Wikipedia:Simple talk

Simple talk
	This is the place to ask any questions you have about the Simple English Wikipedia. Any general discussions or anything of community interest is also appropriate here. You might also find an answer on Wikipedia:Useful, a listing of helpful pages. You may reply to any section below by clicking the "change this page" link, or add a new discussion section to this page. Please sign and date your post (by typing ~~~~). Please add new topics to the bottom of this page. Please note that old discussions on this page are archived periodically. If you do not find a discussion here, please look in the archives. Note that you should not change the archives, so if something that has been archived needs discussing, please start a new discussion on this page. Some of the language used on this page can be complicated. This is because it is used by editors to talk to one another, so sometimes we forget. Please leave us a note if you are finding what we are saying too hard to read.
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Discussions at English WP

I just wanted to let everyone know that there is a discussion at the English WP to add a more pronounced link here for articles that are common between the 2. This is primarily due to input from the Article feedback tool, where many users have voiced their frustrations at the complicated articles there. The links to those discussions are (here) and at the English Wikipedia Village pump (idea lab) (here).

As a side note, I think it would be good to do something here that could load the readers to the corresponding English WP article if they want more details about the article they read here. Kumioko (talk) 22:57, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice. I commented. Osiris (talk) 01:13, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes. I've also commented in both places. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:20, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
How would you feel about putting the English Interwiki link non the top here also if applicable? It seems this would be a useful thing to do here as well. That way if the reader wanted to learn more about the subject they could clikc that and jump over to EN. Kumioko (talk) 14:55, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

This was just discussed and rejected a couple of weeks ago in this discussion. The reasoning being that our primary link isn't necessarily to English Wikipedia since many/most of our readers come from languages other than English. It has been discussed prior to that as well at least one other time I can remember. (not to say we shouldn't discuss it again) -DJSasso (talk) 15:23, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually the discussion on en is a direct result of the discussion here if I remember correctly they were not impressed with our response and went to en to propose the same idea there. Or it may be that it was in the opposite order. Either way its kind of ironic its back here again. :) -DJSasso (talk) 16:01, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree it is rather ironic. I am still pretty new here so I don't know all the history of things yet and didn't realize there had already been some discussions. It makes sense though. On one hand the argument makes sense but on the other, Simple is rather hidden and unknown so most editors from EN or anywhere else wouldn't know its here unless they went their first and got referred. Its just my opinion but it makes sense to me to keep Simple, well simple and then if the reader wants to get more details and see the bigger words they can go to EN. So having a prominently displayed link makes sense. Of course there are going to be occasions where the 2 don't line up but thats ok too.

I also think that it will draw more traffic here, which again is a good and bad thing. We could hope that the positive contributors outnumber the vandals it would attract but its hard to tell at this point. Certainly we would get some of both I would think. There was a suggestion on my ENWP talk page about putting a promo to Simple in the ENWP newsletter to maybe attract some more users and interest here. Again it seems like a net positive to me but what do you all think? Is that something that would be of benefit to the project? Kumioko (talk) 19:49, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the proposal on en to put simple on top because its an obvious destination from English for those wanting a simpler version. But not with the opposite direction because people wanting more information/detail are likely to go to their own language wiki for such. That being said your other ideas about promoting the wiki are all good with me. I think it has been done a time or two in the past but we can always use more promotion because our perpetual situation here is that of needing more editors. :) -DJSasso (talk) 01:52, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, for us a link at the top of the En wiki list is the most useful thing to have. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:52, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Promotion of the project on EnWP

Since it seems that there is a general agreement that some additional promotion of the project on En is good, does anyone have any suggestions for what to say? I can draft something up and post it for discussion and review but I thought someone may already have something we could use. Kumioko (talk) 00:28, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I had started this before, an attempt at creating a joint 'advertising' between WP:SN and their Signpost. Time really got a hold of me, amongst other things... Would be good to see an article in the Signpost highlighting that we're here... *waves* Kennedy ^(talk) 12:08, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Cool, I'll draft something up over the weekend and drop it here so everyone has the opportunity to comment on it. Kumioko (talk) 19:55, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

When looking an English Wikipedia article that is is too complicated we could add a link to the simple article as a stop-gap, as if a flag. I suppose it would be good practice to add a flag template for jargon. A link on the talk page between simple English articles and English Wikipedia might be good. Kathybramley (talk) 15:59, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Focus on Simple English Wikipedia

Below is a blurb I wrote up to add to the Sign post at English Wikipedia to promote this site.

