe

Front page introduction...

The introduction to this part of wikipedia makes little sense

'Keep it simple - then pages will be easier to read by people who do not speak English well. Write good pages - The best encyclopedia pages are full of detail and information on the subject. '

Simple and detailed are opposites of each other, which is it?

Also what is the goal of this wikipedia exactly? On here there are arguments about whether its for children or for foreigners, the children one is discredited with a wikijunior thing whilst for the foreigners- can't they go read their language's wikipedia?

That won't help them learn English. --67.172.99.160 18:07, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm guessing you've never needed to speak a foreign language before. It can be quite difficult. I think that the simple English pages are here to allow many people who speak only a little English to contribute to a shared encyclopedia. It is not here to teach people to speak English.

Also, I think the person who made the first comment in this section is choosing not to think. "Keep it simple" means the language must be simple. "Full of detail" means that the articles should have a lot of information. A great deal of information can be written in very simple language.--69.143.244.79 03:09, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I am a native Russian speaker and your "Simple English" does not seem any bit easier for me. I cant even see the difference. And whats the purpose of these stupid comments on the main page for such international words as biology, geography, architecture and so on? These words are understandable for anybody. I think if a person can understand this wikipedia, he of course will understand the conventional English one. The most difficulty in learning English is not international words, but English-specific ones and grammar. --213.141.159.52 06:39, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh and also the site is a bit broke, there is a message saying I have new messages when I obviously haven't due to not being logged in as anything.

Indeed a very (nearly too) simple English.

--[[User:|User:]] 17:24, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC) (Josquius on english wikipedia)

Indeed, not even an IP address! Good trick if you can make it work elsewhere. Dbenbenn 07:11, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have read through some of these articles, and I'm rather disgusted at the wording. I've changed a few, but I'm on the Recent Changes patrol at another wiki, so I don't have much time to spend here. There should be a WikiProject for rewording of these articles. - Kookykman (en)|(talk) 01:34, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

List of allowed simple words?

Q) Is there a list of words that should be used here? Stuff is very difficult to find here. Plus it's very difficult to find a place to ask such a question...

A) While I don't know about a prescribed list, there are a number of useful lists. One that is widely known and used in English language teaching is Michael West's General Service List of about 2000 words. There are existing tools, such as Tom Cobb's Compleat Lexical Tutor <http://www.lextutor.ca/vp/eng/>, which will identify these words if you to paste a text in. Other's include the Oxford 3000, which can be downloaded from <http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/teachersites/oald7/oxford_3000/oxford_3000_list?cc=gb>.

Stuff is very difficult to find here? Ah ah ah!!!

hi anonym, you find that stuff is very difficult to find here? it's false: stuff is very difficult to find in all the world! it is so... and if you will help to make stuff more accessible, then come the trolls and say "you don't have to give here indications how to find ressources about basic english. it is only possible to name the source and give her ISBN numero! not more..."

anonym, old books have no ISBN numero. it is so. only a few number of reprints make in far east (for basic english). the most have today no ISBN numero... a completely idiot situation: you know, you will transmit but wikipedia's trolls say NO and erase your work or "revert the page" so that you will never find your work again and your page is as erased.

but to your question:

i find there are to much "simple English" versions. in this case, it would be better to use directly pidjin English...

if this division of wikipedia has to have a reason, it is necessary to decide a standard and in my opinion it can be only Basic English or VOA-English. both are historical standards. the rest is only "better pidjin English". for different reasons ("British American ...") would be VOA-English to American for me. I would say only Basic English can be right!

on the Basic English site you can find the original list of the 850 words of Basic English (see please http://ogden.basic-english.org/words.html ). in special pages (for ex. about "bible" or religions, "sciences" etc.), it is possible to use the extensions you will find on the Basic English site at http://ogden.basic-english.org/intlword.html .

if you do so, the reader experimented in basic english will never need to open his "The General Basic English Dictionary" to understand you!

Yep, it's difficult to find. Yeah yeah yeah

Hi anonymous2, this is the guy from the question "List of allowed simple words?" again. I guess it speaks for itself that you make fun of me staying anonymous while not giving your name away... my name is Mark, by the way :-) So, is this "Ogden Basic English list" the official list of allowed terms? If so, wouldn't it be much better if they appeared on the site? Btw: while I appreciate your fast (if yet a bit aggressive) answering, you still haven't answered my other problems, where one can go to find this information normally and where one can go to discuss navigational/feature-finding issues inside wikipedia. --Mark

nn.wiki

Hello! Can you move Norsk (nynorsk) wikipedia from the "just started" to the "active" group? --KRISTAGA^α-ω 07.34, 2 apr 2005 (UTC)

Sorry about taking so long but it's done. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:09, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Why have you unprotected the Mainpage?

What were you thinking when you decided to unprotect the main page? It wasn't a good idea because I just found this sexually offensive edit to the main page from 11 December 2004. The edit went:

Removed (strong language and sexual references would cause Internet content filters to be activated) - if you wish to see the edit, look at the history of the Main Page. - Marknew

I laughed at it, but I shouldn't really because it's not cool to make stupid edits, or for that matter, let people make these edits. You're just opening yourselves up to vandalism by unprotecting your main page. That example of vandalism could have been why your page was protected in the first place, and you, probably not having even gone to school, decide to unprotect it? Scott Gall 11:15, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What made you unprotect the main page anyway? It's usually protected for a reason. I agree with the fact that protected pages might be - or actually are - considered harmful, but if it's the main page, it should be protected if you've had enough of the vandalism. And did you hold a vote before deciding to encourage vandalism in this way? Scott Gall 03:14, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

See User_talk:Angela#Main Page - Marknew 17:03, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You only got Angela Beesley involved? There should have been a vote before unprotecting the page! If I were you, the first thing I'd do before unprotecting the main page would be to hold a vote. Scott Gall 09:01, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I didn't get anyone involved - ask whoever it was who posted the message to Angela's talk page. Marknew 16:31, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Should the Main Page be protected again? Pro: 4 Con: 0

Yes

1. HELL YEAH!! Scott Gall 11:15, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• 1. • User has only edited one article.

