Wikipedia:Simple talk

Simple talk
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Reciprocal sanctions

I first brought this idea up on this page in January but it did not receive much discussion. Based on the actions at pages like Soran-Persian War (1829-1834) and Ottoman-Soran War (1832–1834), I think we need to re-examine my thoughts. We are seeing significant conflict over these articles between users who are often "locked out" of editing these topics at the English Wikipedia due to them being under the contentious topic sanctions which require a user holds extended confirmed status in order to contribute there.

As it was 6 months ago when I first brought it up, the biggest areas of concern seem to be caste articles, Indian military history articles, and Kurd & Kurdistan articles. Nothing has changed, just some of the players.

It is currently being addressed via some protections right now, but I think we need to examine a longer term solution for this problem. CountryANDWestern (talk) 15:08, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Each of those editors has to be told that every article must have both points of view - for and against and also be told to paraphrase and simplify sentences as can be seen in this example.-Baangla (talk) 18:34, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

The thread you have linked to has nothing to do with what I am talking about. CountryANDWestern (talk) 18:38, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

It does. The editors trying to edit pages about "caste articles, Indian military history articles, and Kurd & Kurdistan articles" should be given the advice I mentioned above.-Baangla (talk) 01:15, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Again, not relevant. My topic is about whether or not we should consider having similar restrictions to the English Wikipedia where users who are not extended confirmed are not eligible to edit those topics. CountryANDWestern (talk) 01:19, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes, we should. These problems arise all the time fr33kman 01:30, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I agree that something needs to be done, but I’m a little hesitant to defer to enwiki too much. Something that is contentious there may be totally unproblematic here. Reciprocal sanctions is a possible solution, similar to WP:ONESTRIKE but more targeted. I think editors sanctioned on Enwiki should at least be given a chance here, which is the principle behind onestrike. On the subject of editing restrictions/sanctions, who would issue them? We don’t have an arbcom here, and leaving it to individual admins could bring a level of randomness that we don’t want. Garsh (talk) 05:55, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

It would be excellent to implement general sanctions here as well; thanks to them, there is no longer chaos surrounding controversial topics on the English Wikipedia, and if we apply them here too, the chaos here will end as well. General sanctions could be imposed, particularly on articles concerning the Kurds. Kajmer05 (talk) 14:18, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

In general, I like this idea as there certainly is some spill-over from en wiki to here as sanctions restrict the ability of some editors in some topics. The reason it really succeeds on en wiki though is Extended confirmed protection. Semi-protection is a trivial speed-bump that doesn't really slow things down. Full protection is a sledgehammer when something smaller is needed and would really, really slow down article development with the number of admins here. ECP is what makes those sanctions work, 30 days and 500 edits before an account can edit articles that are known to be problematic.

The Contentious Topics rules give admins quick and easy tools to use to manage disruption when it's brought to attention with (reasonably) clear definitions of the scope of the topic. I wouldn't mind seeing at least that brought over by reference to given admins known tools for some areas. I don't think that's really, really needed here, this wiki is small enough and frankly the admins good enough that when something is brought to attention it gets handled fairly quickly. The more difficult areas - Kurdish topics, south asian social groups/caste for example - are where ECP might be more helpful. Ravensfire (talk) 14:56, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Consensus has been against adding an Extended Confirmed group (and protection) for a while. The downside of contentious topics rules is they have to be understood by our editors. It seems like it's hard enough for some editors to understand the rules we already have. I'm not necessarily against them, but we have to be very clear about them. Garsh (talk) 19:11, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Re-using references with different details – introducing sub-referencing

Sub-referencing example

Hi, I’m Johannes from Wikimedia Germany's Technical Wishes team.

We’ve been working on a new feature to improve re-using references with different details: Sub-referencing. We have deployed the feature to most Wikimedia projects as of July 2026, including eight out of the ten largest Wikipedia language versions. We'll deploy to Simple Wikipedia mid-August.

What to expect?