Are you interested in expanding your role in other MediaWiki projects outside the English Wikipedia? Do you find that the the English Wikipedia is too hard to read, use or edit? Try the Simple English Wikipedia version of Wikipedia. It uses fewer words and easier grammar. At the start, it was designed for people learning English. Its style may help readers understand difficult concepts. With less that 90, 000 articles, less rules and easier to read articles it offers possibilities to editors who may feel limited in what they can do in the English Wikipedia.

I anyone has any suggestions please feel free. Kumioko (talk) 18:33, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Altough..as well -> At the start, it was designed for people learning English. Its style can help understand difficult concepts, without the language posing a problem.? --Eptalon (talk) 15:24, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I updated the message above based on Eptalon's suggestion. Would anyone have a problem going forward with this message? Kumioko (talk) 01:23, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

The sentence "Its style can help understand difficult concepts, without the language posing a problem." is awkward (a subject is lacking, and the second half is repeating a point already made). Better and simpler is "Its style may help readers understand difficult concepts". Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:01, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Good idea I reworded the above based on your suggestion. If there are no more comments by Friday I would like to submit it for the next applicable version of the Signpost.Kumioko (talk) 19:57, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Topic posted

I just wanted to let everyone know I posted a topic to the Suggestions page of the Signpost over at EN. I'll post back here if there are any comments. Kumioko (talk) 14:41, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

The suggestion you've posted still needs some fine tuning. "With less that 90, 000 articles," should be "less than" and no space between 90,000. Its also rather short... Kennedy ^(talk) 16:00, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Good point and we just crossed the 90, 000 article threshhold yesterday. We can probably make it longer. I left it out here for a while and only a few folks commented. If you have some suggestions for expanding it let me know. Kumioko (talk) 17:17, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry I haven't posted sooner. Was going back and forth with some folks via Email. So, the Signpost pretty much shot down our request because we haven't done anything "notable". With that said once we hit 100, 000 articles they said that should be a sufficient achievment to have a note.

We also might be able to get a notice in the WikiProject section, since its not really a WikiProject though, not sure that will work or if its the appropriate place for it.

In general, and why I never really get into reading it myself, it seems the Signpost is mostly tailored for EN.Wikipedia and only adds external things if they are important in relation to them. Sorry. It was still worth a try though. I'm sure there are a lot of folks who would edit over here if they knew about us, they just don't know. Kumioko (talk) 16:05, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Would someone look at template {{Infobox rail line}}?

I can't see where it's getting the redlinked category Category:Port Authority Trans-Hudson‏‎. Thanks. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:47, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

It's in {{PATH HOB-33}}. I have removed the reference to the category, but it may take a while for the system to catch up with that change. Chenzw  Talk  10:52, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! --Auntof6 (talk) 11:04, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Links to Wikimedia commons

I would like to thank all the editors who include links to Wikimedia Commons in articles. At the same time, I would like to ask that these links be included only if Commons actually has something on the topic. I've seen several new pages recently with Commons links where the link doesn't go anywhere. It's good to include the Commons link when Commons has something related, but not all articles need Commons links. Thank you! --Auntof6 (talk) 07:55, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

attribution to authors of wikipedia articles

Hi, I just found my way here upon noticing an edit summary in main wikipedia article Elks Temple (Boise, Idaho), an article I had created. The version of that article here in simple Wikipedia doesn't show any much attribution of the Wikipedia article's authors is edit history, seeming to show a brand new article creation. A bot adding a link to the Wikipedia article does not convey authorship credit, any more than the corresponding bot adding to the Wikipedia article conveys authorship to the new simple one.

Was this one article started correctly here, or not? What are guidelines/policy for showing attribution here?

In general, this seems like a great project. Cheers, --Doncram (talk) 17:50, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Articles can be attributed either by edit summary or by a template on the article's talk page. In this case, a template was used (Talk:Elks Temple (Boise, Idaho)). For more information on attribution, see WP:TA. Kind regards, -Mh7kJ (talk) 17:59, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Hey Doncram I'm glad to see you made your way. I'm still learning the ropes here but I think generally the idea is to give attribution to the Article on the corresponding project where the content came from and by extension that gives attribution to all those editors, bots and IP's participated in the articles development there. I could be wrong but that is how I perceive it. Kumioko (talk) 21:15, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I think the most standard way is to use the template on the talk page. Used correctly, this should reference a specific revision of a page at the other wikipedia project. There is no other meaningful way to attribute, short of importing the page (and hopefully, simplifying it). --Eptalon (talk) 23:31, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, simpleWP! Enjoy 2013. CRRaysHead90 | ^{Get Some!} 12:33, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Vote on English wiki

