Wikipedia:Simple talk

Simple talk

WP:ST

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Eyes needed on a few China-related pages

I'd like some extra eyes and input at a few China-related pages that have become messy in my opinion. The articles are...

The dissidents article is poorly formatted without explanation as to what makes people dissidents, and the main editor of the article is putting people into categories that they feel fit. Many of the people on the list are just "people who did things that China didn't approve of" like George W. Bush and Nancy Pelosi.

The political problems article is mostly categories and bulleted lists of things rather than an actual article. Note that the English Wikipedia has "political problems of China" as a redirect to "politics of China." May be worth exploring for Simple as well.

The movies banned in China article has no clear focus. There are songs and TV shows mixed in with movies; again things are mixed into categories that the author feels they fit into; there's even a section titled "Writers of this page cannot figure out the definitive reason."

Concerns have been raised on the talk pages of these articles, but more insight is needed from others to help address these article concerns. I'd appreciate more input. CountryANDWestern (talk) 12:07, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The articles are definitely notable given the real-world impact of Chinese state authoritarianism. What is necessary in this case is adequate sourcing and well-defined inclusion criteria so that the relevant content would be reliable. Steven1991 (talk) 12:18, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

List_of_Chinese_dissidents#Bad_people_(but_now_a_goodguy)_according_to_China is a pretty confusing section. Does it refer to Politically rehabilitated people? Apologies for the enwiki link but there is not one here. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 18:14, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

These articles are a complete mess. I know we used to have Chinese editors or editors of Chinese decent (Chenzw for example) but I don't think we have many currently. Could we ask for help from someone on the Chinese wikis? fr33k man 22:17, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to politics! Could it be the case that, the situation in Chinese politics is messy? I think that a basic concept, for learners to understand, is that Zhao Ziyang was put in "house arrest" and this is different than being jailed/ being in prison. People come and go. The person that you are referring to, might have left Wikipedia for whatever reason.Yilangderen (talk) 10:00, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The politics may be messy but our articles about them don’t need to be. CountryANDWestern (talk) 10:02, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"... without explanation as to what makes people dissidents" If you want an explanation, just read the dissident page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer "... nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by people with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate, or reliable information." Yilangderen (talk) 03:25, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And, read the Political prisoner page, thanks.Yilangderen (talk) 06:35, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Due to the secretive style of the CCP, Movie censorship is kinda like "reverse engineering" or "putting pieces of puzzle together" anyways. I mean, you can re-arrange the content to improve the "focus" of the page. The big problem of the page now, or elephant in the room (after the edits by CountryANDWestern) is that South Park is not being mentioned. Do bear in mind that there is Chinese demand (and also the demand of the poeple in Taiwan) to watch the controversial South Park episode. https://pincong.rocks/article/5906 Yilangderen (talk) 08:36, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Due to the clandestine practice of Chinese government...Yilangderen (talk) 08:43, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The page-merge discussion is still ongoing, by the way. Talk:China#Merge_discussion Yilangderen (talk) 04:17, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Those who want to help may go to the following page, thanks. Wikipedia:Requests_for_deletion/Requests/2025/List_of_Chinese_dissidents Yilangderen (talk) 03:09, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

CountryANDWestern: "I do not believe that there is a salvageable article here". This is a weird choice of word. We are talking about a webpage in wikitext. Anyone can easily delete a specific section of the page. Now, the page is structured/ organized into the following sections "People not in PRC prison", "Death/ disappearance", "People in prison", "People sanctioned", "Bad people (but now a goodguy)", "Glossary" and "Related pages". The order of these 7 sections can be switched too. It is normally called "editing" or "changing" the page, it is not "salvaging", thanks. Yilangderen (talk) 09:25, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Cosplayers?

