Talk:Simple English Wikipedia

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[edit] Forums for discussing the future of the SEW

This section's purpose is to compile the appropriate forums for discussion on the future of the Simple English Wikipedia. The specific arbitration process is described on Wikimedia's "meta" site.

For full disclosure: I predict a negative outcome from the persistence of the Simple English Wikipedia. The goal of the Regular English Wikipedia is to use the most simple language possible. It is impossible to discuss many topics with the restrictions on English imposed by the Simple English Wikipedia without making the text more difficult to understand. This nullifies the educational benefits for children or non-native speakers. In addition maintenance is extremely difficult due to splitting of most regular procedures into two entirely separate systems. Raazer 17:11, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed interwiki

This might be controversial (if anything about stubs can be), but the interwiki that went to simple:Simple English Wikipedia is a redirect to simple:Wikipedia:Simple English Wikipedia. That's a projectspace article, an introduction - it's not written from a perspective of neutrality and verifiability, like our article on Wikipedia is, and so I don't think it should be interwikied. There is, of course, now a link to that article that I used to reference the project's stated aims. --Sam Blanning(talk) 22:42, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Simple Wikipedia of dubious value

Having just discovered the existence of Simple Wikipedia I must say that I question the value of the whole project. When I was at school my reading progress was helped by simply reading the adult papers and other information; although learning is helped by initial simplicity I didn't think that wikipedia was a language school. It might be said "just don't contribute, then" but I feel that these parallel projects drain effort from the main idea with little benefit. I have also no intention of registering separately for the Simple offshoot and coming back to the "Real" one. Sorry but as far as I can see it's wasted effort. Britmax 13:03, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

You're not alone. A large number of people who have tried out the Simple English Wikipedia have questioned its value: it's populated largely by people who a poor grasp of English writing for other people who have a poor grasp of English, the end result of which is that silly errors and ambiguities end up being propagated all over the site as people learn "better" English in the worst possible way, all while filling the site with low-quality writing that is often not really any "simpler" than the normal English Wikipedia. And it's also true that a lot of much-needed activity is taken away from the English Wikipedia by this project (though at least it's not too much activity, thanks to the project's unpopularity). Even the "having a shorter version of each article" concept itself is dubious, since most people seem to think that it would make more sense to just use the lead section of high-quality articles for that purpose, should we ever need shortened versions of articles. -Silence 14:34, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Surely it would benefit users with a poor grasp of English more to look up unfamiliar words they find in the "real" Wikipedia and expand their vocabulary in the process, rather than get sheltered in a little cocoon of familiar words, where they'll understand the whole passage at first glance, but won't actually learn anything? 218.212.119.149 10:14, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree completely. It's like the blind leading the blind - their grasp of English is as bad as that of those who're going to read the articles. Not only will this lead to a lot of poor articles scattered everywhere, as you said, it is going to undermine effective comprehension of the articles by readers, who are trying to learn English. After all, I do not think that readers with a poor grasp of English can understand articles with a low English standard. It only serves to confuse them. 202.156.6.54 12:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Me, too. I agree that the simple English Wikipedia is of no value. It distracts users. It wasts the efforts of the Wikipedia community. Wikipedia is not a school to learn languages.

--Meno25 19:34, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly. However, there is one good thing about it: it's often very, very amusing. Specifying that a rapist is "the person who rapes", for example. That makes me laugh. However, the EDUCATIONAL value of the site is almost zero, and I'm fairly certain that it's not there to make bored teenagers laugh (even if that IS the only real purpose it serves). ~Shippinator Mandy (For best results, use twice daily.) 04:10, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I myself was curious about simple english wikipedia, so I looked up some article. They were poor quality, full of idiotic circumlocutions. But the best was this: "Diabetes means a disease where people make more urine than usual.". Frigo 10:59, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree; the Simple English Wikipedia is a ridiculous idea. It's absolutely patronizing at best, and at worst, it is just a collection (albeit a large one ... see, I couldn't say "albeit" on the simple English wikipedia) of dull blather (hey, couldn't say that either, I guess. Writing in a deliberately dumbed down (not just simplified) manner will not help anyone to learn English. However, I don't think that we can vote for its deletion or take other drastic action from here, the English Wikipedia. So, the question is, to whom do we appeal about this travesty of a project? By the way, take a look at the Simple English article on Sex. It's hilarious.
M412k 17:48, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User comment IP confusion

