User:Penubag/Simple English

The following is an archive of the discussion of making the Simple English Wikipedia more prominent in the English Wikipedia. This page was created because of the constant archival of other topics at the Village Pump (Proposals)

Simple English Wikipedia

This is something that definitely needs to be addressed. The English Wikipedia needs to more recognize the Simple English Wikipedia, not just list it in the in other languages bar on the side, hidden with the other languages alphabetically where only the most dedicated Wikipedians know of its existence. Imagine a little elementary kid needing to do a report on the American Revolution. He goes to Google or Yahoo! and types 'American Revolution'. Of course, the first result is Wikipedia. He clicks on it but, he cannot read its complex english. Wouldn't it be nice if he can actually read it (since we already have a simple english wikipedia). I think that adding a simple template on all English Wikipedia articles that have a Simple English equivalent similar to this one

at the end of the article under See also or External links, should solve the problem for the most part.

Why else is this good?

helps the growth of the simple english wikipedia
helps young people trying to learn
no point in having simple english wikipedia if a young kid cannot even find the link

Hopefully this gets implemented somehow.-- Penubag 05:49, 25 November 2007(UTC)

SEWikipedia (and all other language wikipedias) are separate projects. "We" (as in Eng Wikipedia users) are responsible for neither their content nor their advertising. I don't see why that one particular project should get extra attention. - Koweja (talk) 06:38, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Read the explanations above why having a SE wikipedia link on English articles would be very useful. Simple English is a part of English even though a seperate project. I just recently learnt about the SE Wikipedia (about a year and a half ago), and had I known of it sooner, I may have been able to use it to its full extent. Also Google French won't turn up Wikipedia english articles so we don't need an extra notification on a french wikipedia page for english articles. And sure, maybe we aren't responsible for them, but just think how much that could help people, everywhere, both kids and English learners. I think just because they are a separate project, it doesn't mean we shouldn't help what can help everyone.-- Penubag 07:03, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Penubag. Koweja, You shouldn't put a limitation of help from us users to just the English Wikipedia. Actually, you should promote other users to join other Wikipedia's if they understand the language. We are all under the Wikimedia Foundation, and even if we are all different websites, we still serve the common goal of a Free reliable informative encyclopedia. Feedback ^☎ 07:20, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

That's his point. We're all under the Foundation, so why should the English wikipedia give special treatment to a specific other project? -Amarkov moo! 07:32, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, we link to wiktionary even though that is a separate project.-- Penubag 09:16, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Because Simple english is derived from English. So, we are like a parent Wiki to them. Thus, it should get special treatment. Feedback ^☎ 07:34, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and besides, it can greatly help learners. SE should get special treatment because it helps people looking for an article in the same language. Is that not what wikipedia's main goal is based off of? We need to expand our focus not only who are extremely well fluent and knowledgeable in English, but also on the younger generation, since those are the people that are going through school and those are who most need information in which they can understand. "Knowledge is the result of the cumulation of youth, which is where the doors must be first opened"-- Penubag 07:38, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm kinda unsure. To begin with, I really don't think the English Wikipedia is that hard to comprehend for 9-year-olds. The articles are usually written quite clearly. This is question almost impossible to answer, but I'll ask it anyway-How many of those who come to the English article find it too hard to read? Sure, little elementary kids use Wikipedia. So do college students. So do adults. Another unanswerable question-How many of our readers will benefit from the link, as opposed to how many will find it annoying/distracting/useless/cluttering?
Finally, the link to the simple English version might not be that useful, it's quite short, POV and has stunning pieces of prose such as ...the colonies totally refused to cooperate with this law. Puchiko (Talk-email) 12:00, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Believe me, if you are 9 years old and trying to read an article on the String theory, it is very hard to understand. And whose to say that the SE wikipedia won't grow once we add the templates to English pages. I believe it can come out as good as any wikipedia once it gets more attention. The reason why SE is "quite short, POV and has stunning pieces of prose" is because there are barely any people knowing of its existence, let alone know how to edit an article.-- Penubag 21:13, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure, that a 9 year old kid will understand string theory in SE wikipedia. :) Well perhaps, you are right, reading string theory here, the kid has two difficulties - to understand the difficult english (per kid's standards) and then to decipher the concepts of string theory itself. Atleast the first task would be diluted in the SE wikipedia. But I was wondering how you would convert the intimidating terminology of the theory itself in SE for kids to grasp it better. - DSachan (talk) 21:34, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Support for Penubag's proposal. English is more than a mother tongue, it is an international communication tool, as well, so it needs a different treatment compared to the other languages. I use English as a foreign language and I think Simple English Wikipedia is a useful project which can become an important information source for the non mother tongue English speakers. At the present, it's articles are stubs, missing or not well written, but it can change in the future. I think that it should become the same rich and high quality than any other Wikipedia. On the one hand, the articles of the English Wiki should be transported to it in a simplified form (simplified linguistically but not for their content!), on the other hand non mother tongue English speakers who use English as an international tool, should write articles in it. (You can maybe understand the difference between my simple international English and the real English of Luna Santin a mother tongue person here: [1]) Back to our topic: I think if there is an article in Simple English Wikipedia which is high quality fot its content, it could be linked from the correspondent English Wikipedia article as Penubag suggests. --Hunadam (talk) 20:45, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Support yes, we could make a team that copy-pastes English Wikipedia articles into Simple English Wikipedia, and just change the hard words to words that everyone can understand.-- Penubag 21:07, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but no. Just because there's a tight relationship between English and Simple English doesn't mean we should be pushing their articles. There are several other language pairs that are closely related (there are 9 variants of Chinese you can choose from in the preferences, for example). At most, I'd support pushing [[simple:]] interwikis to the top of the list (similar to how the Hebrew Wikipedia puts en: interwikis at the top), but outside of that, I think it'd be detrimental to the project. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:38, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