1. MUST!!! just like other lang. Simon Shek 17:04, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

• 1. • User has only edited one article.
     • Most other languages don't have a protected main page. Angela

1. Yes. Of course this is based on the ACTUAL amount of vandalism that has hit the Main Page. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:02, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
2. The mainpage is the first thing visitors see. It mustn't be attact by vandalism. So: Protect it! --Alpha 13:35, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• 1. • If it's the first thing people see, shouldn't they see that the site is editable? You are giving a false impression of a wiki if the first page is locked down. Angela

No

1. Angela
2. 84.179.228.154 20:39, 9 December 2005 (UTC) (registered in another language)

Comments

• I have protected the Main Page as of today, since there is good support for that and the main page hasn't been edited significantly in a while. I would suggest that anyone who wants to make a change propose it here on the Talk page or work on Main Page/Temp and then contact me or another admin to implement the changes. Keep in mind that the various sections are acutally transcluded largely from Template:Wikipedialang, Template:Wikitopics, Template:Introduction, Template:Ideas, and Template:Main Page footer whic can be edited. -- Netoholic @ 19:33, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Other languages

Most of the front page is again lists of links to WikiPedia in other languages. I have already suggested putting these under a single link on a new page but if not must we have the list repated above AND below the main text AS WELL AS taking up half the main page itself? --BozMo|talk 15:25, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Which skin are you using? In the default monobook, the languages don't take up much room since they only appear at the very end of the page and in the sidebar. Angela 17:49, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I haven't ever changed the default skin (and don't know how to). However, today they don't take up much room, and are only there once whereas two weeks ago I could hardly see anything else. --82.152.196.231 17:27, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The guiding ideas are logically fallacious, please change them.

Keep it simple - then pages will be easier to read by people who do not speak English well.

1. "keep it simple" is a slang term. How is slang easier to read by people who do not speak english well?
2. How does one's speaking of English affect their ability to read English?

It is a statement about keeping things easy to understand, and that statement is in and of itself difficult to understand, making a slang reference and a logically fallacious assertion--that those who cannot understand wikipedia cannot do so because they do not speak English.

Here is a better suggestion: "Use simple words to make pages easier to understand for visitors who do not read English well." You can even replace "understand" with "read" if you like, but I am averse to using the same verb twice in a sentence.

I'm looking forward to adding contributions to this simple-english wikipedia as I have with other wikipedias. Jared81 04:12, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Keep it simple" is a slang term? How so?

Hahaha, "logically fallacious" is not simple English. 203.122.209.27 13:27, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Why is there Simple English Wikipedia?

Why do we have simple English Wikipedia, anyhow? It's not like you can't look up words that you don't know. Heck, Wikimedia even prvides the dictionary. :P

Well the reason is some people don't know English as well as they or can't read very well, but I think this is kinda fun!-Hailey!

I'm curious if the original poster has tried learning a language by looking up word after word. It's tedious to say the least. IMO a SE Wikipedia article should introduce new vocabulary -- but a few words at a time, not all at once. -- PhilipR 21:14, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well it's not impossible to do, I edit and work on the french Wikipédia, with few problems, and I've also made small changes to the other multilanguage versions of Wikipedia without knowing them well at all. I just personnally think that the time editors use working on this Wikipedia could be better spent on their own languages Wikipedia. And Wiktionary is great by itself for learning a new language, just press random page, and a new word to learn appears. -Original poster dude.

Suggested rewording of Welcome

The welcome message says, in part:

Here at this place, we only use very simple English words and simple writing structures.

I suggest the following instead:

In this Wikipedia we only use simple English words in simple sentences.

The Main Page is currently protected, so I can't make the change myself. - dcljr 06:49, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Edit the template Template:Introduction - changes to this will show up on the main page. -- Marknew 11:01, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Please try to keep language very simple on the Main Page... "sentences" isn't in the BE 850, but "write" and "structure" are. -- Netoholic @ 05:12, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

the simple definition of "structure" is "Solid shape" not of writing.

P.S. the sentence on there now makes no sense to me a native speaker.

Simple English article

The main thing i wanted to find out was 'what the hell is simple english'. Is it some kind of simplified english or just english using only basic words. Anyway, i went to the article Simple. And guess what - i found nothing. You should write an article about yourself at first if you want to write about the world. ;)

I could have written it, but since i don't know much about it..

And IMHO this project is a waste of time. You could write a more useful wikipedia, I guess. However, it's your right to choose.

---

Oh, well, skip that. :)

About Construction or Organization of Categories

Hello, and I found here that a way of categorizing articles is a bit strange, compared to normal English Wikipedia site. For example, Category:Everyday life does NOT make sense to me. And Category:Entertainment includes Art or Music, moreover Art or Music did not appear in upper category, which makes new visitor confuse. I ammended some parts already.