Yesterday, I posted the last comment under 'Simple Wikipedia of dubious value', the one posted at 10:14, 2 August 2006 (UTC). Unfortunately, there was an edit conflict and a comment with the exact same wording (above) was posted by 218.212.119.149. There was only one version of the comment. I'm not accusing anyone of anything but can someone please get this cleared up? Thanks. 202.156.6.54 12:39, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Should go away

The Simple English Wikipedia should go the same way Esperanza did here, on English Wikipedia. Totally useless and harmful. The worst thing is that it often uses absolutely unidiomatic, extremely bad "artificially simplified" English. It does a great disservice to all trying to learn English. Avoid it. 131.111.8.96 19:09, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

...It's Esperanto, not Esperanza. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.12.165.191 (talk) 05:20, 13 February 2007 (UTC).
No, I really meant Esperanza. This was a project here on English Wikipedia that existed for some time, and then it was decided that it was detrimental to Wikipedia, and it was discontinued. I wish the same could be done to Simple English. It is just so awful. The articles are absolutely useless, and written for most part in very bad English. It is absolutely of no help for anyone who tries to learn English, on the contrary, whatever "English" they would pick from it would be totally mangled. 131.111.8.99 03:04, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
It also tends to leave out important facts in its attempt to "simplify" things.

[edit] Should there be a criticism section on this article?

I personally don’t have much of a problem with the Simple English Wikipedia, but whenever I here about the Simple English Wikipedia all I here is about how bad it is. It would be something it was just a few Wikipedians that said a few bad things about it, but I have seen countless people question about it effectiveness or even its existence. Whenever someone suggests a simple Wikipedia in another language all anyone ever dose is say that the simple English one was bad enough and that there didn’t need to be one in another language. The talk page of the simple Wikipedia has a few users trying to vote for deletion. Heck even this talkpage has people complaining about it. There’s just too much criticism about the simple Wikipedia to go unnoticed in this article. I would add a section myself, but I wouldn’t be able to cite my sources or make it sound unbiased enough. I would really like it if someone with better editing skills add this section for me.--66.176.63.70 02:28, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Also, it would be amusing if one could cite an article's talk page as a reference... not sure if that would be legit unless there were an overwhelming number of negative comments. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 18.243.2.30 (talk) 02:45, August 27, 2007 (UTC)

An article's talk page, or Wikipedia, or basically any wiki at all, can almost never be cited. Rare cases, e.g. the Chris Benoit thing, do occur though. Secondly, this talk page isn't to discuss the project but to discuss the article on the project, and any material not doing so should be removed. If you want criticism, find a reliable source. If there are none (and there seems barely enough coverage in any form of media to warrant this article's existence, or many of the other Wikipedia article's for that matter), then it must be left out. Richard001 05:01, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pointless

I realise this has been covered above. However, I am making a new section. The SEW is inherently pointless. While those learning a language will not benefit from a huge pile of jargon at first, requiring simplicity in teaching, the SEW can often be a permanent cradle because a) the language found there is terrible or b) being used to the "care" of the SEW users are hesitant to move on to the EN wiki. Besides, it is incredibly condescending. I laughed out loud when I saw "some users may be young (they may be children)" somewhere on an SEW page in the WP namespace. It conjured up images of kindergarten students. Seriously. While some may see me as insensitive for supposedly describing SEW users with such a term, I am doing nothing of the sort. This was seriously what I thought of, especially when I looked up Microsoft and found that it was a "very big company". It just smacks me as incredibly condescending and patronising. Exposure to normal language helps language development. I see no reason why a cocoon should be created. Let me use an analogy. If you lock a toddler up in a room with lots of toys and other toddlers, and a regular food supply, so that no major problems are encountered, then come back in 10 years, will you get normal teenagers? No, because they have never been exposed to the outside world, or even to people who have been exposed to the outside world. This is exactly what the SEW is doing. --WPholic (talk) 13:29, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I wouldn't mind so much were it not for the fact that it due to Google's pagerank, SE-Wikipedia often gets front-page search hits, and thus (for the reasons mentioned across this talk page) spreads poor understanding and misinformation (in some bad cases I've seen, like neither mentioning STDs nor condoms on the page about sex before editors added that in -- YAY AIDS! -- since fixed by many people) and thus detracts from wikipedia's mission.18.243.2.30 03:01, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Do NOT use this page as a forum!

The purpose of the discussion is to discuss the article, not the topic it's about. ~DarkZero