Wikipedia:Simple talk

Simple talk
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Why is English the only Wikipedia that has a simple edition?

Why don't other languages have this? For example, Chinese and Spanish are in very high demand, yet they don't have a Simple version like English does. Please ping me when you respond. Interstellarity (talk) 00:27, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

@Interstellarity: I would presume they don't simply due to there not being enough interest for such projects. The English Wikipedia is by far the largest Wikipedia with 7 million articles, and the Simple English Wikipedia has less than 20 times that (300,000). A Simple Spanish Wikipedia would almost certainly be much smaller than this one. That said, anyone is free to try leading such a proposal (but I doubt it will happen soon). Sophocrat (talk) 00:34, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

We are essentially grandfathered in. To make a new wiki there has to exist an official ISO language code and no such code exists for simple versions of languages (this includes simple English). But since we've existed since before this rule we get to continue to exist. French has tried to start a simple version but it's just not allowed. Every few years someone starts a discussion on meta to get us shut down but it never goes anywhere. fr33kman 00:50, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Huh, didn't know that. Thanks! For Interstellarity's reference, here's the Language proposal policy on Meta. Sophocrat (talk) 01:27, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

I know that there were at least ideas to create one for Simple French, and Simple German. The problem there however was, that there were no real language communities you could point to (Yes, there likely are versions of French and German, that are used as pidgins, in Africa, and perhaps Oceania / Asia, but as with most pidgins, coming up with a formal laguage description is difficult). And the requirement for an ISO code (or possibly a Glottolog entry) pretty much killed these projects. Also, in many cases, these efforts are linked to colonialism, and it may be difficult to find people today who openly support these languages today. I can imagine that the situation for Spanish and Portuguese is likely similar. Eptalon (talk) 07:37, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Do you think there will be another simple language that could complement Simple English? If so, which language would likely become the strongest candidate for inclusion? Interstellarity (talk) 15:11, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

With the current rules it will be difficult. Eptalon (talk) 18:59, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, currently it's impossible but if it were possible it'd probably be French fr33kman 22:48, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

In addition to the other answers mentioned above, English is a rare example of a language that has many, many more speakers/readers with poor or intermediate skills than proficient speakers. So there is more of a need globally for the millions of human beings who have some shaky English. Additionally, as others have said, were this proposed today, there is no way it would be a separate project and certainly not simple.wikt. If you're motivated to have some of the more developed projects like de.wp or fr.wp have simple editions of articles, I'd recommend having a WikiProject on those sites, so that there could be things like "Article" and "Article/Simple". I think that would actually be a quite useful feature and there have been some similar articles on en.wp for physics topics, but I think that they were deleted. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:14, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

I spoke to Jimbo years ago about articles becoming more complex over time and he suggested that the introduction (which should sum up the main body) could be made simple on all articles. This was my main inspiration for WP:SI. The other language wikis could do something similar. fr33kman 22:51, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Looking at the distribution of languages in the world, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, perhaps German are candidates. These had large empires at a time in the past. Do you think there are enough people who want to start a new simple language project? Eptalon (talk) 06:04, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Considering the Language Policy states that the language must have an official ISO language code, highly unlikely such a proposal would even be accepted. Plutus ^{💬 🎃} — Fortune favors the curious 09:51, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Just going to note that Simple French was deemed eligible... seven years ago. I don't think it has a Wikimedia Incubator page. It might be stalled indefinitely. — *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 10:53, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

If I remember correctly (which there is a decent chance that I'm not) a langcom affiliate (or a langcom member themself) stated on an official frwiki post that the Simple French wiki would be incubated on frwiki itself instead of going into incubator and going through that process.- FusionSub (Talk page) (Contributions) 16:19, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

It should just be part of fr.wp and give access to the knowledge in the proper French Wikipedia to those who have intermediate French skills. French is another language that has many speakers with varying levels of proficiency and literacy and who also may not have access to knowledge in their mother tongue, particularly those in Francafrique. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:24, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

SEWP has often had to fight a little bit for its existence in the first place, with somewhere around five requests for closure of SEWP in the last 15 years, though recently these requests have become more overwhelmingly one-sidedly against closure. Given that SEWP was created before the current ISO requirements, and its longevity (9 days until the 24th anniversary), it is a unicorn as far as wikipedia projects go. And while there may be support for new projects, putting anything into practice will be difficult, even if it is hosted on the French Wikipedia. The biggest hurdle is finding an active community willing to build a new project. They would not have the benefit of having 10+ years to build a community while having little scrutiny from Wikimedia, nor would they have the benefit of a reduced amount of vandalism. MrMeAndMrMe_Talk 01:46, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, we were lucky with our timing. I personally support simple language versions as they would be very helpful. fr33kman 01:53, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

