Wikipedia:Simple talk

Simple talk
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"Total Backlog Annihilation" phase six

Hi everyone! I've just opened the newest - and probably most ambitious - phase of WikiProject TBA (Total Backlog Annihilation) yet and that is to clear our backlog of complex pages. Instructions are provided on how to help clear the backlog. You can find out more and register interest at User:Ferien/WikiProject TBA/Phase VI. All help is very much appreciated to try and clear as many backlogs on our wiki as possible! Thank you very much for all volunteers who have helped so far, and thank you in advance for all those who will help in this phase! --Ferien (talk | join TBA!) 12:00, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

I’m interested in this Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk | changes) 16:18, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

This is going to take a while Plutus ^{💬 🎃} — Fortune favors the curious 04:00, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

Do we have any stats on how much work is being done on this? Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk | changes) 00:08, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

@Immanuelle: As with any TBA work, stats can come from:

• Using the designated string in edit summaries
• People reporting the work they've done where they didn't use the designated string
• Seeing pages disappear from the maintenance categories

I also see that the starting and updated counts are displayed on the project page. -- Auntof6 (talk) 23:23, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

Bumping this since it deserves to stay here even though it will take a long time Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk | changes) 02:16, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Weird caste articles

There is someone who keeps making caste articles that use complex vocabulary incorrectly. None of them seem to be neutral point of view either. I'm pointing this out in case anyone wants to take action somehow.

Examples:

• Gumber (caste)
• Mankotia (caste)
• Rakhra (caste)

~2025-36114-01 (talk) 20:15, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

I think this is linked to User:NeutralWikipedian Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk | changes) 23:42, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

We still need to work on this Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk | changes) 23:12, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Request for review of Planner 5D draft (COI)

Hello editors,

I have created a draft article about Planner 5D in my sandbox: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AlexandraTerry/sandbox

I have a conflict of interest because I am connected to the topic, so I am not placing it in the main namespace myself.

Could an uninvolved editor please review the draft and, if it meets the guidelines, move it to the article space?

Thank you! AlexandraTerry (talk) 15:38, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Length of temporary account blocks

This isn't really something we have properly defined yet as we have adapted to temporary accounts. How long do we want temporary account blocks to be by default? We have sort of been treating them as normal accounts and blocking them indefinitely but the default duration was changed by Barras the other day to 3 months. I don't have any strong opinions, and would probably lean towards 3 months, but are there any opinions on this? --Ferien (talk | join TBA!) 23:57, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Three months does seem like a sufficient default duration. Plutus ^{💬 🎄} — Fortune favours the curious 02:26, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Is there a technical difference at all since a temporary account lasts 3 months so an indef. block covers the duration of the account's life. Does anyone know how projects who have had temp accounts in place before Simple handle default length? CountryANDWestern (talk) 03:00, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Since temporary accounts expire after 3 months anyway, an indefinite block and a 3-month block basically have the same effect. So I don’t think it really makes much difference which one we use. Saroj (talk) 04:48, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Honestly, I agree with this. The only difference between the two in my eyes is if someone decides to look at the temp account's user changes in the future, an indefinite would still show them as blocked, while a 3 month block wouldn't (even if they can't access the temp account anymore). ShadowBallX (talk) 08:14, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

3 months is a good default TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 05:33, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Since 3 months and indefinite are the same thing, it is best to show 'indefinite' so they don't set a calendar reminder. Polygnotus (talk) 14:56, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

If you mean the vandal setting a calendar reminder, that wouldn't happen because temporary accounts are only valid for a maximum of 90 days (3 months). While I agree with Ferien and don't have strong opinions either way (3 months vs indef), I think having the it being set to 3 months is a good reminder of the technical differences between a temporary account (which in reality is just the browser's cookie) and a permanent named account. Furthermore, having a "temporary" block duration further reinforces that the option to block temporary accounts for shorter durations (hours or days) remains a valid option. Chenzw  Talk  12:45, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

I suppose another thing to raise is that temporary accounts can be called vandalism-only accounts, as you only create an account through editing, which does allow us to block vandalism-only temp accounts for much longer than we would have blocked IPs who only vandalised. --Ferien (talk | join TBA!) 10:08, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

• I don't really have a strong opinion on that. I only noticed that other projects like meta or dewiki usually use three months. I thought it might make sense to set the auto-select to three months, as the accoutns expire after that time anyway. -Barras talk 12:38, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Three months seems reasonable to me and I agree with Barras about having it autoselected. Ternera (talk) 14:32, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

English

Sir i am new islam i meet you sir urgent because my life depend for you sir ~2025-37197-24 (talk) 00:51, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Hello Islam, do you have a question for us? Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk | changes) 01:57, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

@Immanuelle don’t bother responding to such trolls Plutus ^{💬 🎄} — Fortune favours the curious 03:19, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Requesting review of Planner 5D draft (COI)

Hello,

I have created a draft about Planner 5D in my sandbox: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AlexandraTerry/sandbox

I have a conflict of interest, so I cannot move the page myself. Could an uninvolved editor please review the draft and move it to article space if it is suitable?

