This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Hi, the reason those pings didn't work is that they were added as part of an edit that only modified existing text. For a ping to work, it needs to appear within a newly added line (with a signature), see WP:ECHO. I know, it's counterintuitive, I wasn't aware of that until someone pointed it out to me on my talk page. – Uanfala (talk) 11:14, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, and in hindsight it makes a certain amount of sense, I wouldn't have wanted this to generate a second ping. Andrewa ( talk) 16:07, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Don't mind that box to the right. We'll be talking about that later, below.

Almost done...

With the portals upgrades?

No. :)

What is almost done is the updating of the main list of portals!

There are 23 portals left to be listed.

Kudos to the WikiGnome Squadron, for spearheading this.

Once it is fully updated, we need to keep it up to date. When you complete a portal, remember to add it to Portal:Contents/Portals.

Concerning portal upgrades, we are working on those section-by-section...

Associated Wikimedia section conversion task complete

The Associated Wikimedia sections of the entire set of portals have been upgraded. These are now handled on each portal base page (bypassing the previously used corresponding subpages), using the {{ Wikimedia for portals}} template rather than reiterated copied/pasted code.

So, to be more accurate on reporting upgrade progress, that's one section down (for the whole set of portals), with (about) nine sections to go. (Skipping curated portals, regarding custom content sections, of course).

Further section conversions (using AWB)

Work is underway on converting Portals' introduction sections, and the categories sections.

If you would like to help, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Upgrade introduction sections and Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#AWB task: Convert category sections

Further section conversions (by hand)

Work has also started with converting selected picture sections to picture slideshow sections. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Install picture slideshows.

Quality rating system for portals under development

Currently, there is no quality rating for portals: in the Portals WikiProject box on each portals' talk page, it just says "Portal". But times are a changin'. Quality assessment is on the way, and you can help. See the discussion.

What's coming: excerpt slideshows

Evad37 has figured out a way to apply the picture slideshow feature to displaying article excerpts (now you can check out the provided box above). :) This allows us to bypass page purging to see the next selection, and you can even click through them rather quickly. Currently, the wikicode for doing this for article excerpts is a bit eye-boggling, and so we are looking into simplifying it. A streamlined version may be just around the corner.

Note that this is a prototype, not ready for widespread use. Click on the box in between the lesser than and greater than signs, to see what I mean. It was meant for pictures, and so the thumbnail feature doesn't apply to article prose very well. I've presented it even though it isn't ready, to show the direction portal development is heading. See the discussion.

Wow

I'm amazed at how rapidly portals are evolving. And we're still within a single generation of portal technological evolution. Imagine what they might be in 2 or 3 more generations of developments. Pretty soon, portals will be able to shake your hand. :)    — The Transhumanist   11:02, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

This nonsense has been around since 2006. (Collapses, sobbing). Narky Blert ( talk) 21:31, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

See also Aeschenschwibbogen: etymology touching on, but IMO not crossing into, WP:OR; merely stating a fact; no sources say different. (The unsourced speculation in German Wiki for the etymology of de:Aeschenschwibbogen doesn't cut it for me; even if sourced, I might raise an eyebrow in an editorial footnote.) (I do speak German.)

How I do hate amateur/unofficial translations of official names into English. They are WP:OR even when more-or-less accurate. Narky Blert ( talk) 00:47, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Warmoth Guitars is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Warmoth Guitars until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Rathfelder ( talk) 09:15, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi, in response to your complaint regarding my support comment, I removed my support comment. As a courtesy, I just wanted to stop by on this talk page to let you know that in removing my support comment, your comment regarding my support comment was left responding to nothing, so I also removed your comment. I hope that's okay with you. If it's not, you can restore both my comment and yours, but I thought that block of text consisting of our comments was a distraction from the discussion actually relevant to the move request. Happy editing! — Lowellian ( reply) 06:13, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Lowellian Good move, thoroughly support it and thanks for the heads-up. Andrewa ( talk) 07:33, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

We've grown to 94 participants.

A warm welcome to dcljr and Kpgjhpjm.