No easier way to draw a former editor of the Simple English Wikipedia out of retirement than to try to close down it's home project. TrueCRaysball ^💬|✏️ 23:16, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

Main Page idea

I was wondering if there was a way that we could add something relating to Wikipedia:Good Articles on the main page? Something that could create viewer engagement right off the bat. Seeing as how there's a little over 100 GAs, I figured it'd be nice to shed some spotlight to those articles especially since naturally they may be harder to find/appreciated. I know it's not common at English Wikipedia to spotlight Good Articles, but seeing as how we're a small community and how we have 102 GAs, I feel like that wouldn't be a bad touch. I was thinking perhaps adding some language to the VGA section of the main page. Something like: "Other very good articles – Proposals – Requirements – Some good articles". Thoughts? TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 07:14, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. We could also think about creating (shorter, without image?) teasers for GAs. And then list one GA teaser as well? Eptalon (talk) 07:59, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

I would support more visibility of the GA process. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 11:50, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

Completely agree. For a community as small as ours, 100 GAs is fairly good, so why not showing them on our Main Page? That'd probably even courage people to work on them and get them to VGA status. -Barras talk 17:57, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

Should we add a small section of GA article previews like the VGA articles on the main page or a simple mention of Good Articles like how I suggested above? TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 19:27, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

If we agreed,I would say a GA blurb should be noticeably shorter than a VGA blurb, and we need to write 100 blurbs first Eptalon (talk) 20:29, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

Good idea. I’ve noticed some of the VGA blurbs are rather small compared to the leads they have on their articles. We could expand the VGA blurbs a bit and follow what Eptalon is suggesting: Two sentence blurbs for GAs? TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 00:04, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

I agree also. fr33kman 01:09, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps what we could do is expand the "About Wikipedia" section to make it more elongated like the DYK section and then beneath the "About Wikipedia" section we could have a "Selected Very Good Article" (left) and "Selected Good Article" (right) previews? TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 23:05, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

I've also created a sanbox that depicts how the GA blurbs would ideally look like for the newest 10 GAs :) I was also thinking for VGA blurbs and possible GA blurbs that are about shows, characters, books, movies, etc. that don't have a picture, we could place an image of a person related to them such as how I did for the Big Break blurb. English wikipedia does this for featured articles that have copyrighted images that can't appear on the main page. TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 23:31, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

I assume you mean to make the "About Wikipedia" section cover the full width of the page and not go down so far. That's a good idea. ~2025-61813-2 (talk) 13:36, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Yep! The About Wikipedia be expanded horizontally much like how DYK is and then beneath that section we could have VGA (left) and GA blubs (right). TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 19:57, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

I like what you did with the sandbox. How many blurbs do you propose? fr33kman 20:18, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

I was prepared to draft blurbs for all 102 good articles. Would that be a bad idea? TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 02:39, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

We can probably just write a new one every time a new article is promoted to GA. I would suggest having a dedicated page somewhere to be able to see all blurbs at once which could be admin protected, then in the talk page, people can suggest revisions, (grammar, spelling, linking, etc). MrMeAndMrMe_Talk 02:59, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

Vandalized articles removal

Yaduvanshi (surname) This page was named as Yaduvanshi ( Surname ) which was presently used by Yadav or Ahir Community in India , and According to my knowledge there is No One whose surname was Yaduvanshi and belongs to Jadaun Rajput and all So why this POV article exist, this was totally vandalized and should be deleted and there is not only one their are many articles like this exist which should be removed or be improved with a neutral point of view. Coelentrata (talk) 04:48, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

Introducing Paste Check: a new Edit Check for Wikipedia

Hello!

Paste Check is a new Edit Check feature to help avoid and fight copyright violations. When editors paste text into an article, Paste Check can prompt them to confirm the origin and licensing of the content.

Why Paste Check?

Paste Check benefits two audiences:

• Newcomers: Many new editors are unaware of Wikipedia’s policies regarding copyright violations. Some mistakenly believe that pasting from what they consider reliable sources is the way to edit.
• Experienced editors: Paste Check aims to make it easier to identify and patrol edits that may contain pasted content (which can be either legit or copyright violations), helping us save time.

The goal is to reduce the rate of copyright violations by at least 10% among newer editors.

How it works

By default, Paste Check will be shown to editors who have published 100 or fewer edits locally.

When an editor matching this requirement pastes at least 50 characters of text from somewhere else, Paste Check will ask them to confirm if they wrote the content. Two options are then available:

• Keep the text – the user is then asked to explain why.
• Remove the text – the text is removed.