I noticed that a lot of articles for fictional characters here have pictures of cosplayers instead of public domain pictures of the characters like on the English Wikipedia. Is there a special reason for this? (And is it something that should not be changed?) If it is something that people here would like to be changed then I would be happy to make a start on it! Carlodivarga-s (talk) 08:47, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Carlodivarga-s: It might help us answer if you give specific examples. You mention public domain pictures. On Simple English Wikipedia, images used in articles must be in Wikimedia Commons. We don't use "fair use" images (is that what you meant by public domain?). -- Auntof6 (talk) 11:33, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If there's a public domain picture on commons available, then I'd say go ahead and change it. -Barras talk 15:20, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

traditionally on the English Wiki, there's been portrayals of characters in cos play in that way because there were no free images. We don't have a version of fair use here, its commons or bust. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 11:05, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Extended footnotes

At User_talk:Steven1991#Extended_footnotes, I've raised concerns about the user's use of extended footnotes in Holocaust-related topics. Here is an example of the extended footnotes. Steven1991 has added these footnotes to approximately 40-60 articles in some form. Each of them occurs after a link to the Simple article on Holocaust or Holocaust denial.

It is my view that such footnotes are unnecessary as we are already linking to our article on the topic. We should not be having these external links to things like "What was the Holocaust?" when we are already linking to our own article that should explain what the Holocaust is in Simple English terms. If there is information in those footnotes that is not already in our articles, we should expand them to incorporate that material with those links as the references.

Steven1991 has agreed to not include those footnotes going forward, however, there is dispute about how to handle the existing ones. As I mentioned, it's approximately 40-60 footnotes here. I personally think that they should be removed, but Steven1991 believes that they should stay. I'm seeking community input as a third+ opinion on how we should approach. CountryANDWestern (talk) 14:18, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t see a problem with footnoting certain information when it can prevent the main body of an article from being lengthy, nor do I agree that none of them should exist. I don’t think that simply deleting is helpful. As I said, let them stay while following the the agreed way for future articles – that would be easy for everyone. It is unnecessary to remove all of the existing footnotes when they can provide much more useful and accurate information (e.g. external links to authoritative sources like the USHMM and Yad Vashem) for the subject being footnoted, which exactly serve the purpose of footnotes. Steven1991 (talk) 14:30, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Adding footnotes so the article doesn't become lengthy is not a good idea. If all the text is simple then an article becoming lengthy is a good thing. Our aim here is not to create smaller articles than enwiki but to create articles that as just as good but in simple English. We want our readers to find all they want to know inside our articles not become a place that sends people elsewhere for information we should have in the first place. I think you should remove the footnotes that are unnecessary. fr33k man 14:38, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thank you for your input. I would be willing to remove some of them from particular articles. Steven1991 (talk) 14:41, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think they should be removed or trimmed down to necessary minimum. It makes no sense to have them in cases like above when we already have a page on the topic. They seem to be already downsizing it, so the concern is getting resolved. If there is concern with any specific page, you can mention that. Thanks,--BRP^ever 15:09, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Steven1991 I see the same issue with newer pages like David Hirsh and Polocaust. Those pages are very complex too. BRP^ever 20:59, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Steven1991 (talk) 21:05, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with Fr33kman and BRPever. It looks poor if we need to link to other websites to explain things in our simple articles. -Barras talk 15:25, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think i is generally a good udea, to have one footnote per publication. Suppose, that a few paragraphs on, you re-use the same publication. Ib the case of one-citation-per-foornbote you can pick the item again, if you list several publications, this becomes more difficult. Eptalon (talk) 10:07, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Merge

About Special Administrative Region and Special administrative region. These two pages have confusing similar names, and the difference is only "capital A & R" vs "small a & r". So, I have read a bit more. At the page ofhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_administrative_region it says East Timor

Oecusse, whereas, at the page of https://zh-yue.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%89%B9%E5%88%A5%E8%A1%8C%E6%94%BF%E5%8D%80 it says 東帝汶嘅特別行政區

東帝汶嚮2014年設立咗歐庫西特別行政區。

Therefore, Special administrative region is not supposed to be a China-specific page.