You will notice footnotes like [1.1] in Wikipedia articles, if citations are used with different details (e.g. different page numbers) using sub-references. We are implementing a long-held community wish: Many Wikipedia articles currently contain references that are almost identical but differ in details such as the page number. This leads to cluttered reference lists which make it harder for readers to quickly assess how many different sources have been used. And unlike with identical reuses, re-using references with different details previously required duplicating the reference, which led to longer wikitext and – especially in VisualEditor – also to more time expenditure. Existing community-created workarounds like {{sfn}} have drawbacks for VisualEditor users and in the reference pop-ups (especially for mobile readers – more about the problem).

Sub-referencing solves these issue: We are adding a new wikitext attribute details="..." – similar to the existing attribute ref name="...". VisualEditor users can use the "add details" button to insert sub-references. You can find detailed instructions on our project page. We also published a report about our learnings on the first months of sub-referencing on German Wikipedia which you might find interesting. Note that sub-referencing is an optional feature, you can continue using other citation styles if you prefer to do so.

Deployment

We’ll likely deploy sub-referencing to Simple Wikipedia on August 12 (phab:T432731). Please take the following action to prepare for the deployment:

• There is a tracking category for pages using sub-referencing to quickly identify any issues with the new feature. You can change the category name via MediaWiki:Cite-tracking-category-ref-details. You might want to create the category page (currently Category:Pages that use sub-references) using __HIDDENCAT__ (or {{Hidden category}} + {{Tracking category}}) to hide it from the default reader’s view – and add it to d:Q129764848.
• We've listed more information on possible actions to take and examples from different wikis in our FAQ.
• Note that we recommend against combining {{Reflist}} and (sub-)references defined in the reference section ({{Reflist|refs=...}}) because VisualEditor struggles to deal with those (as opposed to <references>...</references>). English Wikipedia discouraged the usage of {{Reflist}} when using list-defined references for similar reasons .
• If you want to try sub-referencing, you can do so on testwiki or one of the many wikis we've deployed to already, e.g. German, French, Polish or Spanish Wikipedia – or sister projects like English Wikibooks.

Please let me know if you have any questions. We look forward to your reactions about the new feature, either on our discussion page, my user talk page, or as a reply to this post. We will continue improving sub-referencing based on your feedback!

Best regards from the Technical Wishes team --Johannes Richter (WMDE) (talk) 13:57, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

This really looks interesting, and I'm looking forward to being able to use it on articles. Thank you. Ravensfire (talk) 14:24, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

SMB Deluxe

Hello.

I would like to ask if this redirect page can be restored as a real article again (it used to be, check history) because other projects don't redirect to the original. There could have been good reasons though, so that's why I came here first.

Thanks! BluePixelLOLLL (talk) 15:01, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

It was redirected by a sock puppet of a foundation-banned user, so I went ahead and put the article back. Thanks for bringing this up! Garsh (talk) 17:32, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Who are "Zavier Pumpetch" and "Jeremiah Gutierrez"?

I have found these names on several articles here, but I cannot find any useful information about these people or reliable sources. Can someone fact check these things? ~2026-42962-11 (talk) 04:02, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Help with draft

Some editors said that this draft has NPOV (Neutral Point Of View) issues, so please help balance it so that it can be moved to Mainspace.-Baangla (talk) 11:53, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

This article has now been deleted twice through RFD. You have been given so much feedback on it and it has not been deemed appropriate for inclusion here. It is time to move on and stop sucking so much project time into this article. CountryANDWestern (talk) 13:45, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Please suggest what to do

The page about 2025 India–Pakistan conflict is full of Original Research (OR) and uses complex English. Can I copy the English Wikipedia article about the same and simplify the English used?-Baangla (talk) 17:31, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

yes, just make sure it complies with WP:CW. fr33kman 00:07, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Operation Shaban

Operation Shaban uses complex English and so, a complex tag needs to be added to the top of that page.-Baangla (talk) 18:15, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

So add it then. fr33kman 00:05, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Using AI on talk pages

Recently, on Discord, the subject of using AI for comments and talk pages has come up a lot. Can I remind people that I did start a proposed guidance page at WP:AIDISCUSS, and now may be the time to reopen it? fr33kman 00:11, 7 August 2026 (UTC)