The proposal for listing Simple at the top of the language links on English Wikipedia is now being voted on. [1] It is not going well. I'm surprised at some of the things that have been said. Anyway, even if you joined in with the earlier discussion, you will need to plunge in again. Nothing you said before will count, only what is on the voting page. Macdonald-ross (talk) 23:03, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Automatic archival of low-volume project talk pages

Hello,

I added a configuration to Wikipedia talk:How to write Simple English pages, for Miszabot to archive the page. Most of the discussions are over 6 months old. Archival settings are to leave 4 threads on the page, no matter what, and to create a new archive once 125k content is reached. Currently, the whole page is about 50-60k, but discussions go back a few years. Does anyone have an opinion on automatically archiving (low traffic) project talk pages? --Eptalon (talk) 15:29, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Generally I see no point on it if talk pages get so little traffic like that. It isn't hard if the page does hit 100k to archive it manually. That being said there is no harm in it either. -DJSasso (talk) 00:09, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Its easily automated, and given that the posts on the page in question are not "linear", letting the bot decide is easier than spending time figuring out which post was done on what date, and if that date was six month ago, or earlier. Use a computer for repetitive, boring tasks.... - If we can reach general agreement, I think the system could be extended to other Wikipedia-space low-traffic talk pages. --Eptalon (talk) 11:51, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Personally I don't like archiving on low volume pages as it makes it harder to find old conversations without much benefit (ie I have to go search through archives when they could easily just be on the talk page). The only reason to ever archive is that the page size is too big so it causes slow page load times. This isn't the case on low volume pages. I won't oppose it if people think it would actually help, but I don't think it provides a net benefit and is potentially an annoyance. -DJSasso (talk) 13:59, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I think this would be helpful, especially after looking at the page given as an example. I don't imagine there's much need to read threads years old, and if there is a need theres an archive. Go with the bot imo. Kennedy ^(talk) 12:30, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Minor changes

It came up to me while I was adding some links to articles. Why do we call minor changes like that? Minor can be quite a difficult word: it is not here for example. Can't we change it into "Small changes" instead? --Mark91it's my world 11:45, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Interesting thought. I think though minor also means trivial, or not important, but a small edit could be quite important and therefore not minor. Is there another word?--Peterdownunder (talk) 12:04, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I believe this has been discussed in the past. You might want to look through the Simple Talk archives. There were no words that accurately matched what minor means if I remember correctly. For example a minor edit can be a very large edit. And a small edit can be a very big change which wouldn't be a minor edit. -DJSasso (talk) 14:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Mmhh I see what you both mean. I found this related discussion. What about calling it a "simple" change? Or do you think that would be even more confusing? --Mark91it's my world 16:10, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Probably because technically all changes here are simple...(or supposed to be) -DJSasso (talk) 16:54, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Be a Wikimedia fundraising "User Experience" volunteer!

Thank you to everyone who volunteered last year on the Wikimedia fundraising 'User Experience' project. We have talked to many different people in different countries and their feedback has helped us immensely in restructuring our pages. If you haven't heard of it yet, the 'User Experience' project has the goal of understanding the donation experience in different countries (outside the USA) and enhancing the localization of our donation pages.

I am (still) searching for volunteers to spend some time on a Skype chat with me, reviewing their own country's donation pages. It will be done on a 'usability' format (I will ask you to read the text and go through the donation flow) and will be asking your feedback in the meanwhile.

The only pre-requisite is for the volunteer to actually live in the country and to have access to at least one donation method that we offer for that country (mainly credit/debit card, but also real time banking like IDEAL, E-wallets, etc...) so we can do a live test and see if the donation goes through. **All volunteers will be reimbursed of the donations that eventually succeed (and they will be very low amounts, like 1-2 dollars)**

By helping us you are actually helping thousands of people to support our mission of free knowledge across the world. If you are interested (or know of anyone who could be) please email ppena@wikimedia.org. All countries needed (excepting USA)!!

Thanks!

