Wikipedia:Simple talk

Simple talk
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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)

Well no obvious ties. Made by three different people. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk | changes) 07:56, 8 December 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 knowledge 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)

It's technically impossible (or, at the very least improbable) for a blocking admin to block a user from reading a page, as they'd just have to log out even if we could do this. Wikipedia is a free* resource and should remain so even for the worst vandal.

* There are of course, ways in which Wikipedia could be unavailable. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:54, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia is free encyclopedia that anyone can read even if they are very bad and worst vandal. It's impossible to revoking reading while being blocked. If we included revoking reading in Wikipedia, this will be cause frustrating blocked users. Even anonymous users like having temporary account can be still read. However, globally locked users can be still read Wikipedia. As now, block doesn't affect reading because reading Wikipedia isn't harmful. — Raayaan9911 05:50, 9 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 in the 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)

I'm surprised it wasn't proposed to WP:Database reports when that was active, but I do believe this could be beneficial for the project, provided that it is something we maintain for more than a couple weeks and then forget about for a few months.- FusionSub (Talk page) (Contributions) 15:38, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Not a bad idea. It kinda reminds me of how English Wikipedia has “Vital articles” for subjects that are extremely influential/notable to history or their field of profession. In this case, they be vital to wiki as they’re the most viewed or searched. I do agree that perhaps we could start improving the first 15? 50? (Depending on how many volunteers we get). We don’t have to make them GA/VGA quality articles but something that looks polished. TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 16:13, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

I see the problem as follows: The link above gives a view of the last month. If you now take say the first 10, and compare then to the 3-4 months before, you'll see that they change. So, likely the first step would be to come up with a listing of perhaps 25 articles that have a high probability of being in those top 25 to top 30 per month. Once we have that list (looking at articles of the last 3-4 months), we can start checking or improving. Note also, that likely some of the articles / searches are seasonal too. Looking at the sheer figures, 12.000 page-views per month are about 400/day, 15.000 are about 500/day. In the list, this corresponds to position 17 (List of countries), and 26, I think (U.S. predsidential line of succession), taing last month. So where to draw the line? 300 page views per day (current month) gives us the first 49 entries Eptalon (talk) 18:33, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

I tried to insert a wikitable, but I didn't manage to get it right; other insight: going down to 30.000 per month (1k/day) roughly gives us the top 10. Eptalon (talk) 19:22, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

It’s supposed to be simple if that’s what you mean by poorly written ~2025-39216-49 (talk) 21:35, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

At 50-200 views a day, the article above is likely below the threshold, that's why I left a comment on the talk page. I am not the only editor, and likely, the article cited can be improved. There are several examples of articles that use simple language, yet convey enough information on they subject they are about. Eptalon (talk) 05:07, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Fwiw, on EN we have w:Wikipedia:Top 25 Report. Might be worth finding how they do their report, as it will show topical information but also suitable articles that will have lasting page views. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:52, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Spam

It is very strange this ~2025-39293-69 (talk) 18:31, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

why are you putting a noindex template to an item in userspace? Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 08:16, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski I assume they added the noindex template because otherwise the user page would serve as spam, and the noindex template prevents it from appearing in search results. ~2025-39125-40 (talk) 16:23, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

That would be my guess. An article for the same person was recently deleted on en wiki (Link to AFD). Feels like undeclared paid editing. Ravensfire (talk) 22:18, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

Surely nominating for deletion is better than noindexing the page... Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:33, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski Then do that yourself. Don't act like someone else should have done that. ~2025-39579-29 (talk) 22:49, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

Factoturn bug

I really think Factoturn is buggy for me, I can't reply anyone. I tried replied anyone but they got me error. I removed it in my Meta Factoturn script and it gone back to normal design, so i can reply anyone. Have you experienced this? Raayaan9911 12:22, 10 December 2025 (UTC)