Rating system for portals

We are in the process of developing a rating system specifically for portals, as the quality assessment scheme for articles does not apply to portals. It is coming along nicely. Your input would be very helpful. See the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/General#Proposed new quality class assessments.

Better than a barnstar

One of our participants got involved with this WikiProject through interest in how the new generation of portals would be handled in WP's MOS (Manual of Style). It didn't take long before he got sucked in deeper. This has given him an opportunity to look around, and so, he has made an assessment of this WikiProject's operations:

I'm quite frankly really impressed and inspired by what's happening here. If you'd asked me a year ago if I thought portals should just be scrapped as a failed, dragged-out experiment, I would have said "yes". This planning and the progress toward making it all practical is exemplary of the wiki spirit, in particular of a happy service-to-readers puppy properly wagging its technological and editorial tail instead of the other way around, and without "drama". It's also one of the few examples I've seen in a long time of a new wikiproject actually doing something useful and fomenting constructive activity (instead of acting as a barrier to participation, and a canvassing/ownership farm for PoV pushers). Kudos all around. — SMcCandlish

Congratulations, everyone. Keep up the great work.

Slideshow development

We've run into a glitch with slideshows: they don't work on mobile devices.

Initially, we will need to explore options that allow portals to have slideshows without adversely affecting mobile viewers. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design#Mobile view support.

Eventually, we may need another way to do slideshows. If we do go this route, and I don't see why we wouldn't, then (user configurable) automatic slideshows also become a possibility.

TemplateStyles RfC passed

Once implemented, this will allow editors to create and edit cascading style sheets for use with templates. This will expand what we can do with portals. For more detail, see mw:Extension:TemplateStyles and Wikipedia:TemplateStyles.

Automation effort

We've run into an obstacle using Lua-based selective transclusion: Lua is incapable (on Wikipedia) of reading in article names from categories. Because of this, we'll need to seek other approaches for fully automating the Selected article section. We are exploring sources other than categories, and other technologies besides Lua.

Speaking of using other sources, the template {{ Transclude list item excerpt}} collects list items from a specified page, or from a section of that page, and transcludes the lead from a randomly selected link from that list. Courtesy of Certes. So, if you use this in a portal, and if the template specifies a page or section serviced by JL-Bot, you've now got yourself an automatically updated section in the portal. JL-Bot provides links to featured content and good articles, by subject.

What is "fully automated"? When you create a portal using a creation template, and the portal works thereafter without editor intervention, the portal is fully automated. That is, the portal is supported by features that fetch new content. If you have to add new article names every so often for it to display new content, then it is only semi-automated.

Currently, the Selected article section is semi-automated, because it requires that an editor supplies the names of the various articles for which excerpts are (automatically) displayed. For examples, look at the wikisource code of Portal:Reptiles, Portal:Ancient Tamil civilization, and Portal:Reference works.

So far, 3 sections are fully automatable: the introduction section, the categories section, and the Associated Wikimedia section.

Where is all this heading?

Henry.

Or some other name.

Eventually, the portal department will be a software program. And we won't have to do anything (unless we want to). Not even tell it what portals to create (unless we want to). It will just do it all (plus whatever else we want it to do). And we will of course give it good manners, and a name.

But, that is a few years off.

Until then, building portals is still (partially) up to us.    — The Transhumanist   13:29, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for uploading File:Warmoth logo.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. -- B-bot ( talk) 17:56, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

We now have 97 participants.

Be sure to welcome our newest members, BrantleyIzMe, Coffeeandcrumbs, and Nolan Perry, with warm regards.

Work is proceeding apace. We have 2 major thrusts right now: converting the intro sections of portals, and building the components of the one-page automated model...

Converting the intro sections

We need everybody, except those building software components, to work on converting intros. If you have AWB, definitely use that. If not, then work on them manually. Even one a day, or as often as you can muster, will help a lot. There are only about 1,000 of them left to go, so if everyone chips in, it will go pretty quickly. Remember, there are 97 of us!

The intros for most of the portals starting with A through F have already been converted to use the {{ Transclude lead excerpt}} template.