Pats Pena
Global Fundraising Operations Manager, Wikimedia Foundation

Sent using Global message delivery, 21:16, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Italic title

Hello! I've written an article (Supertramp (album)) on this wiki for the first time. It's about a music album, so I added the template {{italictitle}}, but it doesn't seem to work: "Supertramp" isn't italicized. I noticed the same problem occurs on Selena (album). How can this be fixed? Greetings, Mathonius (talk) 10:01, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

 Fixed Osiris (talk) 10:11, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Wonderful! Thank you very much! Mathonius (talk) 16:27, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Television series by year

As far as I can tell, a category for a decade (such as Category:1960s television series) is for series that had first-run episodes during the decade. A category for a specific year (such as Category:1960 television series) is for series that first aired during that year. The year categories are subcategories of the decade categories. It seems a little strange to have the subcategories be for something a little different from the parent categories, but that's how it seems to be set up. Does anyone disagree? If that's right, then I'd like to put text on each category describing it. The text would be something like:

• For decades: This category is for television series that were on the air in the 1960s.
• For years: This category is for television series that started in 1960.

Opinions? --Auntof6 (talk) 15:57, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Minimal city stub?

A city/populated place is notable in itself. So far, so good. I do however claim that to be worthy of keeping, the article about the place also needs to fulfill certain citeria:

1. The stub needs to contain some basic facts: The place is part of a larger area, and has a certain number of people living there. Unless we are talking about a village, there will also be an urban area/conurbation, with a population that is worth mentioning.
2. Unless we are talking about Sleepyville, which is a suburb of TheBigCity, and everyone is a commuter, there will be some kind of economic activity that is predominant in or around the city. Usually such things are worth mentioning. Smaller places are focused on one kind of economic activity, perhaps even one company,with bigger places some variation can be seen.
3. There might be some cultural heritage, almost any city has a place of worship, or some other sights interesting to those who visit. Mentioning them is usually helpful.

Mean as I am, I like being brutal. New creations of cities/populated places that do not state information from at least two of the three categories above should be deleted, after some time (1 week). How many stubs 'X is a place in Y,Z' do we have? - For those living in X, or tohse interested in geography, this should not be difficult to do, and it would prevent us from getting mass-created stubs no one dares to delete.--Eptalon (talk) 16:09, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

This is close to being a proposal for the proposed deletion process on EN. And yes, I am in favour of this. We are not supposed to be a directory of every place in the world. Chenzw  Talk  16:11, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

You're indeed being brutal lol and those one-liners if not improved after one week could become temporary soft redirects such as the one I've just created today about an Allier commune. ONaNcle (talk) 17:08, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Eptalon why do you insist on wasting so much time on this topic, you bring it up over and over. Just because you don't find these small articles useful doesn't mean they aren't. A stub is just a starting point, it is where articles will start from. There is no time limit on wikipedia and an article that is short is better than no article at all. If you don't like the articles don't read them. And contrary to Chenzw, we are an encyclopedia, so yes we are expected to be a directory for every place on earth. It's long been established that people will expand an existing article before they will create a new one. We want to encourage people to edit, not discourage. Deleting such useful articles would be detrimental with no obvious gain. -DJSasso (talk) 17:12, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

The amount of time used trying to delete these stubs over and over through the years is astounding.. Deleting them is more of a waste of time than just letting them sit there idlely. Discussing the same thing over and over and over.. and over.. is even more of a waste of time and energy. (this edit is one less I can get in today finding references for BLPs - 4 less with edit conflicts) --Creol(talk) 17:19, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

The argument can be made that we waste more time patrolling a plethora of short articles that have barely any content on them than they are worth. Yes, we're an encyclopedia, but we're one with a very specific purpose: providing English-language articles in a simplified format (theoretically for people for whom English isn't their primary language, I would assume). Is it the best use of our time to have one-line articles about every tiny village on Earth, or would our readers be better served by fleshing out complex concepts like theoretical physics? I just caught a nearly three-week-old worthless edit on Medicine; are you really telling me that a page like Chouvigny is more important? Is Belle Plaine, Iowa really doing our readers much good? Are we at our most productive by creating pages like Coaraze instead of bringing Binary numeral system up to the same level of comprehensiveness as en:Binary number? EVula // talk // 20:10, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

How much bad is Belle Plaine, Iowa doing our readers? Who is patrolling it? It is already written and at this point providing no drain on resources at all except (currently) this thread and (if the case were made) to delete it. The existence of a stub causes no damage. The time spent here would be better spent looking for those 3 week old edits that got missed or finding a references here and there but instead, the time taken to further discuss this means another article on the list of BLPs without references sits there for a while longer. Belle Plaine hasn't caused me to lose any editing time, this discussion (and the umteenth before it) have. I can ignore a stub of no interest to me, but ignoring these discussions lets people push through policy I don't agree with so can't be ignored.