Thus, I think we had better check a way or names of Categories to which each article should belongs. Green 10:24, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Target audience

Adults with learning difficulties read these pages. They are not stupid. They are not children. Many of them want to learn. It is not easy. Most information is either very difficult or written for children.

When I lived in Holland I tried learning the Dutch language. The only books I could understand were books for children. It made me feel like a child. I was not a child.

The Simple English Wikipedia is important. Please help to make it even better. A useful list of words is on the BE 1500 page. Articles written using simple sentences are hard for clever people to read. That is why clever people use big words. Not everyone is clever. --Davidc 10:49, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

You make the selection, David. You put them in your drawers.

Learn what? These pages, in deed, keep people simple. Personally, I think, this project is ugly. Authors should not waste their time to contribute to a densification-program like this. And the folks who search for information, that they do not currently have, shall be confronted with the whole information, not your filtered and smoothed version. This is unneeded and dangerous. If the other Wikipedias use unintelligible language, that is their fault, and the community shall correct it, not soften it.

Densification is doubleplusgood.

Ewwwwww!

Somebody vandalized the page and put a nasty picture and message on the front page, somebody needs to take it off! Hailey C. Shannon

Please ban Roberto for vandalizing the Main Page, via Template:Wikitopics. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, blog) 02:53, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I added links to the top of this page, in case vandalism happens in the future and an admin isn't immediately around. -- Netoholic @ 06:22, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

The template in question needs serious attention. I warned an IP user about repeating this summer's profane mess. I am asking you admins to give me administrative powers so that I can save it for good.
And please get rid of this image for good--and (I mean it) forever! --Slgrandson 01:06, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

In regards to the image, the image is from Wikipedia Commons so it can't be deleted completely. If you want to have the page protected, make a request here. In regards to simply giving you admin power, you need to ask for it and be voted here. Please do not bother people asking for them to give you emergency powers. That's not going to happen. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:37, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

On second thought, I'm going to protect the page myself. Any desired changes will have be requested on the talk page. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:07, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

WTF?

I don't want to see a giant penis picture on the main page! It's disgusting! Please banninate the responsible admin. --84.162.19.31 19:47, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Roberto did it, not an admin. And that account has been banned, though it's still possible for that person to vandalize... – Minh Nguyễn (talk, blog) 02:54, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

They've done it again! I can't change it back!- Hailey C. Shannon

Archaeology definition

archaeology could be called the study of the history of civilization,but more directly and accurately is the study of human objects (artifacts) from the past,

the present definition does seem valid, as civilization does necessarily involve artifacts, but the "study of civilization" is really the last step of archaeology,

spettro9 2005/07/24

Who are you calling stupid?

What is with this "articles for stupid people" bit, which links to the article for You? This got protected and it needs to be fixed! - KeithTyler 22:27, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Horrible grammar

Simple english should be that. Simple ENGLISH. Not a butchered form of horrible grammar and extremely poor choice of words.

Keep Simple English

I support the creation and development of Simple English Wikipedia for the same reason cited above by Davidc. When one is beginning to learn a new language, one of the best ways to study is to read, read, read. Reading becomes much more effective and much less frustrating if one can find help on the way to fluency, such as books, magazines, and articles written for those who are new to the language or those who have difficulties with the language. Children's materials simply do not do the job for an adult who needs to learn to understand adult-level ideas in a foreign language.

Keep in mind that even in countries where the primary language spoken is English, many government agencies and bureaus must provide materials, pamphlets, public health information, etc. in English written at a third-grade level; that is, so that a person with only an elementary education can understand it. This is because very, very many people who speak English, even as a first language, are functionally illiterate or have difficulty understanding material written on a high school level or a college level.

This does not mean that the material should be directed at a child audience, because the primary audience IS made up of adults who may well be capable of grasping adult-level ideas, even if some of those adults have learning difficulties. Rather, it means only that we should make the conveyance of those ideas -- the language -- as simple and straightforward as possible without sacrificing critical content.

The main problem that I find here is, indeed, the poor English or 'baby talk' found in several articles and even on the main page. Such language is unsuitable even for children, and Simple English Wikipedia should have an adult audience.

I want to suggest that the main page of English Wikipedia should contain a prominent link to the Simple English Wikipedia, and vice versa. I did not know that Simple English Wikipedia even existed until a Google search turned it up, deep in later pages of the results.

Also, I think the most common spelling is 'archaeology,' not 'archeology,' although both are technically correct.

Some cool thoughts. I also suggest, that if the front page maintains the use of the British English "maths" instead of "math" (a moderately ugly Americanism, in my opinion), then it should retain the use of the British English "archaeology" instead of "archeology". Any more? Bobo192 03:34, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Hard