The standard wikicode for the automated intro that we want to put into place looks like this:

{{/box-header|Introduction|noedit=yes|}}
{{Transclude lead excerpt | {{PAGENAME}} | paragraphs=1-2 | files=1}}
{{Box-footer|[[{{PAGENAME}}|Read more...]]}}

That works for most portals, but not all. For some portals it requires some tweaking, and for others, we may have to use a different or more customized approach. Remember to visually inspect each portal you work on and make sure that it works before moving on to the next one.

Be sure to skip user-maintained portals. They are listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Portals#Specific_portal_maintainers.

AWB tips

I've started an AWB tips page, for those of you feeling a bit overwhelmed by that power user tool. Feel free to add to it and/or improve it.

Portal automation

We have some very talented Lua programmers, who are pushing the limits of what we can do in gathering data from Wikipedia's various namespaces and presenting it in portals. Due to their efforts, Lua is powering the selective transclusion core of our emerging automated portal design, in the form of selected article sections that rotate content, and slideshows.

To go beyond Lua's limits, to take full advantage of Mediawiki's API, we are in the midst of adding another programming language to the resources we shall be making use of: JavaScript. The ways that JavaScript can help us edit portals to boost the power of our Lua solutions, are being explored, which will likely make the two languages synergistic if not symbiotic. Research is under way on how we can use JavaScript to make some of the portal semi-automated features fully automatically self-updating, in ways that Lua cannot. Like gathering random members from a category and inserting them into a portal's templates as parameters. Once the parameters are in place, Lua does the rest.

If you would like to get involved with design efforts, or just keep up on them, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design.

When should we start building new portals?

Well, not at the present time, because building portals is quite time consuming. The good news is that we are working on a design that will be fully automated, or as close to that as we can get. And the new design is being implemented in the portal department's main portal creation template. This means, that not only will portals update themselves, their creation will be highly automated as well. That's the nature of templates. You put them in place, and they just... work.

What I'm getting at here, is that it would be better to wait to build lots of new portals until after the new design is completed. Because with it, instead of taking hours to create a new portal, it will likely take minutes.

That does not mean we should be idle in the meantime. The main reason most of us are here is because it became apparent that portals were largely unmaintained and had grown out-of-date. This had become so apparent that a proposal was made to delete all the portals and the portal namespace to boot. That makes our main objective in the short term to improve all the existing portals so that the community will want to keep them—forever.

Building lots of new portals comes later. Let's fix up the ones we have first. ;)

And on that note, I bid you adieu. Until next newsletter, see ya 'round the WikiProject.    — The Transhumanist   12:29, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

An administrator's oversight is needed on the Talk-page at [Women in the Bible]. Could you please review the section [edit war] and tell me what should be done? Please help. I really need help. Jenhawk777 ( talk) 06:23, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

That's Women in the Bible and Talk:Women in the Bible#edit war? I'll have a look. Andrewa ( talk) 08:05, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you Andrew. It started on my talkpage. He reverted an edit of mine, and sent me an edit war warning at the same time. I hadn't reverted anything. I made the change he had suggested to the lead, he reverted it back to the original problem, then criticizes me for it being there. I don't know what to do. I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't. Jenhawk777 ( talk) 13:49, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

It would help me if you supplied diffs (and learned how to wikilink, you tried above I know, do you see how mine above work and yours didn't? But don't fix them now).

It started on my talkpage. He reverted an edit of mine, and sent me an edit war warning at the same time. I'll find those two diffs for a start. Andrewa ( talk) 19:56, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Sorry. I am trying--I'm not ignoring it I promise--it's just a lot sometimes. I know nothing of programming. I begin from a deficit. Let's see--the difference is two brackets not one, right? And how do I link to diffs? And using the number sign with the talk page goes right to that section? Talk with a colon not a slash--I'll make notes...really. :-) Thank you again. Jenhawk777 ( talk) 20:17, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Okay, I studied up--I read the page on diffs anyway. :-) This is the unsophisticated approach but perhaps this will save you some time. I was working on "WitB" and this was my last edit before Jytdog responded. I did not know he had responded until after my next edit--they are like a minute apart. I posted this one [Revision as of 15:21, 5 July 2018] [1].

Twenty-one minutes later Jytdog reverted it [Revision as of 15:42, 5 July 2018] [2] and sends the edit war warning.