Your counter-point is that we have better things to put our efforts into than creating these stubs. The problem is we do not dictate what people want to write about. Also, we are not the ones who already spent their time on them. The only edits to Belle Plaine since it was written are a handful of bots (or bot like stub sorting). No real time lost. We frown on mass produced stubs, but alternatively, it is more likely that person would just wander off than that they start breaking down Theoretical Physics. We may have things that could better use our time, but dictating how others volunteer their time is not an option. ( 2+ more BLPs suffer for this) 20:51, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I didn' do much today, I spent about an hour writing about Montluçon; I also extendended Commentry (both cities in Allier department). What I can say that Commentry is a very good example of what industrialization can do to a village. They found coal nearby... In 1790, therewere 700 people in the village, in the 1870s-1890s, there were 12.000, today there are about 7.000. All I wanted ot point out with this that unless an article gets created/extended to a sufficient standard, it is little use. There was a spree of mass-creating such pages in 2008-2009; most of these pages have seen their last human edit then, and now only get updated by bots. Now we see another spree of such creations. Wouldn't it be time to start THINKING about getting decent rules that let us delete such orphaned articles? -"How long, O Catiline, will you abuse our patience? And for how long will that madness of yours mock us? To what end will your unbridled audacity hurl itself?" (First Catiline oration)- I am not against small articles about cities wherever, all I am trying to say is that unless they include at least two of the three categories of information I pointed out above, their content is next to useless. Unless we vercome our inertia and act, we will find out that of the nearly 100.000 articles, betwenn 10.000 and 20.0000 are one sentence stubs about cities. But I'll leave that to the people that will be around in 2015/2016.--Eptalon (talk) 21:48, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

No it isn't the time to think about getting decent rules to let us delete these articles. Because this articles are a GOOD THING. I would very much rather have 10-20,000 one sentence stubs than 10-20,000 subjects that don't have articles that should. Just because you think they are of little use doesn't actually make them so. Articles existing do a number of things, one even if they only contain where they are located tells a reader where it is located so the articles do provide some information. Secondly a reader (ie non-editor) that does a search for a given town that interests them is far more likely to be discouraged and stop reading the wiki if they find nothing than if they find a small one sentence stub. And if they find that one sentence stub there is a chance that they might actually add a bit of information that they might know about it. Even if that happens very rarely that is a net benefit that wouldn't be seen if we delete the article. The question really is Eptalon, do you want to grow the encyclopaedia or not. Deleting small stubs just because you don't like them is the quickest way to shrink and kill the wiki through discouragement of editing. (and of course the literal deleting of articles.) Your comment to that new editor that basically insinuated that their creation was worthless and that they should great large paragraphs for a new article was disgusting. Completely bitey and inappropriate for someone who has been here so long and knows we need to encourage people to stay and not to leave. -DJSasso (talk) 21:57, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

The thing that everyone that brings this up time and again forgets is that this is the exact same way en.wiki started. Do you think it magically jumped from no articles to fully big articles? No the vast majority of articles on en started as single sentence stubs. Because we are a smaller community we will stay in the single sentence stub phase a lot longer. But we do have to go through it, just like en did. -DJSasso (talk) 22:19, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Supposing the articles were not created by a script, but by a human editor, how much longer would it take to write the two extra sentences?-If script-created, how much time would it need ot adapt the script ot paste three-sentence articles, instead of one sentence articles? - If all you can say about the fourth and fifth largest cities in Kentucky is that they are cities in Kentucky, how much do you actually care about what you write? (Owensboro, and Covington for those who don't know). When you then find out that the last human who edited the articles did so in 2009, what light does that shed on our project? - Is the image of not having these articles not a better one than having them as pitiful one-liners? --Eptalon (talk) 22:29, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't matter how much longer it takes. People are free to spend their volunteer time how they like. Maybe the person only knows enough about the subject to say where it is. As long as they aren't vandalizing and they are writing about something notable, it doesn't matter how much they "care" about their subject. It doesn't matter that the last person who touched it was in 2009. We have 30 (give or take) active editors on this wiki. Articles are going to go untouched for years. It is a fact of life on a small wiki. It sheds worse light on our project to not have an article when someone searches for it than a one liner. To be honest if I wasn't an editor here and I did searches and found no articles I was looking for I would stop coming here to read articles after about the 2nd or 3rd not found article, on the other hand if I found a single sentence I would be satisfied even if they didn't have much information. Secondly if I was someone creating these articles and spending my time in GOOD FAITH to create articles for the wiki and saw people deleting them because they just didn't find them interesting enough I would quite simply walk away from the wiki. Neither of these two scenario's helps our wiki because one causes us to lose readers and the other causes us to lose editors. In fact going so far as to actively delete these articles is going out of our way to hurt the wiki when keeping them doesn't harm our wiki in any way and quite possibly helps it. -DJSasso (talk) 22:48, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Being the person who created a lot of these articles, I have pushed for a while now for their deletion. I believe creating these articles was a mistake, and I disagree with the assumption they do not do any harm. They do. They harm our reputation as a credible source. SEWP has become a stub depositary. We would be better off concentrating on the expansion of the most commonly visited pages, rather than that of obscure places, very few people have heard of and want to here of. What we need is action to achieve what we say we are supposed to be doing: writing articles in simple language. I would argue our Wiki is less of a list of everything in the world, and more of a tool/place for people who find ENWP too complex. These people are very, very unlikely to find the ENWP articles complex, as the reality is most communes on ENWP are also very short stubs. Therefore, unless ENWP has an article (as opposed to a stub) about a place, there is clearly no need for a one line stub here, and I would argue a redirect to ENWP would be more useful and beneficial for us (at least, until the ENWP stub is expanded). Yottie ^=talk= 23:03, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