It's very hard to write in simple english, but I'm doing it because its for a good cause. If I don't write simple enough in articles, then tell me, and I'll be even more simple to help those who need a simple english encyclopedia, since nowhere else would give someone that. Private Butcher 05:36, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Simple english is hard. It's very hard when mixing npov and avoiding baby talk. Despite that, these pages should look like an intelligent wikipedia articles but in simplified and easy to read language. Should also avoid insulting children's book type reading. People should be careful not to mistakenly make things condescending, since there's no use for that. 65.6.109.43 00:13, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Writing in simple english is way harder than I expected. It's incredibly difficult to talk about complicated concepts using only the BE 850 and the BE 1500, especially without a Basic English thesaurus. Also, the grammar is difficult to fit sentences into. I'm trying to learn, hopefully this project is not a waste of time and somebody will find it useful. -Fadookie 11:28, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

fixating a nuisance

If bad English, -and that includes lack of eloquence-, is a nuisance, then you are doing your utmost here to keep it that way for any of your visitors, right? I am no native English-speaker and I am not even good enough to contribute to the English Wikipedia on a regular basis, but this thing I will avoid and certainly never recommend to anybody "wishing to learn the English language". Folks, learning means confrontation with the new and unknown, taking a chance to cope with difficulties and the like... What you offer is especially not any good service in the first place. Sorry, you do yours, I'll keep mine. Bye.--212.204.66.66 18:03, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

something not right

The minute i saw that this wikipedia exists I was very happy. but after a short period of time I reliazed that ther's nothing to be happy about- the articels are very low level- and I'm not speaking abaut their English...--84.110.19.144 21:01, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

It is the way they want us to think. Maybe.

Will you remove your dupes, BTW?

...FEATURED ARTICLE!

• • • Nineteen Eighty-Four

Yes- it would be nice to have a featured article on the front page.--Kungfuadam 17:00, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Domain change?

I think that this domain would be better off at [sim.wikipedia.org] than [simple.wikipedia.org]. It would be shortera and easier to use. - Kookykman

looks like simple.org is still available. Would that not fit best

sim.wikipedia.org should be reserved for the Mende language from Papua New Guinea, see here Dinsdagskind 13:13, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

What the purpose?

I am a native Russian speaker and your "Simple English" does not seem any bit easier for me. I even cant get the difference. And what the purpose of these stupid comments on the main page for such international words as biology, geography, architecture and so on? These words are understandable for anybody. I think if a person can understand this wikipedia, he of course will understand the conventional English one. Most difficulty in learning English is not international words, but English-specific ones and grammar. For example, understanding the word people is more difficult than anthropology. If you learn Russian, what would be more easy for you - antropologia or nauka o ludiakh? --213.141.159.52 06:51, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I would recommend staying with the original english WIKIPEDIA. Greetings from germany, 84.179.228.154 20:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC) Shut this project down!

Do not waste a minute of your time, here. If you want to look up things, that you need to know, better go for the normal English Wikipedia. Of how much use is it to gain partial knowledge and not the means to really express your thoughts afterwards? --212.204.66.66 06:50, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I think Simple English is beneficial. Not everyone who speaks English as a second language is European. A Chinese person would not find "anthropology" easier than "people." They would more likely have learned "people" first. People also speak English at different levels - perhaps our commentators above are more advanced. Furthermore, children can also benefit from simple English. 24.64.223.203 09:00, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the above comment. If this wikipedia is too easy or basic for you, go to the regular English wikipedia. This helps out children and people who are learning English from the most basic level. Nobody is forcing you to voluntarily read here. --Eeee 04:10, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

So, now it IS for children (again)? Better stick to one target audience, from now on.

It had been said, that this here should help people, who learn the English language. Fact. And wrong. As this won't. You keep people on the basic level, if you do not demand an effort for perfection. For a learner, this thing is useless. Nobody is forcing me to ... let me become surrounded by dumbness? I would object, right now, as you do.--212.204.66.66 00:10, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Question about the length of articles

I have been looking through the articles and noticed that they are all very short. Even the George W Bush article is less than a page. I have added a section on Iraq, but I am still curious. Is it the intent of the Simple Wikipedia to keep articles short and only cover the broadest of ideas? Or should we be working to make the pages on Simple equivalent to that of the English Wikipedia while rephrasing every single sentence without grammatic complexity and obscure words that might confuse someone trying to learn english? --Jimbo Wales 05:47, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

By the way, I think this is a really neat idea. I wish we had a basicó biblioteca de español. Perdon mi mal español.--Jimbo Wales 05:47, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

My good faith edits have been met by banning the account of Jimbo Wales. Netoholic has refused to my repeted requests. Could I get some arbitration here?--Jimmy Wales 00:25, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

• If you are the true Jimbo Wales, it should not be hard for you to fix this. If you aren't, you can't use the name Jimbo Wales. It should be clear why. --Fastfission 03:43, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

• If you're still having trouble understanding, bullet point one here is the specific objection to your choice of username. (FWIW, I strongly advise against using full, real names, due to increased risk of ID theft.) Freshstart 06:17, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Question about spelling

Why do you default to the American spelling for words where there are two versions? If you want to continue to do this I suggest you rename the wiki to the 'American English' wiki. I have even found 'British English' on one of your pages! Are you suggesting that because there are variations on Spanish, the Spanish language should be redundantly tagged as 'Spanish Spanish'? This site as it stands will help people learn American English, not English. So do one or the other, be consitent, andmost importantly, be consitent with your stated aims. Either you want people to learn English, or American English. Sure, put alternate spellings of either English or American English, but if you want English spellings to be the alternative, then you really should rename this wiki to 'American English'.

Spelling differences should be explained in the articles themselves, not in the names of articles. We won't tolerate renaming articles in this way. Simple English uses mostly American spellings because we base it off of the Basic English wordlist and the VOA Special English Word Book, which use American spellings. -- Netoholic @ 17:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

That still doesn't excuse 'British English' which is bad grammar. I didn't rename articles. I changed the redirects to reflect the title of the wiki. If you can't see that then it appears that recent criticism of the wikipedia sites is spot on. America does not own the net.

Also, thanks for threatening to block me for pointing this out.

