Wikipedia talk:Simple English Wikipedia

I've moved this out of the main namespace as I don't think it is worthy of an encyclopedia article. I'm not sure there's a lot of point having an article on one version of Wikipedia anyway. Could the information not be consolidated with information on other languages, or in the Wikipedia article itself? Angela. 10:11, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I tried to fix link named Main Page

I had to make it external to get it to work - I tried to emulate the link type used in the other similar link, with no luck. Spalding 16:50, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

"For children, students and translators". Why do the latter need wiki pages in Simple English? A capable translator from English into any other language should always be capable of understanding English in normal formulations at least passively. (Being able to write complicated phrases is quite a different thing: I, for instance, am Dutch, and as you can see, making natural sentences in a more advanced idiom really is a kind of a problem - I understand virtually anything the normal English Wikipedia features, however). Simple English articles will, as a matter of facts, lead to simple Estonian, Cherokee, Swahili, Ukrainian etc. etc. articles when they are translated, and it is likely that this can irritate those who read the translated articles in their native tongues - they aren't children, after all. Let the translator use a dictionary, and everything will be alright, if only he speaks the language into which he translates fluently! (anon)

Yes, if translators need Simple English, they don't deserve to be employed as translators. On the other hand, I'm not even very convinced of its usefulness to children or students. OK, beginners and elementary learners can't be expected to deal with fully normal English, but they still need material that's both authentic and natural, and very little of the stuff I've seen here is that. I see no point in a Simple English Wikipedia except as an aid to beginning or elementary students of English, and what's been made so far is of very limited use in that regard. garik 11:36, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

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I'm puzzled by this sentence. "Most articles will require about 2000 words, a full defining vocabulary that is useful to explain English idiom." In an article about simple English, perhaps its meaning could be made clearer, as I really don't understand what's intended. Adrian Robson 16:49, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Is the Simple English Wikipedia biased?

I look at articles on it, such as the one about Socrates, and see that it gives a very oversimplified and inaccurate portrayal. I don't see how simple language should mean inaccurate/slanted(biased) information, but it seems to be that way on a number of articles. Smeggysmeg 22:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

philosophy can often be a difficult topic to present to EAL students or simple English speakers as one must normally be fluent in the language to understand the ideas being presented. even a great deal of primary English speakers have issues understanding it, so at times oversimplification is necessary for a subject like Classical Greek Philosophy. if the article is truly biased, though, then it's a matter of rewriting the thing, which is easier said than done Filter1987 19:19, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Simple English

"Simple English is like English but only easy words are used." really? does anyone in the whole wide world not think that sentence deserves to be shunned and forced to live in the desert? Janemansfield74 01:31, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Why?

Why would anybody want to contribute to wikipedia for people who are too lazy to learn the language right? I think it is cool that there are wikipedias in everything from Chinese to Manx, but surely simple English is incredibly stupid and a waste of everybody's time. If people are too slow to learn from wikipedia, than maybe they are just too f***** stupid in the first place. No offese. --Elvisandhismagicpelvis 12:06, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I think you mean offense. Mark Chovain 10:57, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Those who don't want to contribute in the SEWP, don't have to; so, Elvisandhismagicpelvis, stop wasting your time on criticizing that Wikipedia in here (mostly because the talks are to make better the articles, not to insult their matter. Happy editing. Twicemost 00:18, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The whole Project to create a Simple English should be scrapped. Here is my justification for this viewpoint:

• Wikipedia should not be seen as merely utilitarian. It contains much knowledge for knowledge's sake.
• Simple English is not a language: it is a deterministic construct written primarily by native speakers who are not pedagogues or linguists on behalf of an ill-defined constituency that has not been scientifically defined. (Unlike, say, speakers of Basque.)
• Simple English Wikipedia institutionally entrenches an erroneous view of the process of language acquisition. The lexical marginality of any particular term is not what hinders comprehension, rather the lack of sufficient intervening explicative steps. Lexically, 'mule' is pretty marginal. But if you explain that a mule is part-horse, part-donkey, then the language learner should have little difficulty in understanding the concept.
• Simple English Wikipedia places English on a pedestal: it is a form of cultural imperialism. Why should only English have a 'Subpedia' (excuse the neologism!)? It takes for granted that the existence of an international lingua franca is positive. Is it perhaps not hastening the demise of precious endangered languages by making English ever more accessible?
• If supererogative turgescency of this ilk is to be tolerated, then Simple English Wikipedia epitomises Wikipedia's inutile, unmanageable future. Why shouldn't all languages have separate Wikipedias for their various grades? Why not a Wikipedia for ultra-technical English? Why not a Wikipedia for syntactic or stylistic preferences? Why not Wikipedias for dialects, or ecolects, or individual idiolects? Why not a Wikipedia in Legalese? Or Journalese?
• Wikipedia is not primarily a tool for learning languages! (However...
• ...via hyperlinks on a standard English article and the sidebar links to their vernacular, or Wiktionary, the speaker of another language can easily track unknown terms.)
• It is a waste of Wikipedia Foundation's finite financial resources.