How exactly is our reputation as a credible source harmed by small articles. The articles are accurate information therefore they are still credible. -DJSasso (talk) 23:10, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

We are laughed at by people at ENWP, and branded as a place with a whole load of Stubs about French communes, American cities, and, formerly, Romanian Rivers/Asteroids/Football players. ENWP is where we are most likely to find people who are willing to help. This bad reputation, created by other people at ENWP who don't see past the numerous stubs, contributes, I am sure, to better people not coming to help here, because of this. Yottie ^=talk= 23:19, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind being pointed to those discussions as I am curious to see people mentioning any of those articles being over abundent. As someone who is very active on ENWP I have never seen anyone mention any of those things. What I have seen is people talking about is how they never find articles they search for here so there is no point coming here looking for stuff. Or another big thing I have heard from writers is that we are always chasing off writers by making seemingly random decisions or that we make it hard for people to want to come here and write. We were very highly criticized for deleting those Asteroid articles, so much so that there was talk having the WMF come in and restore them all and remove the administration. (though I doubt that ever could have happened.) A wiki suddenly dropping thousands of articles has a way of getting peoples attention in a bad way. -DJSasso (talk) 23:25, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I cannot point you to any discussions, but that is the feedback I have had. However, I don't think you can deny having redirects to enwiki, for a vast majority of place stubs, would be very different on the Simplicity side, and this is, correct me if I'm wrong, the main point of this wiki. (Example: Beauchastel vs Beauchastel) Yottie ^=talk= 23:34, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

• I'd like to point out this edit, which is very important to this discussion. I will post a more fleshed out comment when I've had some time to think. --Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 03:02, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I think I explained my views on this during the last discussion, which I initiated (though I did not know then that it had been discussed so extensively before). In that discussion, I supported redirecting the titles to a list, with anchors, that shows basic data about each place; data that would be far more informative than "X is a place in Y". I am opposed to deleting the pages, but I still support redirecting the definitions, and allowing them to be broken off into independent articles whenever someone has something of substance to add. That is my opinion, and I'll leave it at that.

Obviously this was a pretty poor welcome for Aplikasi. We could have done better there. I will post a message to his talk page later. That said, the mass creation of dictionary-style entries for the sole purpose of hitting a certain milestone faster is not something that I would encourage. If that is indeed what this is for, then we'll be seeing a further 8,000+ of these over the next coming weeks. If there was ever a time to come to some kind of agreement over this, then it would probably be now. Osiris (talk) 05:48, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I support this idea of redirecting such place articles to a list. Gotanda (talk) 09:16, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

