KidzSearch Encyclopedia:An English Wikipedian's guide
 | This essay contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia users. Essays may represent common ideas, or ideas that many users would not support. They are not rules. Think carefully about what they say before following them. |
 | This page in a nutshell: We are here to help people read Wikipedia articles in a simpler to understand version of English. As such we have different rules and different needs. |
The Simple English Wikipedia has a different target audience and smaller community. Hence, many things are different. Here's what you need to know to start editing (we call it changing) pages here:
Simple English
This Wikipedia is for children, people with learning disabilities, people learning English or those wanting to read articles in simpler English for whatever reason. Because of this, all language on this Wikipedia should be as simple as possible. If there are words you cannot simplify further, a useful thing to do is to link it like this: [[wikt:Wordhere|]] which will link it to its definition on the Simple English Wiktionary.
- A guide to writing in Simple English
- Copying from the English Wikipedia
- A Firefox app that may help you is the Simple English dictionary, so that all words outside some of our basic lists are underlined in the edit box.
The way things work
Many of our policies and processes are similar to that of English Wikipedia. In fact, should there be need to implement any policies that we don't appear to have a policy page for, we follow English Wikipedia, but as a guideline, never policy.
Here are some things that are different on this Wikipedia:
- There are no image uploads permitted here, please upload to Wikimedia Commons instead. Fair use images cannot be used on this Wikipedia.
- There are no portals here.
- If you are making many minor edits (small changes as we call them), please request the flood flag at the Administrators' Noticeboard to prevent flooding recent changes (new changes). Many users here rely on watching the new changes feed to revert vandalism, and a long stretch of minor changes makes this difficult.
- WikiProjects are usually created in the Userspace, rather than in the Wikipedia/Project space.
Quick deletion
Our Criteria for speedy deletion (which we call quick deletion) is slightly different.
- Note that G5 does not apply, and that A2 and A3 have been changed around.
- Articles brought from English Wikipedia with no signs of simplification, no {{inuse}}, and no attribution to their original location ({{enwp based}}) will be deleted.
- A7 has become our A4, and A6 is slightly different from G3. A5 is simple: Not written in English? Delete.
Did you know
Unlike the English Wikipedia, there are no strict rules about date or expansion for Did You Know (DYK) here. However, articles must be neutral and accurate while maintaining simple language, and the hook must be interesting and sourced. Nothing surprising there. Also, articles can be nominated more than once, as long as the hooks are different and the time between each nomination is long enough - usually about two weeks.
What Simple English Wikipedia is not
An excerpt from WP:What Wikipedia is not: Some special rules need to be used for the Simple English Wikipedia.
- Simple English Wikipedia is not another English Wikipedia. English Wikipedia has pages written in hard-to-read English, for people who can read English very well. Simple English is not the right place to copy the same articles again using the same words. Instead, we write using simple words so that people from every language can read the pages easily and understand them.
- Simple English Wikipedia is not just for people who can speak English. It is written in English, but we try to make articles simple enough so that people who are learning English can read it. If an article is here, it should be interesting to people around the world. We have many rules about what should and should not be kept in this encyclopedia.
- Simple English Wikipedia is not a place for banned users to try and get unbanned from another website. Simple English Wikipedia is a separate Wikipedia in its own right.
Need help?
- Simple talk serves as our Help desk, Reference desk, and community discussion.
- For more specific requests, go to SPI (Requests for checkuser), AIV (Vandalism in progress) and the Administrators' noticeboard
- Some of our active users have indicated when they're online and contactable (although you're better off just contacting any admin who shows up on Special:RecentChanges).
- #wikipedia-simple connect is our IRC channel.
Still need further help? Find an adopter to guide you through editing Simple English Wikipedia.