British English is a valid term and is not redundant. The main english Wikipedia has an article about it at en:British English. I didn't threaten to block you for having an opinion, I did so to prevent you from harping on the subject in the way you're editing articles. -- Netoholic @ 17:54, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Well if the main english Wikipedia has a link then it must be true. I'm sorry for not checking first.

If you hate that redundancy, check out en:English English. -- Netoholic @ 18:21, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Heh. already have. Yuck. Ah well. NewSpeak here we come. Fantastic.

My ha'p'orth: There is "English". And there are varieties of English. Two such varieities are the two most important standards of English worldwide (arguably). These are General American English and (Standard Southern) British English. These two standards are fairly similar. What's the big deal? Who cares if "colo(u)r" has a "u" in it in one article, and without in another. Seriously: what difference does it make? One standard, the other, a mix of the two, it really makes no difference at all to anything. :) Bryan 82.44.212.6 00:01, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Remove patronizing language on front page

A lot of people have been criticizing Simple English as being patronizingly simple or using poor sentence structure. These criticisms aren't entirely fair, since they are made by people who speak English at a much higher level than those who would benefit from these pages. At least one critic seemed to assume all non-English speakers all spoke European languages. As far as sentence structure goes, unfortunately an encyclopedia written by lay people isn't going to have great grammar - in any language.

In order to address the 'patronizing' element, we need to remove language from the main page that seems a bit childish. "Wikipedia in more languages" on the regular English main page says "Wikipedia in other languages." "Other" is preferably grammatically, and is a pretty simple word. And "biggest," "lots of," and "fewer" articles could easily be "with over 100,000 articles, etc." just like regular English Wikipedia. Makes it seem that we think people who read other languages don't understand numbers.

For clarity, I suggest in the top left box, "here" instead of "at this place." And maybe "web sites" rather than "places," since it may not be clear that a web site is a place (depends on the connotation of location in one's culture). Also, I think "good pages" should be "useful pages." 24.64.223.203 05:53, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

As I've already said, 24.64.223.203, I wholly agree with you about the redundancy of "here at this place", not just because it sounds "patronizing" (I'll use your word, I can't think of another off the top of my head, though maybe just plain "wrong" would suffice)..

And there's really no harm in including any words outside our language's wordlist as long as they're hyperlinked to a decently written Simple English article. Isn't that the whole point of this place? Bobo192 08:12, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I definitely agree with changing the "other languages" section back to numbers, which are self-explanatory. Biggest, lots of, and fewer are not simple, they're simplistic. Even a child, seeing "over 100,000 articles," may not know how many that is, but he or she knows it is a very big number. I also agree with Bobo192 that other words shouldn't be a problem as long as they're linked, I just think the link should be to Simple English Wiktionary, where I feel all simple definitions belong. If there isn't an entry there for the word you want to use, make one (what a concept!). --Cromwellt|talk 03:31, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Capitalization

Would somebody please capitalize "we" in the first bullet of the Welcome section. There shouldn't be that level of sloppiness on the first page. Thanks. en:User:Nricardo

I did it. -- aflm 16:40, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

What's the purpose of this page?

I really can't figure it out. People who don't speak English well enough to understand the English Wikipedia can simply read the page in their own language. No one wants to read articles written like this; it's painful, and entirely useless. All this page does is contribute to the decay of the English language, which is already bad enough as it is. Oh and about those comments saying everybody doesn't speak a European language, citing Chinese as an example, someone who speaks Chinese can simply use the Chinese Wikipedia which contains about 55 000 articles, almost 8 times as many as this page. So, once again, no useful purpose.

1. Not every language in the world has a Wikipedia project
2. Some Wikipedia projects have fewer articles than Simple has
3. Simple has many words that will never be on EN or other language Wikipedias because they would be considered 'dictionary definitions'
4. Some people that only know the English language don't have big enough vocabularies to understand all of the regular EN Wikipedia

Freshstart 20:45, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I would be interested to hear an example of someone who would find this wiki more useful than any of the others. Speakers of minority languages like Basque, Catalan, etc. would be better served by a Simple Spanish wiki (even the normal Spanish wiki would almost certainly be more helpful than this to them) because it is their country's dominant language and they'd be much more likely to know some of it than English. Britain and America have very few minority languages spoken by a fairly large group that doesn't also speak English. Your third point shouldn't, at least, be accurate - even the Simple English Wikipedia is not a dictionary. And as to your fourth, maybe so, but why no consideration for similarly literate French, Germans, Spaniards, etc.? This is quite frankly a vanity project, pretty unlikely to be useful to anyone, and it reflects poorly on Wikipedia as a whole. -70.130.139.249 22:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I was told that "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" doesn't apply around here... If you don't believe me, check out this... Incredible, huh??? Blockinblox 22:39, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

That is the Simple English "what Wikipedia is not" page. And yeah, plenty of articles here violate it, which certainly isn't an argument in its favor. -70.130.139.249 22:44, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