Therefore, I propose that Simple English Wikipedia be removed from the Wikipedia proper and farmed off as a Wiki-style project. Otherwise, an unfortunate precedent may be considered, established.Orthorhombic (talk) 16:22, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Orthorhombic, why not have a Simple English wikipedia? In Exemplum (i.e.),If I was a an ESL student, and I needed a source for my history project, I think that I would try to use English, if I could not under stand that, Simple English, and then my native language. I feel that one reason for Simple English wikipedia is there to be an english wikipedia for people who do not understand english as well as others. I respectfully disagree with your reasoning for eradicating the Simple English wikipedia, but I do agree with the point about the cultural imperialism. However, this could be helped by making more "Simple (Place Language Here)" Wikipedias, and not deleting this one. There is more than one stone that can kill the bird.

Poker5463 ^Repeater 21:21, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I think Simple English Wikipedia sells itself short by describing itself in a way that focuses on its target of people who don't understand English that well, are children, or have a learning disability. It seems pretty valuable and even noble to me to use the power of Wikipedia to help those people (who still have a convenient link to the regular English article readily available), but if you don't think so, consider the following: Simple English Wikipedia actually offers significant value to adept English speakers: it serves to distill excessively complex and long-winded articles down to the essence of the topic. Simplicity is powerful - see Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's famous quote. Ever wish there was a "shut up and get to the point" button on Wikipedia? It's right there on the left: it says Simple English. Try comparing parody and simple:parody, for example. Simple English can also be useful for getting a second perspective on a topic, in a way that's similar to viewing other language versions of Wikipedia (if you can understand more than one language). Stop being so closed minded. Consider the possibility that Simple English Wikipedia is a tool with uses you may not have previously considered. 66.189.15.109 (talk) 05:08, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Language, content, or both?

There's currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Introduction to evolution (2nd nomination) on introductory articles, and some editors (myself included) think that they are redundant to Simple Wiki. Others disagree. One of the problems I have is that the page talks about language, but implies that content can/should be simplified as well. If it's meant to be exclusively linguistic, would anyone mind if I added the phrase 'in language only, as the content covered should be as comprehensive as the equivalent page on English Wikipedia' somewhere appropriate? I like my policies and guidelines like I like my profanity - explicit : ) WLU (talk) 17:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I suggest reading Simple:Wikipedia:Simple English Wikipedia, which makes it pretty clear that SEW is about simple English, not necessarily simple content. However, using simple English (in particular, a limited vocabulary) probably does limit the depth of content you can cover. If so, this is a consequence of SEW's stated purpose, not an addition to it. In any case "Introduction to" article are not redundant to SEW because they involve simplifying content without using a reduced vocabulary English style.

As far as I know, SEW is not explicit about whether it is intended to be as comprehensive as enwiki, so this page should not be explicit either. However, this page probably needs to be clarified, as it diverges from SEW's own description of itself in several respects. Geometry guy 18:38, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Two sets of articles about Simple English Wikipedia

After I added seven links to articles in other languages, I discovered that fr:Wikipédia en Simple English has interwiki links to the following.

ar:ويكيبيديا الإنجليزية البسيطة

cs:Wikipedie ve zjednodušené angličtině

en:Simple English Wikipedia

es:Wikipedia en inglés simple

fa:ویکی‌پدیای انگلیسی ساده

ko:쉬운 영어 위키백과

he:ויקיפדיה באנגלית פשוטה

hu:Wikipédia:Egyszerűsített angol nyelvű Wikipédia

ms:Wikipedia Bahasa Inggeris Mudah

nl:Simpel Engelse Wikipedia

ja:シンプル英語版ウィキペディア

pl:Wikipedia w języku Simple English

ru:Википедия на упрощённом английском языке

simple:Simple English Wikipedia

sh:Pojednostavljena engleska Wikipedija

th:วิกิพีเดียภาษาอังกฤษอย่างง่าย

tr:Basit İngilizce Vikipedi

yi:סימפל ענגליש וויקיפעדיע

zh:簡易英語維基百科

It seems that there are two sets of articles about Simple English Wikipedia.

-- Wavelength (talk) 23:27, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

English English!

I would like to request that the English wikipedia is split into two. This would create a UK English section and a USA English section. This would stop a lot of arguments between users on how to spell words - and make articles more relevant to that region. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.106.4.224 (talk) 01:41, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

See WP:ENGVAR. Professor M. Fiendish, Esq. 12:56, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

The name!

It should be called Simplified English--82.134.154.25 (talk) 18:48, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

In addition to generally being terrible ...

The simple:Life article begins with a list of qualities that living things possess, then immediately starts listing exceptions to the criteria provided, to narrow the definition. Using strawman arguments to construct a definition is not conceptually simple, even if the language of the text is restricted to simple english words. An adult trying to learn a second language might be comfortable with this kind of logical grammar, but I doubt it is appropriate for a user with learning disabilities. I would think that the mere fact that the simple english wikipedia is not sufficiently focused in its purpose will lead to articles being written with different intention. 66.69.246.143 (talk) 19:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Collaboration with EN Wiki's Women in Red

There has been a discussion on EN Wiki's Women in Red on collaboration with the Simple English project. See here. Reactions welcome.--Ipigott (talk) 18:09, 29 July 2023 (UTC)