Could someone please start the discussion on the merge because it says "It has been suggested that this article be merged with Special Administrative Region. (Discuss) Proposed since June 2022." Yilangderen (talk) 04:32, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Importing a template from another wiki

I made a template on another wiki (not wikimedia but fully compatible with wikimedia used templates), could I have it imported here? I know that english wikipedia allows for imports from other wikimedia wikis, but I do not know the rules here and for non-wikimedia wikis. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 09:31, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Immanuelle What's the template for? Cactus🌵 ^hi ^ツ 10:53, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Cactusisme It is a template that gives the date in the Japanese calendar, the Japanese lunisolar, the Islamic calendar, and the Julian day. So it is pretty complicated and requires importing multiple parts. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 20:19, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on the copyright license under which you published the content on that wiki, and whether you can verify that you hold the rights to it. Please check en:Wikipedia:FAQ/Copyright#Can I add something to Wikipedia that I got from somewhere else? for more information. Since transwiki import only works for some projects, you may need to copy and paste the content manually—but again, that depends on the copyright status. BRP^ever 11:13, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@BRPever It is released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 20:19, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure how the importing actually works. If it is just admins can xml upload from a manual export from the wiki or if it needs to go through something specific. But copy paste moves will be a bit difficult because there are about 20 different templates involved with the calculations. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 23:17, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's news to me that any Wikipedia can import from a non-Wikimedia site. Is there no existing template that could do that, either here or on English Wikipedia? -- Auntof6 (talk) 00:56, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Auntof6 my expectation is that the page Special:Import will look something like this, and you can import any wiki xml into it.

And no there is not an existing template. I checked pretty thoroughly. The closest thing is en:Template:Infobox calendar date today but that one serves quite different functions. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 01:38, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is the way it looks on miraheze to get wikipedia templates there but I do not know it is more restricted on wikipedia. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 02:03, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just did it with copypaste moves See Category:Japanese Time Calculation Templates in case there is more need for attribution Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 22:11, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References issues

Can somebody fix this? I've tried to fixed but it's error, i think there is faulty reference. — Raayaan 9911 23:51, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Raayaan9911 You need to copy over the note starting with

{{refn|group=note|name=León

97.94.157.144 (talk) 23:59, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Done fixed myself. Raayaan 9911 00:08, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

Concerning the page Israel-Hamas war (2023-present), the most recent RM at EN Wiki resulted in consensus forming that the overwhelmingly common name in English language sources for this conflict is Gaza war. I think we should follow suit, and since there is not a WP:Requested move mechanism here on Simple Wiki, I was redirected to this page to bring up the matter. Will be glad if an admin or page mover could take care of this. Keivan.f (talk) 05:28, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Every project is run independently. I don’t see how a consensus on a separate project should automatically dictate the status of certain articles here? It should only be followed if there is a separate consensus on this site. Steven1991 (talk) 11:51, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the venue for it since WP:RM redirects here. If nobody opposes the move, then it should probably be moved. Keivan.f (talk) 13:36, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A number of reputable sources still call the war “Israel-Hamas war”:

American Jewish Committee

The House of Commons Library

...

The proposed change may not be undesirable, but I believe that these are worthy of consideration when the ENWP consensus is not made by subject experts, while the respective topic area has been a matter of intense controversy, which resulted in an arbitration case with confirmed findings of off-site canvassing and content manipulation. This ENWP essay is also helpful. I do not support following CTOP consensuses from there without duly weighted contexts and the bedrock WP:NPOV policy. Steven1991 (talk) 14:07, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with enwiki's rationale. It's more precise and common title, so I support this move.-- BRP^ever 13:41, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's more precise and common title