If you don't like Simple English, why not read something else instead? Some people are willing to volunteer to put it together, though they are imperfect in doing so, and some people may read it. If there's no Simple Spanish, etc., it's only because no one has decided to start it. If someone wants to do so, then I guess it will exist. In the meantime, if anyone wants to make use of these pages, why complain? People learning basic English who wish to practice reading, children, people with learning disabilities, and people who speak languages that don't have these articles but know a little English, any of these people might read it. There's a lot of people volunteering to do this, and you're calling it a vanity project. The tone of the critic(s) on this page suggests a need to vent a little. Simple English isn't an affront to anyone. Why not leave us alone and edit some other page? 24.64.223.203 05:56, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I object to this Wiki's existence because it's like having a Pig Latin Wikipedia - it has no real use and hurts Wikipedia's attempts at being recognized as a serious encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not a place to learn a new language, and the topics that children or people with learning disabilities would be likely to research aren't things like quantum physics; they would probably be topics like "dogs" which have articles on the normal English wiki that are very readable. The tone of much of this Wikipedia is such that even a child would likely feel spoken down to, anyway. This Wikipedia is a poor idea with even worse execution. Things like "Mechanics is one part of physics. It says what happens when forces act on things. There are two parts of mechanics. The two parts are classical mechanics and quantum mechanics. Classical mechanics is good most of the time. It is good to say what happens about most things we can see. Some of the time, for example when the things are too small, classical mechanics is not good. Then we need to use quantum mechanics." are not useful to anyone, and there are examples far worse than that one. -70.130.222.105 08:26, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Responding to Blockinblox, actually, whether or not the "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" policy applies here is still under debate (for example, see Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not). For my own stance, I think that following precedence and putting the dictionary entries in Simple English Wiktionary is the best idea, but mine is only one voice. We'll see how things turn out. --Cromwellt|talk 03:19, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Simple sisterprojects

I think we should have a section at the bottom of the page with links to other Simple English sisterprojects (SEWiktionary, SEWikibooks, SEWikiquote), and below that a part that links to other English sisterprojects (English Wikipedia, English Wiktionary, English Wikibooks, English Wikinews, English Wikisource, English Wikispecies). This would be following the precedent of other non-Simple English front pages, as well as that of other Simple English Wikiprojects. I would do it myself, but I want to make sure there is support here before I do so. --Cromwellt|talk 20:45, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

No, it is only by inaction by the admins that those Simple sister projects are even still open for editing. SE Wikiquote is silly - quotes are quotes are quotes. SE Wiktionary has very little content, and really, definitions are definitions; it's better to use the main en: Wikitionary. SE Wikibooks is unnecessary and has nearly no content. -- Netoholic @ 15:35, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Whether or not one person feels that the other Simple English projects should exist, they do exist, currently, and therefore we should link to them. That is also following the precedent of every other wikipedia, even tiny ones like Quechua Wikipedia. If/when they are removed, we can easily remove the links. I volunteer to do it myself if that happens. Therefore, if there are no other objections, in a few days I will add the section I suggested. If there are other objections, I'll let it go for now. --Cromwellt|talk 23:53, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

As the Main Page may be changing very soon, I will wait to see developments. --Cromwellt|talk 00:48, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The new Main Page fixed this. --Cromwellt|talk 19:25, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Unsigned comment

you is a place called norway?

1,000,000 real english pages: should english have its own section on the main page

Should English have its own subcategory, perhaps "Very Big Wikipedias"?

Interesting question. I object to the term "real English," as if simple English were only imaginary or something. A much better phrase would be "1,000,000 articles on English Wikipedia." However, in answer to your question, even though English Wikipedia could be put in a separate category, I think it is better to leave it where it is. I just don't think it is necessary. If we leave it as it is, the title of the section still applies, even if we use numbers, since it is still above 100,000 articles. When there are two or three Wikipedias in that larger category, it would certainly be a useful change. Of course, I don't feel very strongly about this, and a new section would be logical, so if someone really wants to make the changes, I say go for it! --Cromwellt|talk 23:53, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Galician=Galego

Main page of Simple English Wikipedia says: "Gallego (Galician)". That's a mistake. We say Galician as Galego in Galician, not Gallego (this is in Spanish). Thanks. --80.58.23.170 18:49, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. --Cromwellt|talk 23:53, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Numbers of articles on Wikipedias

It was mentioned earlier on this page that we should use numbers of articles on other Wikipedias, rather than descriptions, since that makes it seem like we think if people can't read English well, they can't read numbers well either. I commented there, but I'm going to make a new comment here on the same theme. I think it makes much more sense to use numbers. Numerals of any kind (Arabic, Roman, even hexadecimal) are not English. They are numbers, which are accepted and recognized internationally and interlingually. Therefore, people whose first language is not English will have even less problem understanding that section if the information includes numbers than if we keep it only in words. Even children can tell when a number is very big. Plus, this would be following precedent. I am not for following precedent blindly if there is a very good reason not to, but when there is a very good reason to follow it, it seems like a no-brainer to me. Therefore, if after a few days there is no strong opposition, I'm going to boldly make the change. --Cromwellt|talk 23:53, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

As we may have a new Main Page very soon, I will wait to see developments. --Cromwellt|talk 00:49, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The new Main Page fixed this, basically, though adding the word "articles" would be an improvement. --Cromwellt|talk 19:26, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Main page: "lots"

Can someone change "lots of articles" to "many articles." Many is prefered over lots and there is not a big difference in terms of simplicity. In fact many is on the BE 1500, lots and lot are not.--Bkwillwm 09:26, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

"simple" = "retarded"?

The articles in this wiki all seem to be written in an extremely patronizing tone. The whole thing is frankly an embarassment.

So ask: If it is useful in a way, in which way then is it useful, and to whom? Same old story.

"article of the week"?