In the meantime I am working on the lead. [Revision as of 15:45, 5 July 2018] [3]

Jytdog reverts that as well [Revision as of 15:57, 5 July 2018] [4]

When I am finished editing I go to my talk page and find the edit war warning at 16:00, 5 July 2018. I haven't been on 'WitB' since May, so I was unsure what he was talking about at first. I thought it was about the lead which was what I first saw he had reverted, but we had a disagreement over the content of the section on Eve before I left in May, so now I think that's what this was about--at least at first--although he did revert the lead as well. He doesn't suggest changes, or revert sentences, or parts of something, he just reverts everything--then sends a warning message to try and make sure you don't try to put anything back. That's his modus operandi. It quite effectively blocks editing altogether. Anyway. I didn't revert anything. I just kept trying to reason with him. I didn't get anywhere. Please correct me where I need it Andrew. I know you will be scrupulously fair here, it goes without saying, but surely there is also something that can be done about what amounts to bullying. If I need to go to arbitration or something, please tell me what I need to do. Jenhawk777 ( talk) 03:37, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Go gently at this stage. I know it's difficult. Baseless warnings (if that's what you have received) are themselves disruptive and can attract sanctions. Arbitration is a long way down the path of dispute resolution, no need to even think of it yet. Make sure your grounds are solid. That's why I'm asking for solid evidence, such as diffs. The last thing you want is to yourself make an accusation that is itself false, even one that is trivially false because you've unwittingly and unintentionally used a technical term such as arbitration.

This is an experienced contributor with 150,000+ edits, which does not excuse bad behaviour, just the opposite. Andrewa ( talk) 20:50, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

I am not going to do anything that you don't tell me needs doing. I thought you wanted diffs, so I sent them. I will go gently as you say--actually--I'm not going at all. :-) I have done nothing but contact you. I'm not even attempting communication with him anymore. I'm at a dead stop. I'm not trying to stir up trouble--I'm trying to avoid it. I will wait on your discretion to help me figure out how to go about doing that. His comment about 'evangelical Christian doctrine' is part of what concerns me with him--I'm not an evangelical, but if I was, I'd sure feel like he had me in his sights because of it. Jenhawk777 ( talk) 21:55, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

@ Andrewa: So telling me to be careful was good advice. I was shocked by the edit war warning because I hadn't been on that page in so long and thought that mattered. I think that shock was probably apparent. But we did indeed have a previous disagreement over two sentences and where they belonged. It apparently makes no difference how long it's been. Now I know.

You know, I hope, how much it helped me not to do anything precipitate just to have you to come and talk to about it. I really was in shock at first. It helped me slow down and think it all through. I have since gone back and tried communicating better with him. If you would read my last comment here [ [5]] I think it would really help.

I want to be reasonable and cooperative--and gentle and not hold on to bad feelings--but I don't want to be bullied either. It's kind of a razor's edge, I know, and if the right thing to do is go away and let him have his way, then that's what I will do. I am putting up my GA article for FA mentoring and it is taking a good bit of time--meaning I have other things I can do. I can let "Women..." go. If I need to. I do see that just because I think something doesn't make it so. If you could tell me what you think, it would help.

Thank you for being there and for listening and for being kind. Thank you for being willing to help and for giving good advice--and just everything. Thank you. Jenhawk777 ( talk) 20:23, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

That link you give If you would read my last comment here [6] opens as an edit (and doesn't need the second square bracket, note I've omitted it), I guess you meant it to be a diff such as this one. Have a look at how I've done those! The double brackets are for wikilinks, the single ones for full URLs, so if I used the URL instead of the wikilink above it would be diff for much the same result (ignore the fact that it's a redirect!). For diffs and permalinks I find it's easiest to use the URL, but for most other links within WIkipedia a wikilink is easiest. But there are lots of options!