Thank you! AlexandraTerry (talk) 15:34, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Hello,

I don't know if you are aware, but Wikipedia is not a company directory; with the exception of very few (usually very large) companies, you will not find information about companies in Wikipedia. I know that you might have a conflict of interest, but what is it that makes this company notable? That's the key question that needs answering before this article can be moved to mainspace. Eptalon (talk) 06:44, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

In the news idea

I would like to featured In the news selection in main page if community reached bigger. I made the sandbox see this if approved or not (Note: You can't nominate any articles because it's not official, i'm just showing you as example) — Raayaan9911 17:26, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

A similar conversation occurred here in July at Wikipedia:Simple_talk/Archive_169#In_the_News?. The consensus is that there isn't enough "manpower" available to keep that kind of thing going. CountryANDWestern (talk) 18:10, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

We shouldn't have this here. It's not so much it's a bad idea, it's more a case of what if it goes wrong. DYK is going very well at the minute but there was a time only a few years ago when it went about one year without an update. With DYK, it is fine because there is no harm in showing the same facts on the main page for a year - though it's certainly far from ideal. You simply cannot afford to have that with in the news as it will very quickly appear out-of-date to the reader. --Ferien (talk | join TBA!) 18:15, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Also, I appreciate you made this for when/if our community reaches the size that we could sustain this, but we should have this discussion when we are comfortable we can sustain it, rather than discussing a template for an idea that won't likely happen any time soon. --Ferien (talk | join TBA!) 18:18, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

I still think it is a great idea. However: suppose we update the hooks once or twice a month. Now, suppose we updated tomorrow: do we have, say 3 hooks from which we could pick 1 (or 5 hooks and pick 2)? The big difference to DYK, is that the hooks effectively time out. Eptalon (talk) 12:02, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Pilibhit Tiger Reserve

I am not sure where to report this. Pilibhit Tiger Reserve was written on 1 November by Pixel009, who has been blocked on en Wikipedia as a sockpuppet and globally locked for spamming around 100 different language versions on the same subject, see meta:Steward requests/Global/2025-w48#Global block/unblock for Pixel009. The article probably needs to be reviewed for neutrality and use of simple English, or possibly it should be deleted as spam. en:Pilibhit Tiger Reserve has existed since 2008, so presumably the subject is notable. TSventon (talk) 17:43, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I don't mind simplifying the English used in that page but I see that it is different from the original English Wikipedia article. Should we start with the original English Wikipedia article about the same or continue with what we have already and just simplify the English used?-Baangla (talk) 19:49, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

@Baangla:, thank you, I would suggest starting with the Simple version as it is shorter, 26kb, compared to the English, 111kb, unless you are fascinated by the subject. The English article is almost 90% written by Pixel009 according to the article statistics. TSventon (talk) 22:16, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Why will users still view when they're blocked?

Why are users still gonna view when they are blocked? I mean shouldn’t administrators stop users from viewing pages when the user is blocked? Percy James92 (talk) 22:03, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

@Percy James92 There is no harm in letting them read the pages as since they are blocked they won’t be able to edit them. Plutus ^{💬 🎄} — Fortune favours the curious 01:49, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Just because someone is not a helpful contributor, does not mean they do not have the right to know things. If someone vandalized pages, it is still important that they can read a page like HIV. It might save a life. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk | changes) 06:09, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia is set up in such a way, that no login is required to view pages; such users have access to almost all pages. Setting up a system that blocks users from viewing content is a lot of work, in this case with little benefit. Remember: there is no secret knowledge, so there is no harm in users viewing pages. And to counter the censorship argument: Cultural views on what is problematic, forbidden or taboo kowledge vary across the world, and it is not the task of Wikipedia to enforce such views; in other words: Wikipedia is not censored. Eptalon (talk) 07:07, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Quality of pages?

Hello, I just realized that we might need to work on the image we give to the world. To do this, we should compile a list of perhaps 25,50,100 pages that got the most hits inthe last quarter, and make these pages halfway decent. I stumbled on this because I realized, that out pager Nigger (yes, I know, derogatory, racial slur) is very poorly written. Still, it gets between 50 and 200 hits a day, or between 1000 and 2000 hits a month. Someone who sees this page as the first impression of SEWP will get a very bad image of this project.

I know this is a small project, and working on pages based on some statistics of hits might not be the most thrilling work, but in the long run, it might improve the image our project gives to the outside world.

What do other people think? Eptalon (talk) 07:14, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

See this page for a ranking of page accesses last month. Eptalon (talk) 07:27, 7 December 2025 (UTC)