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 Note that you should not change the archives, so if something that has been archived needs discussing, please start a new discussion on this page.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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Advice for contributing

How does contributing here differ from ENWP? My writing feels a quite too complex for basic English learners to understand. Ahri Boy (talk) 14:08, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps the easiest is trying to avoid words with multiple meanings, and trying to make shorter sentences. Also, we do not categorize by gender, so no male football players or female football players as a category. Another example: we use 'movie' where enwp uses 'film', simply because film also has other meanings. Eptalon (talk) 23:05, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

I once saw a contributor just put [[brackets]] around what they thought were all the hard words. The idea was that the reader could just click on any word they didn't know. But this is no good. We want the reader to go through the whole article without stopping. One way to do this is to pipe certain words, like so: [[water pollution|bad chemicals in the water]], [[snout-vent length|from nose to rear end]]</wiki>, <nowiki>[[habitat|place to live]]. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:27, 27 December 2025 (UTC)

DYK

I think this rule for DYK hooks (DYKs should not be very good articles (VGA) already as VGAs already get their own spotlight on the Main Page as the "Selected very good article".) should include GAs as now GAs also have a spot on the main page. Also see the discussion: here PieWriter (talk) 00:41, 28 December 2025 (UTC)

I agree for the sake of consistency. However I believe that GA articles that are already in the DYK holding area should be the exception since they were nominated and approved prior to this rule. Also worth mentioning that articles nominated for VGA/GA are still eligible until they get approved officially. TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 01:09, 28 December 2025 (UTC)

I also think so. In addition given the sheer number of hooks we have, can we change the hooks more often? Eptalon (talk) 13:00, 28 December 2025 (UTC)

I was thinking about that, instead of making it twice a month, but some editor (don't remember) mentioned how activity on DYK varies from active to dormant at any given moment so the massive amount of hooks on hold is a precaution to make sure we have just enough to keep DYK going in case there's a lack of activity/nominations at the moment. TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 18:30, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

If rule is approved. We should demote all DYK articles that are already nominated GA before that rule or you can remove any GA articles in DYK holding area or queues? Raayaan9911 16:49, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

Which is simpler?

I was wondering which one of these we use here in Simple Wikipedia, lynching or killing? PieWriter (talk) 03:01, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

Context is necessary. I don't think there's doubt that "killing" is a word that more of the Wiki's target audience (children, ESL speakers, etc) recognize. However, there are cases where the context necessitates the word "lynch" to be used, and that should either be linked to the article, or have a brief explanation in the sentence. — *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 03:39, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

How about for this article, Killing of Dipu Chandra Das? PieWriter (talk) 00:32, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

Did you see, we have an article on Lynching? Eptalon (talk) 10:22, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

@PieWriter "Killing" is simpler, but "lynching" should be used when it is the accurate term, with a short explanation or link for clarity. 7Bonfire (talk) 19:52, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

Query

Should red links be retained in newly created articles? Esyms (talk) 22:06, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

It depends on what the red-link is. Generally, if something appears as a red-link, we do not have that article. However, it is worthwhile checking if we have the article under a different name. Otherwise put: red links are not bad, they tell the reader we do not have certain articles. Eptalon (talk) 22:22, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

Yes, red links can be retained in newly created articles. Red links are acceptable when they point to topics that are notable, relevant to the subject, and likely to be created in the future. They help identify content gaps and encourage article creation. However, excessive or speculative red links should be avoided, especially if the linked topic is unlikely to meet notability guidelines. 7Bonfire (talk) 19:49, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

Re-nominating the iPhone 15 to Good Article

Hello Simple English Wikipedians, i would like to re-nominating iPhone 15 to GA after two withdrawn proposals due to poor grammar and other issues that i need more works? Here that given issues examples and here that given issues examples again. If issues are spotted, let me know! Raayaan9911 17:02, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

I think it looks ready to me! Can i nominate this article to GA? If you see the issues, point me. Raayaan9911 21:44, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

At a quick glance, there are still so many grammar errors. This is not near ready. CountryANDWestern (talk) 22:16, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

I was fixing it. Can you give me some examples of grammar issues if you still see it? Raayaan9911 22:17, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

The second sentence is “They are seventeen generations of the iPhones.” Do you mean that they are the seventeenth generation? CountryANDWestern (talk) 22:37, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

 Done I changed to "iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus are seventeenth generation of the iPhones". I also i changed some of them from "they" to "iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus" and fixed some typo like "Amera" changed to "Camera" Raayaan9911 23:16, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

Mistake fixed: from "iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus are seventeenth generation of the iPhones" to "They are the seventeenth generation of the iPhones" Raayaan9911 23:22, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