I do not agree. There have been several “Gaza War” between the 2000s and now: 2008‒09, 2012, 2014 and 2021. If a more specific name is not used, would readers be able to tell them apart? Steven1991 (talk) 14:40, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is the principle of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. The current war is "The" Gaza war, regardless of how many conflicts took place in the past. The same situation applies to the Iran–Israel war, and there was already conflict between the two countries back in 2024 (aka 2024 Iran–Israel conflict). The wars in Gaza in 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2021 that you are referring to were one off operations that at most lasted a month and are certainly not the primary targets for the name suggested here. Keivan.f (talk) 18:07, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A redirect with the same wording already exists for Israel-Hamas war (2023-present). The top search result for “Gaza war” is also the same page. Readers can already get to the page easily when they input “Gaza War” in the Search. I do not find the name change necessary, when both names are fine and have been used interchangeably in public domain, i.e. keeping the current article’s title would not compromise public perceptions of the war. Having said that, I’d leave this up to our fellow community members. Steven1991 (talk) 19:45, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If your issue is with the timeframe, it is entirely plausible to have the page named Gaza war (2023–present). I'll also leave it to the community to decide between the options though. Keivan.f (talk) 20:20, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Handling AI articles

Hiyas! I haven't been around as much as I'd like to, so may have missed a discussion on this (lmk if one has already happened). I came across Separatism in Russia, an article almost certainly written by a LLM with no/minimal human review. It doesn't fall under any of the existing QD criteria, but also isn't a traditional candidate for RfD as the topic is notable, just the content is bad (though is currently at RfD). Given the ease with which people can now generate large amounts of text that may be hiding LLM hallucinations...how should we be handling articles of this kind? I'd think about simply blanking and redirecting it to a relevant article with human-reviewed content, but that might be a bit too bold. Best, Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 01:01, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hiya. Yes, we have been discussing this topic. At first we considered QDing them as Complex articles under a proposed G13 criteria but that went nowhere. Now we tend to RfD them, although that obviously takes time and is one of the reasons we have so many RfDs. I'd advise you to read and comment on WP:AI. It's become quite a problem, one which we haven't yet figured out. fr33k man 01:10, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

^What Freekman said - we don't have an official way of handling these, Some people tag them under {{AI-notice}} where they then simple sit and go forgotten about/rot for years to come, and others like myself just send them straight to RFD if the Enwiki article is too complex (I try where possible). –Davey2010^Talk 01:23, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If anyone has any ideas, we can expand on it. I was thinking of making a section at RFD specifically for AI related page that act as en:WP:PROD and the gets deleted if there is no improvement in a week. BRP^ever 12:53, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the idea. Steven1991 (talk) 15:07, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd personally prefer to have clearly AI generated content straight deleted. We can't just go with A3, as the articles aren't copied over from another wiki. However, complex articles with possible false information damaged the reputation of the project. I'd support the G13 reason. I'm yet not very worried about AI usage in discussions. If that becomes a wider problem, we can talk about it again. -Barras talk 15:01, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What about introducing another QD criterion? - "The article was likely generated automatically, and has not been reviewed by a human edutor"? - AI can be helpful, but such articles at least need a rewview.--Eptalon (talk) 10:11, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think at this point, this problem isn't going away and a QD criteria for it would be suitable. I don't think discussing each one gains us much and simply wastes time at AfD which is already severely missing Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:55, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with a new QD criterion. I'm generally uneasy about a PROD/RfD approach because improving LLM-generated articles means we possibly keep their output in revision history or in the article itself. The issue here is twofold — first, we may keep unverified or incorrect text; second, we cannot be assured that it is not a copyvio. Here is an example of the latter: File:Using LLMs to write Wikipedia content.pdf (aside: by AI standards, this is an eternity ago — but I suspect the tools most people have access to are not SOTA nor particularly more advanced than the example). My understanding is also that the copyright status of LLM-generated text is not definite in the United States. In other words, if the text is already problematic and unworkable, we may as well QD it. Hiàn 02:21, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Using a single source for an article

I feel like this requires more sourcing, but is decently written. User:Immanuelle/Shimosuwa Aozuka Kofun Would it be okay just to send it to mainspace or would it require more sourcing? Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 22:11, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Immanuelle: For an article with so little text, I think having only one source is fine. It does need some other work, though, in the areas of formatting, copy editing, wikifying. -- Auntof6 (talk) 22:17, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to clean it up a bit and moved it to mainspace.