No, not just because there is a tight relationship between English/SE, but for the benefit of young readers. I don't see a the purpose of having a SE wikipedia if no one knows about it. I don't see what's so wrong with letting a bot add a SE template to our english articles. Everyone can benefit from that, no one can seriously be so hurt from it that they don't want to help younger and english learners.-- Penubag 22:45, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Support The number of non-native English speakers is two or three times the number of native English speakers. If you add a link to the Simple English Wikipedia, it will help the non-native speakers and young children. Also, more people will write articles in the Simple English Wikipedia. Just like if there is a Simple Chinese Wikipedia, I think the Chinese Wikipedia should link to it (but there is no Simple Chinese Wikipedia). --Kaypoh (talk) 09:45, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Support. Unfortunately, there is not Simple Chinese Wikipedia. Maybe we could request it. bibliomaniac 1 5 00:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

So is this enough support for the creation of a bot that will place SE templates to English articles??-- Penubag 03:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I hope not; not only am I personally against this, but I have grave concerns about how it will look in a real article. Placing the "SE" link above the infobox and other information will make the page look like crap. We don't need to clutter up of our own articles. EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:50, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

You don't understand. The template will be placed way below at the bottom at the page, near external links/See also, right above that Wiktionary Link. Only the people who need the link shall see it.-- Penubag 16:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm somewhat opposed to this too. Currently we use templates like the Wiktionary and Commons link templates to direct people to where they can get more information, not similar information in a different format. And I would think that you need a wider consensus than this to put a template on 21,000 articles. Mr.Z-man 18:16, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

How much wider can my consensus get? In case you want a sum of all the advantages/dis you can just read this: >It will help everyone from highschool (where new concepts are introduced) down (and maybe up too, kids and English learners included >It will help improve the quality and quantity of the Simple English wikipedia >It will get SE out of the in other languages bar and to somewhere where kids can find the link instead of searching through an alphabetical list >and most importantly for fluent english speakers, it is a quick summary for lazy people (like me) who just can't read an entire article on WWII just to find out which battle turned the tables for the Allies (although stated in English, this important battle is introduced much earlier in SE so it helps at times when readers are feeling lazy) Cons> Nothing at all except maybe a little cluster issue which can be resolved (see my next edit below).-- Penubag 03:31, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I was misunderstanding it; however, I still think it'll be cluttered. We currently use that space to direct users to other WMF projects that are of relevance to the article; why would someone scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, when there's a link on the left within the first two thresholds? It gets cluttered enough with {{commons}}, {{wikispecies}}, and other such templates; drawing a distinction between Wikipedia and Wikispecies is good, as they're separate projects, but it gets considerably less clear once we start adding additional language editions. EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:45, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

