Wikipedia talk:Babel

tok-5

The template Template:User tok-5 used to say what was effectively the same thing as Template:User tok-4 did, and so many proficient speakers have used it on their userpages. However, level 5 is meant to signify a professional level in the language. When going through and updating the local versions of Toki Pona Babel templates to match mw:Extension:Babel's translations, I realized that quite a few users' pages now say that they have a professional level of Toki Pona proficiency / use it in their work. I know a few of those users off-wiki, and I know that most don't use the language professionally.

It would be redundant to have two templates with very similar messages, but leaving an inaccurate message on many userpages feels wrong. Anything that should be done? Ookap (talk) 10:47, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Order

@SamB and Ynhockey: The ordering was changed in 2014 for the apparently random reason "Rejigger some stuff". This was propagated here and elsewhere at {{user language subcategory}} in 2018. Did any expert source say that "professional is higher-level than simply native"? "1 2 3 4 N 5" looks just wrong.

c:Commons:Babel uses the common sense "1 2 3 4 5 N". It has been repeatedly discussed that the same system is used for all Wikimedia projects ... Since several hundred projects use the same system, we must not vary the system locally. A later edit here did not find the "rejigger"ed order the least bit natural, and neither does {{user x}}.

Let's restore the original, more reasonable order "1 2 3 4 5 N". 174.94.28.189 (talk) 00:47, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Hebrew and Arabic

Hebrew and Arabic verb forms change depending on gender. Should we modify the userboxes for those languages to change depending on the user's gender using {{gender:{{ROOTPAGENAME}}|him|her|them}}? Gommeh 📖/🎮 19:21, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Can we have Babel roughly correspond to CEFR levels?

I think that would be much better when assessing what level someon is at, so level 1 could be A1, level 2 could be A2, 3 is B1, 4 is B2, N is B2/C1, and 5 is C2. VidanaliK (talk to me) (contributions) 16:54, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

@VidanaliK: The babel system is intended to be consistent across all WMF wikis (there are well over a thousand). Any changes need to be proposed at meta:Talk:User language, accompanied by some very good reasons that (a) the existing system is flawed, and (b) your suggestion is better. See also Wikipedia talk:Babel/Archive 4#Equivalence between Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and Babel. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:33, 1 May 2026 (UTC)