I think that an article of the week would be helpful because it would show people some articles that they may not have known about before and may learn from or be able to contribute to. I know this topic has been raised before, and the consensus was that there weren't enough articles; there are upward of 8000 articles now. Perhaps it's time an article of the week kind of thing was created. Your opinions? EvilReborn 02:14, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I support this idea. Even though the vast majority of those 8000 articles are stubs, I'm sure there are still plenty of well-done articles to have one each week. We could even start a Collaboration of the Week or something to work on that project specifically! I would be willing to help maintain it when I have the time. --Cromwellt|talk 15:19, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

We already have a 'topic of the week' on the community portal if there's any specific areas to be improved rather than individual articles. A featured article would be quite nice, I think it should be restricted though to peer reviewed very good articles (see Category:Very good articles). Archer7 15:59, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

• Encouraging of collaboration and showcasing good articles through peer review and elevation to featured articles might help to allow the community to get a sense of what good simple English might be when it is not patronising. I would like to help on this project but as a native English speaker may have trouble writing simple English, particularly when I don't have a clear sense of who the audience is. I assume it is learners of English as a second language rather than English-speaking school children. What is it that this audience might be looking for out of this project? A better idea of this might give us some focus for collaboration efforts.--AYArktos 04:45, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

For more discussion of this project's audience and goals, see this discussion. --Cromwellt|talk 19:29, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Sidebar section

Is there any particular rhyme or reason for the languages that are included or not included in the sidebar of the main page? Seems like most of the biggest ones are on there, but so are some that are not in the largest category. We already have a major section on that at the bottom of the page, so only the largest should be there on the left. --Cromwellt|talk 15:36, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone actually use this Wikipedia for reference?

Please respond if you do. -70.130.189.15 03:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I always do -Anonymous

I totally agree with you. People shouldn't use this website for info.

Not yet. Sj 02:50, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I do. Sometimes on more technical topics all you need is a simplified explanation. Archer7 08:35, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

When I see a reference from the 'in other languages' category from the main English article, which I rarely do. 86.141.73.56 05:18, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm having trouble too!

I dom't know if the things on here are true or not! Please help me!

Icons needed

Most other Wikipedias use icons to organize content by topic, either on the Main Page or (as in en:Portal:Browse) a nearby meta-portal. Icons would certainly make our Main Page friendlier to younger or ESL readers (who seem to be the target audience). I strongly suggest Nuvola icons wherever possible, because:

• They're colourful and friendly, but sensible.
• Many other wikis, including most Wikipedias, already use them.
• They're LGPL and in the PNG format (SVG versions also available).
• There are over 600, so most of our needs will probably be met.

Seahen 21:32, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, Seahen. I like icons too. I think icons make the Main Page friendlier to everyone. Fortunately, the brand-new Main Page uses your idea. --Cromwellt|talk 21:27, 16 May 2006 (UTC) (victim of auto-logout)

Comment

if u cant spell a simple word like dont then no wonder y u dnt understand this site :P — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.10.121.82 (talk • contribs) 02:54, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Defence-->Defense

Can someone edit the main page to change "defence" to "defense" in the knowledge group section. Thanks--The Ungovernable Force 23:09, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't really see the need as they're both valid spellings, and it seems to be a fairly equal mix of AE and BE--changing it all to one or the other should be done to the entire page, not one word at a time. On the otherhand, since the page is about to be overhauled anyway, you might want to post your input at User talk:Odder/Main Page. Freshstart 23:48, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I never knew defence was a valid spelling of it. Well, the article that it links to is defense so it should be defense just so that there is no redirect. The Ungovernable Force 00:38, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

We try to avoid implying any country's spellings of English words aren't "correct"--see Wikipedia:Spelling and the AE/BE articles linked there. If you want to see how much of a can of worms it really is, check out EN's en:List of dialects of the English language. If someone's editing it anyway, the redir should be avoided, but again I think that's better addressed as part of the overhaul. Freshstart 01:33, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Does any one know what dialects of English are spoken in other parts of the world becuse that would be the correct spelling? 68.239.243.201 20:39, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Utterly patronizing and useless project...

Hello,

I'm not writing a perfect English, but I just wanted to tell anybody actually working on that Simple English stuff that I found 100% of the 30 articles or so I've read so far extremely poorly written and useless in terms of info. It seems you don't want to make a Wiki for children, but I wonder who could get any piece of valuable and serious info on Napoleon, for instance, on that page: Napoleon which is a children-dedicated piece of very little interest. How come nobody ackownledges this here, given the high amount of bad comments you seem to get on this discussion page?

It sounds like the whole project actually IS aimed at children and I find it very dishonest to even try to make us believe it's not. Moreover, I find it extremely patronizing to imagine that a person who doesn't understand English well (not to mention the previously spotted mistake of the former formulation "doesn't speak well", which only proves the writer of the sentence has no clue about writing / reading / understanding / translating /languages or linguistics as a whole...) should NEED this kind of poor project to learn a language. There are teachers to do so. You are no graduated teachers, and the way most of you write doesn't allow you to even apply for the position. So a bit of modesty here, instead of that vanity, is needed.

This site is a very self-indulgent project and it certainly brings Wikipedia down, IMHO.