My reaction so far is that Jytdog has a religious POV of their own, and is pushing it probably without realising it. It seems ironical when you first run across it, but for example atheists and agnostics generally deny that they have a POV or even a religion, as they regard their own beliefs as simply truthful and therefore not religious. (We should note however that Thomas Huxley, the inventor of Agnosticism, called it a religion.) In this regard, their beliefs are (ironically) similar to the worst religious bigots... my fave quote from Readers' Digest goes "The difference between a prejudice and a conviction is, you can explain a conviction without getting mad". It's not an infallible test but a pretty good one.

I can't remember whether I've referred you to my off-Wikipedia essays on judgement and how to reveal yourself without really trying. You might find them interesting.

I think that it would be good for Jytdog to be somehow reminded that baseless warning notices are disruptive, but I think that for me to do that would just pointlessly escalate things, and I certainly won't do it without your permission anyway. My suggestion for the moment is to take Christ's advice and love our enemies as well as our friends. Part of the beauty of that is, we don't even need to decide which is which, and that's especially helpful with people who are somewhere in the middle, as I think is the case here. It does mean getting walked on sometimes, which is what happened to Jesus, and the prophets before him, and I guess we have the same opportunity! Andrewa ( talk) 00:41, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

A specific edit

I think this is the edit war warning under discussion. It's a worry on several grounds.

Wikipedia:Edit warring#What to do if you see edit-warring behavior reads in part Avoid posting a generic warning template if actively involved in the edit war; it can be seen as aggressive. Consider writing your own note to the user specifically appropriate for the situation, with a view to explicitly cooling things down. This edit violates the spirit of that while perhaps avoiding the letter. It looks like template:Uw-ew or a variant of it, but isn't as far as I can see (it may have been subst:ed from one I missed, in which case the edit violates the letter of the policy as well).

Wikipedia:Edit warring#Administrator guidance reads in part Administrators decide whether to issue a warning or block.... Whether that implies that a non-admin is also authorised to issue such a warning could be argued I guess, but it seems commonsense to me that they should not, particularly if involved, and that's my reading of the policy. (In fact if an involved admin issued such a notice, I think that might even be a case for de-sysoping.)

It seems to me that a far milder and less official-looking reference to edit warring is what the policy recommends and authorises as your own note to the user specifically appropriate for the situation, with a view to explicitly cooling things down. This edit is a very poor attempt at that at best. Andrewa ( talk) 02:47, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that's the first edit. I am glad to hear Jytdog's approach is not Wikipedia policy. We weren't "actively involved" in an edit war. I hadn't been on that page in over a month. In that time, I had actually gone to his talkpage three times to request he work on 'Women' because when I left--he left. I admit I am invested in seeing the article completed and polished up--if he's the one to do that, that's okay, better he do it than it not get done at all. He was too busy, he said. Then I decide to stop waiting on him, and went back to work on it. The day I post something--he shows up, not too busy to stop me--he reverts everything and I get that edit war warning.

After a bit, I realized two of the sentences--out of the paragraphs I worked on--were sentences we did have a previous disagreement about--hence the edit war warning. Jytdog never forgets opposition is my guess. That is his normal approach though--follow his talk page and see how often--he reverts and edit war warns so that without formally blocking you--you are blocked. He reverted everything I wrote that day--not just those two sentences--even the changes he had asked for in the lead. And there was nothing I could do about it.

I agree with all you have said here. You and I both see Jytdog's blind spots, and we both recognize that the nature of blind spots is that he does not. And while it is perhaps ego satisfying to tell myself I'm right after all--it's useless in any practical way. I agree wholeheartedly with love your enemy, but it is not my place to attempt to be someone else's Holy Spirit--it is not my place to try to make him see--I don't have the power to heal blindness.

So I am attempting to focus on the practical. I want to work without him repeatedly interfering. That's why I asked you to go to my talk page, if you would, and read the discussion from today. I am attempting to be logical and fair and calm. I want to know if you see the contradictions I see--and now I have prompted you--but I need to know if I have any recourse--practically speaking. I can put this out there to the community, I can try an RFC--the last time Jytdog and I had one of these inflexible, unreasoning disagreements, I did an RFC and the vote was unanimously in support of my view. Boy did that piss him off. It is not my goal to publicly humiliate him and I would rather not do that again if a more private solution can be found. It is my goal to simply be able to work without interference--to avoid conflicts wherever possible. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

It's not that I am averse to bending the knee or giving in to him as a principle or anything. I have dealt with this much of my life Andrew. I grew up abused and bullied. For a time I fought everything and everyone--then I did the opposite approach, thinking that if I gave in, allowed myself to be walked on, and apologized even when things were not my responsibility, that would make things better--then I finally figured out there was no single approach, that each situation has to be evaluated separately: sometimes carrying the cross is the way, I agree, but sometimes a Pharisee needs to be told they're a white-washed tomb.

