Wikipedia:Simple talk

Simple talk
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Poorly worded or wrong interface message for Special link to non-existent user subpage

Following a link to a non-existent user subpage such as User:Mathglot/Sandbox gives the right top-of-page boilerplate message, apparently based on MediaWiki:Newarticletext, with some modifications to add strings like, "Before starting this page, please see m:Sub pages" absent from the basic message. So far, so good.

However, when a link is generated by a Special, such as (for me), Special:MyPage/Sandbox^{[blue always]} to the same non-existent user subpage, clicking it should result in the same top-of-page boilerplate, but it does not. Instead, I see this:^{[but see note]}

Wikipedia does not yet have a user page with this name.

If you are Mathglot/Sandbox, click start this page.
To contact Mathglot/Sandbox, go to User talk:Mathglot/Sandbox.

I don't believe Simple allows usernames with a slash character as part of the name, so this message is misleading at the very least. It apparently derives from MediaWiki:Noarticletext NS User, but either it is not adjusted properly to emit an appropriate message, or it is the wrong interface message entirely. Instead, I would emit something like this:

Wikipedia does not yet have a user subpage with this name.

Click start this page to create it.
To contact Mathglot about creating their^{[uses magic word]} sandbox, go to User talk:Mathglot.

Note: if you already have a Sandbox subpage, the link above will not demonstrate the bad behavior to you, so you can use these links instead to observe it: Special:MyPage/Sandbox-999, Special:MyPage/Any old name here. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 22:18, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Would any bureaucrat (@Eptalon, Ferien, and BRPever:) please look into this? canadachick (talk) 18:46, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

I've noticed this (although, for me, it is any time I visit a non-existent userspace page). Wouldn't replacing {{PAGENAME}} with {{ROOTPAGENAME}} fix the grammar? Walnut (talk • changes) 23:48, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

Thank you both for saying about this and for notifying 'crats. I have looked slightly into this, it should involve adding a subpage variation based on en, I just haven't had the energy to see all the changes through this week, but over the weekend I should get the chance. --Ferien (talk | join TBA!) 21:14, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

Proposal to rename a large number of categories

I propose to rename all categories for months, e.g. Category:August 2026 events should be moved to Category:August 2026. Then we can eliminate categories like Category:2026 events because everything that happens in a particular month or year is an event. This would reduce the layers of the category system and bring it into line with English Wikipedia. canadachick (talk) 23:11, 29 August 2026 (UTC)

• Support: good idea.

(~Nwa Mbata) (talk) 16:22, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

Oppose The main issue with this is having all events in separate categories reduces the number of events in a given category. We should have three entries in each category per the three entry rule, and we won't have enough to have three entries in each monthly category. As much as it makes it a bit more like Enwiki, our system should not be totally like Enwiki and should deviate more when necessary. Labelling when something is an event in my mind is important for clarity even if it is technically less simple. You could expect anything to be in that August 2026, inc a death for instance, which we do not want to categorise either monthly or as an event. As a general point I feel our categories too closely follow Enwiki right now, and we need to get back to having larger categories that are easier for readers to understand, but that's for another discussion. --Ferien (talk | join TBA!) 21:07, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't understand your first sentence. All the monthly categories, such as Category:August 2026 events, already have at least three entries in each category, and still would if they were moved. I do understand your point about deaths not being in that category. However, it seems that everything would be in the events category, except for births, deaths, establishments, and disestablishments. canadachick (talk) 21:28, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, I was somewhat focused on your second part, which I suppose is not being directly proposed, with Category:YYYY events being deleted as that would leave the events in "quieter" years (those years we have not covered many events on) with nowhere to go. --Ferien (talk | join TBA!) 21:20, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

Article Guidance update: experiment outcome and next steps

Dear Simple English Wikipedians,

The Language and Product Localization team sincerely thanks you for your valuable collaboration during the Article Guidance A/B experiment in your Wikipedia. Your constructive feedback to restore access to deletion and edit logs when clicking a red link, and to give experienced editors the option to skip the guidance during the experiment, played a key role in shaping this feature and the experiment.

We are pleased to report that the experiment produced positive results, leading us to propose moving forward with making Article Guidance the default experience for junior editors (contributors with 0 to 99 edits), through the same entry points as in the experiment.

Findings from the experiment

Overall, articles created through the guided workflow survived at a higher rate than those created without the guided workflow. Editors who completed the workflow, created articles that were more likely to survive. You can read the result summary on this page.

Improvements made to the feature

Your feedback during the experiment was instrumental in shaping the improvements to the feature. The experiment results also revealed further opportunities to enhance the experience, which are captured in this list. We will continue working on them in the coming weeks.

Our next steps

In light of the positive results, we propose making Article Guidance the default experience for junior editors on Simple English Wikipedia, by 10 September 2026. This should give all junior editors a stronger starting point for publishing articles that meet your community's standards.

Our request

As we prepare to move to the default experience, we encourage experienced editors to continue creating relevant outlines so that less-experienced editors have the guidance they need. Based on the data we’ve seen, we think this could really help Simple English Wikipedia to retain good-faith newcomers, who are not scared away by the blank page without guidance, and having their articles deleted. We sincerely appreciate your efforts and invite you to continue reviewing existing outlines or create new ones. Helpful resources are available on this page, and you can find a list of requested outline topics from contributors on this talk page. The requests would give you an idea of the outlines not available on Simple English Wikipedia.

Thank you once again for your collaboration on this project. Your feedback and contributions are truly appreciated.

Best regards,

UOzurumba (WMF) (talk) 16:04, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

Why doesn't the Simple English Wikipedia have a draft system?

Why does the Simple English Wikipedia doesn't have a article draft system just like the English Wikipedia? - Wikipedian2025 (talk) 10:40, 6 September 2026 (UTC)

It’s as simple as userspace drafts being sufficient for our needs here. If you want to draft an article, you can use your sandbox. Garsh (talk) 14:49, 6 September 2026 (UTC)

Templates in article categories

I noticed a few instances of templates or template categories being in normal categories. For example, the Law category contains the Law templates category. I know this is not allowed on English Wikipedia but I can't find a clear answer about whether the same rule applies here. Does anyone know whether this is allowed on Simple English Wikipedia or do you have an opinion on how to handle this? SuddenArtichokes (talk) 14:51, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

If there is any consensus on this, I am not aware of it. I think generally template categories should be separate from content categories as to not confused "normal" readers, but this is just my opinion. Garsh (talk) 01:06, 13 September 2026 (UTC)