Calvus mons - FR Wikipédia contributor

So how would you suggest it be fixed and made less screwed up? The Ungovernable Force 15:51, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Abandon it. WP:NOT should include "Wikipedia is not an English 101 textbook." The purpose of an encyclopedia is to present information, not to teach people how to play basketball, do calculus, fight fires, or learn a language. It makes no sense to have an encyclopedia greared towards teaching English, period. Even if it did make sense, reading encyclopedia articles isn't a very good way to learn a language. For several years I have been learning Spanish, and I've never had a Spanish professor suggest to me that I start reading random articles in an encylopedia. I read textbooks that teach grammar and talk to native speakers of Spanish to practice. That's the way to learn a language. --68.239.114.50 23:25, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Obviously neither Mr. Mons nor the user at 68.239.114.50 (if they are not the same person) understand the point of this Wikipedia. This Wikipedia is not to help people learn English. It is not an English 101 textbook. It is an encyclopedia, created to provide information to people who know little English, for any reason. Because it is directed towards those who know little English, a selected set of English words is used. People may use this encyclopedia to learn English, but that is not its purpose. Many articles are still stubs because this project is still early in its growth (despite the number of articles). For more on this project's purpose, audience, etc., see the discussion here. --Cromwellt|talk 19:49, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

This Idea is so stupid

I mean seriously. Why would someone who doesn't speak this language even want to look up encyclopedia articles in another language. I speak very little spanish that I learned in school, so it's not like I'm going to go to the "Simple Spanish" wikipedia just to look up an article that is probably in the english wikipedia! --en:User:GeorgeMoney - en:Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis 06:55, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

hey whats up come in to my class team crusty — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.234.224.6 (talk • contribs) 16:19, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

THE MOST DIFFICULT THING IS: PHRASAL VERBS. DON'T USE THEM SO MUCH!!!!!!!!! TRY TO USE LATIN WORDS, EASY TO UNDERSTAND FOR FRENCH, SPANISH, PORTUGESE, ITALIAN, SOUTH AMERICAN PEOPLE, OR TRY TO SAY THINGS IN A DIFFERENT WAY. I think that once I've learned a phrasal verb, English people have just created another one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alfonso (talk • contribs) 22:25, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

"pages i worked on"

I'm happy with the idea of simple English, but really now, can we please at least do the bare minimum of proper grammar? "I", when referring the first person, is always capitalized. Lower-case "i"'s are associated with children and the illiterate. Perhaps these are a target audience, but they are not representative of the people who are creating the content here. We should not sacrifice accuracy for aesthetics in any instance. --Fastfission 19:21, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree, but I was unable to fix it, because the program seems to automatically convert whatever message is set to go there, into all lower case. Here is the location, which only an admin can change: MediaWiki:Mycontris - as you can see, the capitalization there is typed correctly, but the system converts it into a lower case I regardless... Blockinblox 20:10, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

As I mentioned at MediaWiki talk:Mycontris, we can avoid the issue by changing it to "my changes". That is also simpler and still makes good sense, I think. --Cromwellt|talk 21:39, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I like that. _Archer7 | ^talk 21:51, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

If there is no opposition, I think we should change it already. Even if there is opposition which has not been mentioned, we can always change it back. --Cromwellt|talk|contris 23:02, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Broken link on main page

The "New Articles" link near the top of the main page points to Special:Newarticles, which is invalid. It ought to point to Special:Newpages. --Mathew5000 14:06, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. -- aflm (talk) 19:08, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Ten-thousand pool

To all,

The Wikipedia:ten-thousand pool is now open, if you want to vote in it. 24.127.224.173 03:23, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Online tools

I would like to recommend the following online tools which you might decide to use when you write articles in simple english : [http://www.online-utility.org/english/simple_basic_helper.jsp Online tool which detects complicated words . Simple english article should have simple sentences. To find sentences which are not simple one could use : Online tool which finds complicated sentences. --Onliner 12:08, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Interwiki

Could a sysop please expand the interwiki links in this article. Computerjoe 19:24, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedias by articles on the main page

The English Wikipedia shouldn't be under the 100.000+. It should be put under 1.000.000+. --Nrainer 17:42, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

1.000.000+ is still 100.000+. -- aflm (talk) 20:42, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with aflm, as I said in a comment earlier on this page. Though English Wikipedia has over a million articles, I don't think it is worthwhile to start a new category until there are two or three Wikipedias in that category, and the current designation is still true in any case. Not starting it yet also avoids looking English-centric. --Cromwellt|talk|contris 23:00, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Other Simple Language Wikis

What about Simple encyclopaedias in other languages? E.g. German?

See Einfach. -- aflm (talk) 17:52, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I heard that somebody vandalised the site and had a picture of a large phallus that could not be deleted. How could that happen? How can you vandalise a page and not make the vandalism go away?207.166.54.91 15:19, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

If what you heard was true, it would still be there, wouldn't it? Blockinblox 17:18, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

That's not funny. I wish you would explain to me who did it, how, and why, so I can yell at him on his talk page. That upsets me that some person would have the nerve to put a large human phallus and got away with it. This is an outrage, a disgusting outrage. 207.166.54.91 16:43, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

It's a myth 217.35.96.167 13:08, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

"Simple English?" I for one won't be contributing to it. You know the effort put into this parallel world will have to copy the whole of the English language Wikipedia in condensed form, don't you? All that will drain effort from the main idea, as far as I can see. If you can read you can read the "real" Wikpedia. And everyone who uses it and then wants to learn English properly will have to learn it all twice. The whole thing puzzles me. Why bother? 80.0.36.84 12:38, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Simple English is wery good !

I wery thanks for Wikipedia Simple English. This is wery good project for students and oter peoples as such learn English. Thank you wery much. PS: Sorry for my English. I am 15 years old...

Semi-protection

An administrator should turn off full protection and turn on semi-protection. It keeps users without an account from vandalising, but 4-day old accounts can edit it. GangstaEB ^talk _contribs 18:14, 4 July 2006 (UTC)