The reason why we should put the template at the bottom of the page rather than the side is because no one knows that SE is over there on the side (let alone, it's not even another language). Only experienced wikipedia users would know of it's existence (by then SE is not needed for them), which is why it is only two thresholds for you. Simple English can be very informative especially for highschoolers who are learning new concepts and for other young persons or foreigners. Addressing the concern that the See also and External Links may become too cluttered..: Usually it's not that cluttered where adding an additional template makes it so unorganized that we can't even help young readers with an SE link. But, I do see your concern. Maybe adding a smaller template will help this issue, similar to this one:

See ARTICLE in the Simple English Wikipedia

. With this template, young readers alike can go to almost any wikipedia article, type in what they want, and scroll down to the bottom of the page to click the link. It sounds stupid at first, but if you really think hard about it, I think that's what a lot of kids will be doing.-- Penubag 02:56, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm still opposed to this; I've yet to see any evidence that this is helpful other than vague "think of the children"-type hypotheticals. I agree with the overall purpose of the Simple English projects, but only in regards to the greater good of making information more accessible. Creating garish templates to redirect people who may very well not care to be redirect doesn't strike me as a very good idea; the more I think about it, the more I think this would be best served by moving the simple interwiki to the top of lists.
Suggestion: make some temporary versions of a handful of existing Wikipedia articles in your userspace that would illustrate how the template would/could function. Seeing a working example might change minds moreso than imagining it (for example, it could work better than I'm thinking, or it could work worse than you're thinking). EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:09, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Ahh Sorry, I missed this post...as response to your post, every effort made to make simple more well-known is better (such as moving it to the top of interwikis and bolding it. ) However a great substitute for the template, I still believe a template would be better, as it is still more prominent. I will be working some examples on my page and present them when they are done.-- penubag 05:59, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
I think I could support moving it to the top of the interwikis - can we get consensus for this change in particular, since the devs won't do it without a clear consensus?—Random832 14:32, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

For this change in particular? You mean that little template above? Well, as stated many times above, that little template will get the Simple English Wikipedia out of the In other languages bar from the side, where it clearly doesn't belong, let alone, it won't be found be anyone needing it; and it can promote and help the growth of the SE. Hopefully that convinces the devs ;)-- Penubag 08:58, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

To move a [[simple:]] link to the top of the list, you simply move it to the top of the list; interwikis are displayed in the order they are given in the article. No dev involvement needed, but you would (most likely) need a bot to make all the changes. EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:09, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, moving it to the top of the interwikis and possibly bolding it, but I still don't think it would stand out enough, can I have your (since you're an admin in every project) confirmation for the little template thing above? -- Penubag 04:21, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Support for the proposal, but only if there's a visible link for a guideline to simplification on the SE pages. It is more difficult than many realize to simplify things, so without a guide we might get excessive length from over-explaining, dumbed-down to a point of confusion which hurts the goal of being understandable. I'd like to see the SE pages get special treatment, where a list of un-friendly words are cross-referenced with an internal database that editors contribute to. So if anyone writes an article in SE, the unfriendly words become highlighted in a low-distraction color (vey light gray?) and users can double-check that internal database for whatever alternatives might be listed in pararenthesis next to the un-friendly word. -boozerker 01:12, 01 December 2007 (UTC)

That's a whole new proposal altogether; but, I do agree with you, it would be nice to have-- Penubag 08:58, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