Now for a more hard/complicated one. This article User:Immanuelle/Kumano_Gongen I really feel hard pressed with what to do with it. It is definitely not done but I am not sure what to do with it. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 01:32, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I cant make an account!

Hi! Can you help? I cant make an account. It says i "session hijacked". Please help. (im on a Samsung smart tv) Thanks! --2001:4451:8786:A200:661C:AEFF:FEF9:9A9C (talk) 09:31, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please answer --2001:4451:8786:A200:661C:AEFF:FEF9:9A9C (talk) 08:05, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nonsense page

Hi. Theres a new page called "Don Davies" and all it says is a spam of "Pierre Poilievere" in bold. --2001:4451:8786:A200:661C:AEFF:FEF9:9A9C (talk) 10:10, 22 June 2025 (UTC)![reply]

Took care of it. -Barras talk 10:12, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Vandals

How can i help fight vandalism? Its hard --112.204.167.209 (talk) 14:09, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

no My IP changed! --112.204.167.209 (talk) 14:11, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Personal attack question

Would it be a personal attack to say one user is probably a sockpuppet of someone else? 71.236.131.237 (talk) 17:30, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you have a reasonable suspicion - no. However, if it is a "blind" accusation without any evidence, then I advise against making such accusations. BZPN (talk) 19:16, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t think it is a personal attack. Now, I would suggest providing more evidence to make your case for a connection. I restored your comment so that MathXplorer can judge for themselves. CountryANDWestern (talk) 19:17, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, if you have a suspicion, you can crete a request on this page. One of the checkusers will then look into the matter, and perform the relevantchecks. Eptalon (talk) 04:29, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How do I make this draft better?

I wrote a draft here User:Immanuelle/Kabe_Island and I feel like it is badly written. Do you have suggestions? Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 22:12, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Immanuelle: Hi, Immanuelle. Since you had said in the past that you didn't mind people editing your drafts, I just did some cleanup and simplifying on this one. Feel free to revert if you want.

The main thing I see is that the language needs to be simplified, mostly by breaking sentences into smaller pieces. I find it helps to think about our target audience, people whose English is not advanced. They might be trying to understand one sentence at a time, so it helps them to keep the sentences short. One rule of thumb about this is to have only one subject and verb in a sentence, but it goes beyond that. Take a look at the ones I shortened, and see if you understand why I did it in each case. -- Auntof6 (talk) 00:03, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Auntof6 I hope you are happy with what I did there. I have another one that I really like but I am very afraid is too complicated right here User:Immanuelle/Kumano_Gongen Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 20:56, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Did you mean to remove the categories? -- Auntof6 (talk) 21:52, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Auntof6 I did becase all the categories were redlinks. But I forgot to add new categories. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 21:57, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Some other things I see:

The infobox has a lot of invalid parameters
The Ill template link to your userspace should be removed

-- Auntof6 (talk) 22:01, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What about User:Immanuelle/Kumano_Gongen now? Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 22:05, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's in a couple of maintenance categories. You could do something to resolve those.

It's usually considered good practice with infoboxes to put one parameter per line. It's not required, but it makes it easier to see the code.

The Commons boxes should go at the top of the other websites section.

A couple of statements in the lead have a lot of references with them. I'd cut it down by a lot. If that removes links that you still want in the article, you could put them in the other websites section.

The Origins and Beliefs about the Three Mountains sections could have some of their sentences combined into paragraphs instead of each being on a separate line.

The big table is in the Beliefs about the Three Mountains section. Does it need its own heading?