In both cases, edits will be tagged so that experienced editors can identify edits in which Paste Check was shown. The tag will be visible even if the final edit didn’t include any pasted text.

Paste Check will trigger when text is pasted a source it doesn’t recognize as another editing environment. It won’t show up if the editor has pasted text that we can technically recognize is coming from another MediaWiki visual editor instance, MS Office, Libre Office, Google Docs, or is plain text.

To start, Paste Check will only work in the visual editor.

Get involved

The Editing team is seeking input on the proposed user experience and configuration.

We plan to test the following interface with new users (please help translating it):  

We're planning to refine this interface over time, but want to start by launching a test so that we can determine whether the check is useful. We presented this interface to people who don't participate in Wikipedia, and they found it practical and easy to understand.

As a consequence, we would like to start by showing the feature to a fraction of newcomers for approximately 6 weeks. After this point, we will review the experiment results and decide what to do next.

Configuration and test

For experienced users, Paste Check will be configurable by the local communities (e.g. edit count thresholds, ignored sections and namespaces). Edits triggering Paste Check will be marked with the tag editcheck-paste-shown for easier tracking.

You can try the proposed Paste Check interface:

• visit https://en.wikipedia.beta.wmcloud.org/w/index.php?title=Cats&veaction=edit&ecenable=2

• Paste 50 characters or more from an external source, such as a website, to see the prompt.

Your feedback is valuable! Please share your thoughts below!

Trizek_(WMF) 13:47, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

Server switch - Your wiki will be read-only for a short time soon

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All traffic will switch on 24 September. The switch will start at 15:00 UTC.

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You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.

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This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule.

Please share this information with your community.

Trizek (WMF) (Talk) 15:42, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

Are people watching Talk:Main Page?

I'm hoping people do follow that page because important comments are occasionally left there. Currently there's a message about an error in T:DYK. canadachick (talk) 02:20, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

I don't think many people look at that page. I, personally, look there if I see it in RC. Plutus ^{💬 🎃} — Fortune favors the curious 08:25, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

Football kit images

Hi. Please double check any changes made by IPs to football kit colours. I've reverted vandalism at Liverpool, Inter Milan, Cadiz and France today. I see someone else had to revert ManU a few days ago. Thanks. Jack (talk) 15:42, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

MOS:OL

It is my view at this time that, mostly, en:MOS:OL shouldn't apply on this wiki. For readers using simple, links for things like London or England could be useful. For example (to use a language I speak), in Spanish "London" is "Londres" and "England" is "Inglaterra". Does the community agree with me, because I don't recall any consensus on the subject. --IWI (talk) 02:48, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

With that being said, I also think for some examples, OL would apply. There is no need to link "kilometre" for example. --IWI (talk) 02:49, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

Kilometre likely is a bad example, as it is a common unit of measurement (even though the SI unit is the metre/meter). While SI units generally have a base 10, this is not true for imperial units (1 gallon = 4 quarts =8 pints, which happens to be around 4.5 litres). So depending on the context, linking a unit of measurement might make sense. Eptalon (talk) 02:59, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

I would agree so long as it's not taking the mick by linking every single little random thing - although I'd hope that is obvious! --Ferien (talk | join TBA!) 20:34, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

I remember another discussion about this, where I made the same point you do, that people whose first language is not English might not recognize the English words for things. The example I used at the time was Florence/Firenze. So, yes, I think we should link important terms. Keeping in mind that we (at least theoretically) have a multi-lingual user community, we need to link more than they would on enwiki, but not necessarily every single word. -- Auntof6 (talk) 23:57, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Red Hot Chili Peppers demotion

I have proposed Red Hot Chili Peppers for demotion from Very Good Article (VGA) to Good Article (GA). Your input is requested at Wikipedia:Proposed article demotion#Red Hot Chili Peppers. canadachick (talk) 02:35, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

The instructions say to inform users who helped promote it to VGA, but none of them seem to be active anymore except Fr33kman. canadachick (talk) 02:38, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Help close out Phase IV of Total Backlog Annihilation

Phase IV of the Total Backlog Annihilation has focused on clearing out Category:Pages with broken reference names. The project is housed at User:Ferien/WikiProject TBA/Phase IV. It started at 847 in July and is now down to 20 articles! The last few could use some brain power as many of them aren't simply just finding it in the article history or the current (or even past) version of the English Wikipedia article. I've laid out some of the concerns for some of the remaining ones at the project page. Thanks for any help you can provide! CountryANDWestern (talk) 01:51, 25 September 2025 (UTC)