So? Do I have proper support for a bot now? What's my next step? -- Penubag 07:55, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Support moving simple english wikipedia link to the top of the interwikis and even make it more prominent than other links. Arman ^(Talk) 03:26, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Support We need to make Simple Wikipedia easier to find and help it develop. Encyclopedia Britannica has 6 levels of articles, with different levels of difficulty and sophistication. With Simple Wikipedia we can have 2 levels for many articles. With the introductory articles like Introduction to evolution together with Simple Wikipedia we can have some articles with 3. If EB can have 6 levels, can't we have 2 or 3?--Filll (talk) 05:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Oppose Ugh. This is a lousy idea, and an even worse one if someone tires to implement it with a bot. I can't watchlist both the English and Simple English versions of every article that I keep up with, and if you try to prominently link the simple article to the en article, it just blurs the line for readers. Can't we think of the readers? The vast majority of them who wind up at a POV fork on Simple will think they "read it on Wikipeida". There's no need to encourage this. Simple can get the same treatment as the other language wikipedias, and stand on it's own merits, or lack thereof. ➪HiDrNick! 07:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Just because we provide readers with a link doesn't mean you have to watchlist both of them. With the link, it would populate Simple and they would accumulate their own watchlisters. And, you say, "think of the readers", that's exactly what this is about. We are thinking about people who aren't fortunate enough to understand English as fluently as you are. Besides, how much is a little note at the bottom of a page going to hurt anyways?-- penubag 05:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I think not. We already have enough clutter in terms of links to other projects.Geni 03:51, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm Some good points Geni, and it could become messy where article splitting, page redirection, and such on regular Wikipedia isn't mirrored on its Simple counterpart. That is a big problem if the two versions are tightly cross-linked. At the same time, the increased readership of Simple means they have healthy population of their own watchlisters, so you don't need much worry there. --Boozerker (talk) 07:47, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

A little tiny template like the one above? that shouldn't hurt at all, and I agree with you as respect to the watchlisters.-- penubag 05:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Oppose Don't get me wrong, I like the Simple English Wikipedia and I've used it on occasion to explain Mechanics of Materials to a 9 year-old... lol. However, Simple English is just another form of English. The Chinese Wikipedia has six types of Chinese, ranging from Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Taiwan Traditional Chinese, People's Republic of China Simplified Chinese, Hong Kong/Macau Chinese, and Malaysian Chinese. They all appear to be as separate languages when linked properly (however, they have a pull down menu on top next to the "History" tab where they could select again which six versions of Chinese to use. Nevertheless, they are listing all six Chinese forms (max) as different languages, even while in the same article under a different form of Chinese, so I don't see how Simple English and regular Wikipedia needs any more distinction than it already has. - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ contribs} 07:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, you use the Simple English because you know of its existence, whereas many other people don't. I'm just saying we should make the link more prominent, possibly adding a little template to the bottom of the page. No kid is ever going to find the Simple English link on the in other languages bar on the side.-- penubag 05:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Expand to more generalized solution

Support, but think it is high time we stop the highly parochial (and more than a little childish) attitude that "they aren't us, so why should we advertise for them". Admittedly, other projects in their early days had some real rough spots... but then so do our article stubs. It's time to revisit those "consensus decisions", if indeed they weren't the normal case... a swarm of the really involved subborning those who have less time to keep up. (Personally, until and unless we have a"quorum floor", I don't believe we've got a mechanism that reflects the claim of consensus. As a project now maturing and stable, that is perhaps a good next step too, but I digress! Sorry.)

Interwiki's are known to many foreigners, and probably nearly totally unknown to newer editors here. Worse, they don't link to our sister sites, many of which are equally unheralded, but would be of interest to our readership. Hell, I didn't know about Simple English wikipedia, until seeing the above, and I've accounts on most sisters! What harm would there to be having a page wide (noprint class) 'banner' above our article proper. It'd be far less controversial to me than those confidence distroying self-inflicted wounds we base on {{ambox}}, that is about every cleanup template out there. Better yet it'd be more consistent to the current state where one sister (wiktionary's {{wiktionary}}) template is tolerable on a page top, at least defacto, and others are in effect insulted by being relegated to "External Links", with other links. I'm personally convinced that this issue is a big factor behind some sister's almost hostile attitude to any idea which originates here... people don't like their hard work to be dismissed, and if the foundation is funding them, I say they deserve a little prominence and acknowledgement here!.