In that context, what about agreeing on the three items I stated when I started this? - Losing an editor is deplorable, but do we need editors who only create one-liners automaticlly to reach a milestone? - What if article 100.000 is an X is a city in Y,Z stub? - No one cares about most of these articles, else we would have seen more activity on those created in 2009. Grouping them by administrative division (county,departement, in the case of France) and fleshing out the few people are actually interested in is probably a good idea. Having some kind of guideline we could point new editors to would certainly also help this purpose.--Eptalon (talk) 09:54, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I must say redirecting to lists does seem like a good idea. It avoids deletes and the redirects can easily be broken. On handling newcomers who put up one-liners, we could devise a passage which could be added under the standard greeting. It should have a soft advisory tone, something along the general lines of "Can you find any more information on this subject? Readers might like to know a bit more". If we had such a passage, it would present a standard and congenial face to the newcomer. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:17, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I will add my support to the redirect to a list idea, which I have proposed numerous times on Wiki/IRC, and which has always been ignored. It would be easy to break the redirects, as said above, and articles which are big enough could still figure on the list, but with a link to the main article. As for losing an editor, it is very sad, but I would agree with Eptalon - is this what we wanted? Imagine an editor had come along writing a whole load of Unwikified articles. Wouldn't it be better to warn him before he creates too much work, so that he can change? The situation is the same here, better safe than sorry. By warning him about the one liners (which can theoretically be QDed), the editors involved were only trying to point him in the right direction. If the editor didn't take that on-board, then it is quite unfortunate. Yottie ^=talk= 13:26, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Been following this discussion. Strongly agree with a list with redirects, and disagree with numerous one-line stubs. Have similar thoughts to those immediately above me. Kennedy ^(talk) 13:55, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes Eptalon, we do need editors who create small articles. We need any editor that is creating non-vandalism notable articles. Chasing them off as you have now done is horrible. You are well aware of how hard it is for us to get editors. These sorts of moves are exactly why editors show up and leave. But I guess it is true that people here don't actually want new users, they prefer their walled garden where they can feel like big fish in a small pond. Think I might actually give up on this wiki if we start doing this. Though I am sure some would be happy about that. Why waste time writing articles on a wiki where people could just randomly delete them even if they are notable. I am sure many others will think the same thing. -DJSasso (talk) 15:05, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Well so far you are the only one to have stated this opinion... Its nothing to do with new editors as far as I can see. Yottie was the one who created the French stubs, and Razorflame was the Romanian rivers (?) and Yottie is in agreement for them to go. A respository of one-liners doesn't seem a very exciting website. I've done tests many times in the past by basically hitting the 'show any page' button and its shocking how many times you are presented with "X is a place in Y". I'd much rather expand other articles. Threatening to leave over this is a little over the top, almost toys out of the pram stuff really... Kennedy ^(talk) 15:19, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Restating the argument, I agree and support the consensus reasoning and points-of-view above, including

• Osiris here: "... redirecting the titles to a list, with anchors, that shows basic data about each place ... and allowing them to be broken off into independent articles whenever someone has something of substance to add."
• Gotanda here: "... redirecting such place articles to a list."
• Eptalon here: "Grouping ... and fleshing out the few people are actually interested in is probably a good idea."
• Macdonald-Ross here: "... redirecting to lists ... avoids deletes and the redirects can easily be broken. On handling newcomers who put up one-liners, we could devise a passage which could be added under the standard greeting. It should have a soft advisory tone, something along the general lines of 'Can you find any more information on this subject? Readers might like to know a bit more'. If we had such a passage, it would present a standard and congenial face to the newcomer."
• Yottie here: "... redirect to a list ... and articles which are big enough could still figure on the list, but with a link to the main article"
• Kennedy here: "... list with redirects ..."

Taken together, these comments are a consensus guideline which is not difficult to understand and follow. --Ansei (talk) 15:34, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

(ec)Except that new editors see that even established users articles can just be tossed without much care. A repository of one liners isn't any worse than a repository of red links. If anything its better. Readers ie not editors aren't going to come here and click show me a random article. They are going to either go to google and search for what they are looking for, or if they already know about this site they will search for the article they are looking for. I very much support people wanting to expand articles we have, but you shouldn't stop people from helping in the way they want to help just because you prefer to help in a different way. And it isn't just intending to leave over just this, we are always making decisions of this nature. More often than not just based on nothing but pure I don't like this. This is just the icing on the cake. Destroying tens of thousands of articles just because people don't like to look at one sentence stubs is the ultimate in careless actions in my view. There are of course countless side effects to doing so beyond the editor situations, for example if they are turned into redirects they no longer get index by google for searches. Leading to less people coming to the website from outside. In the end there are many many reasons why tossing these articles is or is potentialy a bad thing and the only real benefit of getting rid of them is people won't see as many of them in the show me any page searches. Because other than hitting that link, people don't go to pages they aren't looking for so they never actually see these one sentence stubs so no one actually notices if we are big repository of the. -DJSasso (talk) 15:37, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Ansei for listing those in such a structured way. I would also add, that due to the much bigger audience ENWP has, the commune stubs are far more likely to be expanded there first. However, in probably well over 50% of the 36K communes (just a guess, possibly far more in reality) the articles are also one liners with templates. To me this means that if they aren't being expanded at ENWP, it is highly unlikely they will be expanded here before. The fact is, they will probably not be expanded here at all. Yottie ^=talk= 15:48, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Now of course this is an essay from en. But the same applies here I think. There is no deadline. -DJSasso (talk) 16:26, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I think you could probably argue that the stubs aren't worth having, as a page with a list would contain more facts than X is a place in X. I think you may need to realize that if a reader looks up an article, then another article, then another article, and each article is simply "X is X - full stop", that reader might think "wait a minute, this place is rubbish", whereas at least with a list containing population, mayor, and a few other facts might be more useful to that reader. If you would like to go and edit 10,000+ articles and add that information to them, then I will support that. But I think that is unrealistic currently (and unless I mention it now, I can see 'sofixit' coming...), and that the best option would be to group the stubs. Yottie ^=talk= 16:43, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Hitting the target?