Just my thoughts. -- Auntof6 (talk) 22:30, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Auntof6 Is your suggestion to merge in the headings like I did earlier? Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 23:28, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Immanuelle: I'm not sure what you mean. Which earlier change are you referring to? -- Auntof6 (talk) 00:02, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Auntof6 the last edit. Sorry worded that badly. Do you think the current version is better structured? Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 00:05, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What to do about Slowking4's athlete articles?

Slowking4 (talk · contribs) created hundreds of stub articles on athletes, particularly women's volleyball, water polo, and rugby players. Here are some example articles: Sarah Chobot, Sarah Pattison, Sarah Landry, Wang Fengjiao, and Valeriya Rylova. For the most part, they are formulaic stubs that have a source or two that are databases or rosters. They are mostly orphaned articles and don't exist on other wikis as well. There is never likely to be expansion of them. Most have never competed at the Olympics.

I made two batch RFDs for a few articles earlier this month (Wikipedia:Requests for deletion/Requests/2025/Slowking volleyball D and Wikipedia:Requests for deletion/Requests/2025/Slowking water polo D) both of which resulted in SOFTDELETE as there was no further input.

How do we best address these articles? I feel like a bunch of batch RFDs will be tedious and clog RFD. How do we best handle these articles? CountryANDWestern (talk) 14:37, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say creating a list and requesting deletion in smaller batches might be a good idea. They do have a bunch of socks though so the list of pages might be quite bigger considering that. I have made a list at User:BRPever/test1-- BRP^ever 14:55, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I will try running some query to see if I can narrow the list to pages that are not linked to enwiki pages via wikidata. BRP^ever 15:07, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@CountryANDWestern I have narrowed the list down to ~400 pages by removing pages with links to dewiki, frwiki and enwiki, and it seems this list mostly include pages without any significant coverage. I think this will be a good starting point to work from.-- BRP^ever 15:30, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for compiling this list. Want me to copy it into my user space so you don't need to maintain it? CountryANDWestern (talk) 17:28, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please feel free to copy it. :) --BRP^ever 23:24, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Copied it over to my space; thanks for the help! CountryANDWestern (talk) 12:35, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback

Please give me some feedback on my article Raphael (given name). Rafaelthegreat (talk) 15:14, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sister Projects Task Force reviews Wikispore and Wikinews

Dear Wikimedia Community,

The Community Affairs Committee (CAC) of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees assigned the Sister Projects Task Force (SPTF) to update and implement a procedure for assessing the lifecycle of Sister Projects – wiki projects supported by Wikimedia Foundation (WMF).

A vision of relevant, accessible, and impactful free knowledge has always guided the Wikimedia Movement. As the ecosystem of Wikimedia projects continues to evolve, it is crucial that we periodically review existing projects to ensure they still align with our goals and community capacity.

Despite their noble intent, some projects may no longer effectively serve their original purpose. Reviewing such projects is not about giving up – it's about responsible stewardship of shared resources. Volunteer time, staff support, infrastructure, and community attention are finite, and the non-technical costs tend to grow significantly as our ecosystem has entered a different age of the internet than the one we were founded in. Supporting inactive projects or projects that didn't meet our ambitions can unintentionally divert these resources from areas with more potential impact.

Moreover, maintaining projects that no longer reflect the quality and reliability of the Wikimedia name stands for, involves a reputational risk. An abandoned or less reliable project affects trust in the Wikimedia movement.

Lastly, failing to sunset or reimagine projects that are no longer working can make it much harder to start new ones. When the community feels bound to every past decision – no matter how outdated – we risk stagnation. A healthy ecosystem must allow for evolution, adaptation, and, when necessary, letting go. If we create the expectation that every project must exist indefinitely, we limit our ability to experiment and innovate.