Have such a banner template link to whichever sisterpage handles the same topic, wikibooks, wiktionary, wikiversity, the commons (may need two entries sometimes, given atlases), wikiquote and other content sites (admittedly, meta and mediawiki will hardly ever be linked, but they are administrative or source repositories, not content sites per se.) whatever... and cease denigrating our sisters as if they were just another external link. THEY AREN'T.

Like any other nav box, it can be thin and inconspicuous, and programmed in this case with named parameters to generate boilerplate if the community desires. Unlike most other nav boxes, I think this one should be a header placement. I'm suggesting something fairly inconspicuous, but standardized along the understated size and height of {{commons}} which can be seen on a page here. Considering all the waste space we create with "Ugly White Space" (how professional does a screen filled with long Table of Contents and nothing else look!??, giving a small banner border to cross-sister linkages is a minor page formatting issue. Actually, implementation would be pretty trivial, a few parserfunction tests in the applied template, calling some sub-templates modeled on {{commons}}, which is a table format, gives an array of tables across. The order would be standardized alphabetically, and the link could be the display icon, sans text... that would prevent space overcrowding, and enable links to slightly differently worded titles covering the same materials. Some template savvy editor could knock together something like that in a few hours. The template could take a command arguemnt that tells it how to format itself. Three or four links as icons would fit in the 250 pixels width easily of the current sister links templates, as "commons" will fit in less as shown. A few more links could wrap to a double row of icons format. Hence on linkname trigger for each sister, one number command, saying how many links are involved to control the formatting. That would appear above any infoboxes etc., but if a page has a lot of links, could left float and appear as one stretched out banner of icons above page intros. // FrankB 17:37, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

We have enough tagcruft already. Based on your changes to Middle Ages just now, I don't like this idea at all. Johnbod (talk) 18:10, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I did not agree at all with what I saw on Middle Ages. Seemed particularly cumbersome and somewhat unnecessarily complicated. Modernist (talk) 20:31, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

On my monitor at least, your edit displays very badly. A single word ("The") is isolated at upper left, then there's the contents box, the two nav boxes and the image; some scrolling is required to find the rest of the sentence: "Middle Ages form the middle period..." etc. Perhaps an inconspicuous page-wide noprint banner would be fine, but if it's inconspicuous it will be easily overlooked, no? Is there any evidence that users have had trouble finding nav boxes located in External links? Ewulp (talk) 22:41, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Very interesting idea, but I think that the template/banner you proposed will never pass because it is ugly/distracting. I think the idea that a small template box like this one:

See ARTICLE in the Simple English Wikipedia

at the bottom of the page under See also or External Links would be very informative and not distracting. No one seems to want to let this pass because they think it will become too cluttered, even though we could fix the template to change the size.-- penubag 05:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

(Archive break)

Simple English

Sorry for the late reply (previous discussion got archived), but I have finished the test versions of how the formatting may look like for having a Simple English link on our English articles. To the right is what a Simple English section may look like, another version is here, the newest version here, and here is an example of how a template would look at the bottom of an article. I tried hard to make them look as unannoying but viewable as possible. -- penubag 07:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The image that's displayed is best. You could also have it so the link appears only when a corresponding page exists in Simple English. If a page doesn't exist, it could instead ask the user to start or request one. I've been thinking, maybe rename it Kids Wiki, and have stricter discipline against vandals. Or keep it as Simple English, and apply the stricter discipline as a test model. The simple english is less visited so it'd work as a less controversial testing ground for new policies. And if users get fewer strikes, then editors don't have to spend as much time on vandalism there. Also, a user banned from Simple English is still able to post on regular Wikipedia until violations reach their normal limit. --Boozerker (talk) 10:01, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I also like the one that's displayed the best. But I wouldn't go so far as to name it Kid'sWiki, as it might discourage english learners from using it. Let's just leave it at Simple English, with the same policies. -- penubag 22:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I was skeptical about the original proposal, but both the sidebar, and the little template seem discreet enough. Good work!
I don't think renaming it Kids Wiki would be a good idea, it would mean that we would have to steer clear of certain subjects (WP:NOT#CENSOR would probably cease to exist). Remember that many users might simply be non-native speakers of English, and I think that naming it "Kids Wiki" could make them feel excluded. Puchiko (Talk-email) 12:02, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I find it highly unlikely that a template will be added to every page, but the example in the image seems plausable. A recent change to the main page is that the simple english link was moved to the top of the language bar. Perhaps that could be done, rather than changing the entire layout. Reywas92 ^Talk 20:54, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I still think that just moving the SE link to the top is not noticable enough for young people, maybe bolding it or having it in a separate box would be better, as I proposed.-- penubag 22:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I like this idea in general. Could it be arranged that the left sidebar image shown above appears if the interwiki link to the Simple English wikipedia is added? I do not think it should be added to all. It should be treated exactly as other interwiki links for the editors but appear above the others in a different format. I think the template for the "See also" section should be the same size as the other boxes for interwiki links included in Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects. Indeed one could be added there now. --Bduke (talk) 22:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't exactly get what you're saying. You like the idea but it should not be added at all? And for the "see also" template, I originally proposed it but it got shot down due to the concern that it would "clutter" the article with interwiki links.-- penubag 22:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I think what Bduke meant is for the Simple English link to appear only when a corresponding Simple English page exists (otherwise, it shouldn't appear on all pages). However, in such a case, I believe something needs to replace it -- either a red link indicating a Simple version is needed, or a note asking for a volunteer to begin one. --Boozerker (talk) 18:46, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