This thread has developed in a way that is too-familiar. At this stage, is it not timely, constructive and necessary to highlight diffs which develop unstated premises and then extend them to extreme limits?

• Question: In this thread, do we see examples of a kind of "reductio ad absurdum argument"? Yes.

  Is it not clear that DJSasso's diffs generally try to shift the focus of the thread? By showing how unworkable the consequences would be, reductio ad absurdum is used to disprove or discredit an opinion which does not mirror DJSasso's overview. For example, DJSasso's diff here re-focuses on distracting and tangential issues.

Reductio ad absurdum is only valid and persuasive when it builds on assertions which are actually present in what it is deconstructing -- not when the tactic highlights one or more "straw men" or "Aunt Sallies".

• Question: In this thread, do we see examples of a kind of a "straw man argument"? Yes.

  A rhetorical "straw men" is created by extending the narrow questions which started this thread here. When we accept or merely fail to refute the "straw man" set-up, we permit opportunities for DJSasso or anyone else to attack a contrived "straw man" instead of trying to work with Eptalon's primary proposal or Macdonald-Ross' secondary proposal or my tertiary proposal. For example, DJSasso's diffs here and here are re-focusing on a tangential issue -- a "straw man" which is beside the point.

We have not seen how consensus-building is fostered by reductio ad absurdum or straw man arguments. In the specific context of this one thread, we can see how our epistemic community and our consensus-building process are undermined. In our work together, consensus is not the same as intensity of preference. --Ansei (talk) 18:52, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

You do realize you have used a number of those terms incorrectly right? A straw man is an argument based on a mis-statement of a person's opinion. I have done no such thing. Most if not all the positions above have been that single sentence articles are useless. I have not made any arguments based on anything but that. Nor are my arguments Reductio ad absurdum. They are all very valid issues. Retaining editors is a valid concern, driving traffic to our website is a valid concern. If someone can't point out the problems with an action how exactly do you propose to create a consensus and find a good way to handle a situation. And then you point to a diff of mine pointing to the No deadline essay as being tangential when that was a specific reply to someone's concern that an article hasn't been expanded in a given time. That is 100% what this whole discussion is about. It isn't even remotely tangential. As per usual your comments are unhelpful. -DJSasso (talk) 19:08, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Something to note, if we are going to delete all single sentence stubs. Using the Special pages I went and verified that there are 20k one sentence stubs on the wiki without an infobox. I don't think I would be out of line estimating there are another 20k that include an infobox. (harder to verifify since infobox code puffs up the byte size of a page) So give or take a bit...we are looking at deleting/redirecting 40k articles on the wiki. Which equates to close to half our wiki. If you still think that is a good way to go I think I will just leave it at that because really I can't put it in any clearer terms that it will make us look ridiculous and likely cause a much harder look at shutting us down again. -DJSasso (talk) 19:22, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Or maybe it will be seen as refocusing on our 'prime directive' which is to provide simple content, not listing 'X is in X' (and we have all to gain by branding the move as this). If half our wiki really is X is a place in X', then there clearly is a problem. Yottie ^=talk= 19:56, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Well that isn't all X is a place in X. Those are all pages that are made of of one sentence. So they can be anything really. But if we are going to do it for places we have to do it for all those other articles as well. So for example if we had "Obama is the president of the United States of America" it would have to go as well because we can't pick and chose favourite subjects. -DJSasso (talk) 20:00, 10 January 2013 (UTC)