VGA criteria

I am considering whether or not point 2 of the VGA criteria, this part: There is a required minimum of 6 named voters, is applicable anymore. Considering how little participation these areas get, we should either lower the number of editors that would vote or remove that from the lint. What do you think? PieWriter (talk) 07:50, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Some examples: and [2], where the rule wasn’t followed. PieWriter (talk) 07:53, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

As it was, we wanted a simple system, and we also wanted to avoid that articles could be pushed to VGA without community support. If you would change the criterion, what would you suggest? Eptalon (talk) 09:26, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

I would suggest lowering it to 4 people PieWriter (talk) 09:30, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

would that fix the problem? Eptalon (talk) 09:58, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Considering that's about the number of people active there, maybe? PieWriter (talk) 10:01, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

We should be less descriptive about the amounts. FA on En doesn't give specific amount of people (or indeed is the implied amount of responses as much as 6). Perhaps something saying that articles need a sufficient amount of responses and leave it up to promoters digression. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:58, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Some editors might misunderstanding between six criterias and six named voters. However, there is no rule against at least six strict named voting users before closure. The proposals can be closed quickly per WP:SNOW and used for only if proposals causing wasting the community's time and have serious problems. If we wanted simplify the rule, we need agreement before simplify. If users closing the proposals with few votes like two or four, nothing happens. Raayaan9911 18:27, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Proposal for enabling noindex in article space

Dear community,

when patrolling new articles, I often google the topic. In many cases, the first result is the simpleWP article, not only for pages of decent quality and notability, but also for attack pages, unsourced material, and non-notable content. Google indexes our pages very quickly. Since we don’t have a draft space like enwiki, every low-quality page is immediately searchable. I don’t think this is good for us or our reputation. Therefore, I suggest we adopt enwiki’s rules for controlling search-engine indexing, as described here. Applied here, it would be:

Namespace	Status	Indexed	Can be overridden
(main)	newer than 90 days, unpatrolled	Yes	Yes
	newer than 90 days, patrolled	Yes	Yes
	older than 90 days	Yes	Yes

I can imagine this would help reduce spam and similar issues, as people will see that such pages are no longer indexed. Currently, we regularly have people copying drafts from enwiki because those can be found easily.

Please note that this has been discussed before but never implemented. See the earlier discussions here (July 2025) and here (May 2024). If we reach consensus on this, I will take it to the developers to get it implemented here. —Barras talk 17:24, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

I support the proposal. canadachick (talk) 18:07, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

I see a problem with this, I think very little patrolling work is done. Also as this is a small wiki, 90 days is likely far too long. What about 20-30 days? Eptalon (talk) 18:17, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Due to the low number of active people, it might even be better to wait longer than shorter to have more time patrolling the pages. New pages are not in a rush to be indexed by search engines. -Barras talk 18:19, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. The English Wikipedia does this well and it could help to stop promotional articles that are immediately indexed. Ternera (talk) 21:54, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

I support this proposal. I would also suggest doing a noindex for userspace pages. I frequently make a userspace draft and then find that it somehow gets indexed well before it is ready. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk | changes) 15:44, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

Note -- This has been discussed/proposed before at Wikipedia:Simple_talk/Archive_159#Enabling_noindex_in_article_space and there was great support for it. It was discussed again this July at Wikipedia:Simple_talk/Archive_169#Can_you_please_set_this_up_here? and Ferien mentioned that they believe WMF was opposed to enabling it. CountryANDWestern (talk) 15:50, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

Ipswich Town F.C.

Hello, the article Ipswich Town F.C. is currently a very good article, but it has been listed for demotion since the beginning of December 2025; it has many red links, a few templates that point to the fact that it needs improvement. The editor who contributed most, The Rambling Man has not been active in this Wikipedia for many years. I pinged him on EnWp, a while back, but his last edit there also dates to end of November 2025. Much as it irks me to demote the article, we still need to do it, if we want to remain credible. So, I would propose this be demoted to regular article. Any comments? Eptalon (talk) 09:35, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

It has some red links but they're all in the navigational box at the bottom. This template was added recently replacing the longstanding previous template which just listed the teams in the Premier League, which had no red links. It bothers me a bit that something like this can be used as a reason to demote an article. Also, there are only a few cleanup templates, some which say a better source is needed. I don't think that's really an issue; those sources seem good enough for the statements they reference. canadachick (talk) 17:24, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

VGA is the very best quality this community can produce. The processes of promoting a d demoting have long been in place. Getting an article there is a lot of work, hence my reluctance. Eptalon (talk) 17:28, 10 January 2026 (UTC)