With the simple English Wikipedia in mind, I recently changed the "in other languages" label to read "languages." I believe that the simple English interwiki links should simply be placed at the top of the list (not separated). I especially dislike the lowercase "e" in "english." —David Levy 22:35, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

:::I think that just simply moving it to the top of the list is not noticeable enough for young readers to realize it exists. How about this new option I created to the right? This one should address your concern.-- penubag 22:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

As a regular editor on Simple Wikipedia, I think that this would be a very good idea. We should give confused students the chance to read from a less complex and in depth source. Say a french student doesn't understand an article on En Wiki, he could just go to the Simple version.

However, there are thousands of editors that would not profit from this add on, so if it happens it should happen as subtly as possible on an article, but not to subtle as to be hidden from the people that really need it.

Gwib (talk) 22:28, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Am I supposed to submit this to Bugzilla or something? I'm green on these procedures...-- penubag 02:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

As a regular editor of Simple English Wikipedia, I like the idea generally. I think it is a good idea to have the interwiki in a separate box (I guess it can be done by creating a special Extension for MediaWiki which is installed on English Wikipedia only). I don't think it is a good idea to have redlinks there. huji—TALK 12:02, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I am also a regular editor of Simple English Wikipedia and support huji's point. (Personally I would prefer to have "Simple English" in black as it is not necessary to lead people to the Simple English Main Page from each article.) - One might test the red links for a limited time though. If it would attract good editors to SEWP that would be nice. But I think the SEWP should have the right to end this scheme if it attracts too much vandalism. --Cethegus (talk) 12:40, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I fully agree with Cethegus. I am also a SimpleWiki contributor, and this that this is necessary on ENWP. --Thamusemeantfan (talk) 02:40, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I would rather we get rid of Simple English than promote it. It is a useless branch of the English Wikipedia, no other such 'simple' branch exists. It has very little exposure, precisely is because 'simple' conflicts with the goal of an encyclopedia, which is to provide a full description. So we have a redundant, toned down version of the flagship language. What is the point? Prodego ^talk 02:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow, it's good to see a bunch of simple editors backing this up (how did you learn about this proposal?). Prodego, you should not be arrogant, the Simple English WP has great potential, and many uses. Elementary schools may encourage students to use the Simple once it has been fleshed out. It can help children everywhere as well as ESL's. Just because the Simple does not benefit you, you should not just sign it off, as it may benefit others. -- penubag 06:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I see no reason why the Simple English article should receive more recognition than other languages. -Halo (talk) 00:30, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Simple English is still English; the whole point is that it isn't a different language! Waltham, The Duke of 17:59, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, and no one is ever going to find that SE link unless we make it stand out, sadly I don't know what I do next in order to get this across; I have enough support from the archives.-- penubag 08:26, 16 January 2008 (UTC)