Because of this, SPTF reviewed two requests concerning the lifecycle of the Sister Projects to work through and demonstrate the review process. We chose Wikispore as a case study for a possible new Sister Project opening and Wikinews as a case study for a review of an existing project. Preliminary findings were discussed with the CAC, and a community consultation on both proposals was recommended.

Wikispore

The application to consider Wikispore was submitted in 2019. SPTF decided to review this request in more depth because rather than being concentrated on a specific topic, as most of the proposals for the new Sister Projects are, Wikispore has the potential to nurture multiple start-up Sister Projects.

After careful consideration, the SPTF has decided not to recommend Wikispore as a Wikimedia Sister Project. Considering the current activity level, the current arrangement allows better flexibility and experimentation while WMF provides core infrastructural support.

We acknowledge the initiative's potential and seek community input on what would constitute a sufficient level of activity and engagement to reconsider its status in the future.

As part of the process, we shared the decision with the Wikispore community and invited one of its leaders, Pharos, to an SPTF meeting.

Currently, we especially invite feedback on measurable criteria indicating the project's readiness, such as contributor numbers, content volume, and sustained community support. This would clarify the criteria sufficient for opening a new Sister Project, including possible future Wikispore re-application. However, the numbers will always be a guide because any number can be gamed.

Wikinews

We chose to review Wikinews among existing Sister Projects because it is the one for which we have observed the highest level of concern in multiple ways.

Since the SPTF was convened in 2023, its members have asked for the community's opinions during conferences and community calls about Sister Projects that did not fulfil their promise in the Wikimedia movement.[1][2][3] Wikinews was the leading candidate for an evaluation because people from multiple language communities proposed it. Additionally, by most measures, it is the least active Sister Project, with the greatest drop in activity over the years.

While the Language Committee routinely opens and closes language versions of the Sister Projects in small languages, there has never been a valid proposal to close Wikipedia in major languages or any project in English. This is not true for Wikinews, where there was a proposal to close English Wikinews, which gained some traction but did not result in any action[4][5], see section 5 as well as a draft proposal to close all languages of Wikinews[6].

Initial metrics compiled by WMF staff also support the community's concerns about Wikinews.

Based on this report, SPTF recommends a community reevaluation of Wikinews. We conclude that its current structure and activity levels are the lowest among the existing sister projects. SPTF also recommends pausing the opening of new language editions while the consultation runs.

SPTF brings this analysis to a discussion and welcomes discussions of alternative outcomes, including potential restructuring efforts or integration with other Wikimedia initiatives.

Options mentioned so far (which might be applied to just low-activity languages or all languages) include but are not limited to:

Restructure how Wikinews works and is linked to other current events efforts on the projects,
Merge the content of Wikinews into the relevant language Wikipedias, possibly in a new namespace,
Merge content into compatibly licensed external projects,
Archive Wikinews projects.

Your insights and perspectives are invaluable in shaping the future of these projects. We encourage all interested community members to share their thoughts on the relevant discussion pages or through other designated feedback channels.

Feedback and next steps

We'd be grateful if you want to take part in a conversation on the future of these projects and the review process. We are setting up two different project pages: Public consultation about Wikispore and Public consultation about Wikinews. Please participate between 27 June 2025 and 27 July 2025, after which we will summarize the discussion to move forward. You can write in your own language.

I will also host a community conversation 16th July Wednesday 11.00 UTC and 17th July Thursday 17.00 UTC (call links to follow shortly) and will be around at Wikimania for more discussions.

-- Victoria on behalf of the Sister Project Task Force, 20:57, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Victoria,

thank you for the message. Not tuching on the subject matter, are you aware that the text that you wrote is of a considerable difficulty, and likely far from what we would consider "Simple English". In that context would it not be likely that the main audience of this project will not understand what you write? - So when youz do not get any feedback, this might be because of disinterest, but it might also be because of a failure to communicate with the target audience in a language they actually understand. Those are of course just my thoughts... Eptalon (talk) 13:38, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]