I don't blame anyone for being afraid of Jytdog. He wields the tools of this place, for his own ends, like a sword and shield. He's formidable. This is the third time I have seen Jytdog roar and everyone around me scatter. Unfortunately, he goes where I go on a seemingly regular basis--this is the third page where he has shown up after me and done these same things. There doesn't seem to be anyplace for me to go. I'm it. Our good Lord has dumped this in my lap--and it seems like maybe yours as well--because you are the only admin I can think of who might have the inner strength to stand up to him--and who might care enough about what's right to do so. But not yet. Read the dialogue beginning here [7]. Give me your frank feedback. Should I try an RFC again? What is the most pragmatic approach to the Wikipedia issues--personalities aside? I am not asking you to fight my fights--just to be available to fight an admin's fights when it becomes clear--to you--that's what it is. Thank you. Jenhawk777 ( talk) 04:00, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

The warning was posted after this edit, so I don't understand your objection to the timing. You had returned to the page after a break. In their opinion, you'd re-done changes that had been previously disputed. If that is the case, then that would be starting or resuming an edit war, and would warrant a warning... but perhaps not the one that was given. Your correct course of action was to suggest the changes on the talk page, and only make them after consensus was achieved there. If no consensus seems possible, then escalate it as a content dispute.

So, would you like to do that? Pick a small change that you think is well sourced and well justified in every other respect, and suggest it on the article talk page, pinging Jytdog. If there is no response but they've been making other edits, then make the change, exactly as you have foreshadowed. And wait a while and see what happens. If on the other hand they dispute the suggested change, that can be escalated as a content dispute, and either you'll be supported and they'll have learned something or not and you will have. And either way, we move on. Andrewa ( talk) 07:42, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Looking over this again, your original request at #Help was for Adminstrator's oversight. As an admin I can certainly caution or block Jytdog if they are hounding you, but we haven't established that either way. They have been IMO clumsy and arrogant in the edit warring warning, but nobody is perfect and the heart of the matter is a content dispute. I think it should be addressed as that, at this stage. See wp:creed#14 in particular. Andrewa ( talk) 14:38, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, my original request was for an Admin's oversight--of me as much as him--because I am still ignorant enough of proper Wiki ways that I can go stumbling into something and cause a problem without knowing. That seems to be the case here. I needed what you said because I would not have figured that out without your comments. I thought being gone for over a month was more significant that it turns out it actually is. I thought no editing for awhile meant I was starting back from a clean slate. I think I also took his disinterest as meaning more than it apparently did. I didn't ping him on the talkpage and ask him ahead of time because I had already asked him three times and he had said no. Andrew, I would still be just as confused as I was that day if not for you. Jytdog never explains anything, and I did not know this stuff. You people who have been here a long time take your knowledge for granted--everyone knows what I know--but that's just not true.

I do not want to escalate anything. I want to find some resolution--if possible. The heart of the matter is a content dispute in my mind, but he sees it differently. It is my "evangelical" pov that is the issue for him. I am quite willing to let the two sentences go, but our content dispute goes way beyond those two sentences--and it is the same dispute we have had on multiple pages.

He stated two things he says prove my pov is too evangellical and that's why he interdicts me repeatedly. I don't know why you have tended to bring sources from the evangelical perspective so predominantly nor why content you have generated about biblical matters has been thematized by contemporary evengelical issues, and I have avoided speculating about why. But you have consistently done this, and I have consistently pointed it out. It is problematic. You have improved on that sourcing, but as I demonstrated in the sources section on the women in the bible talk page there is still this big lump of sourcing that is solidly in that bucket, used in a bunch of weird places.

   as long as you keep doing these two things, we will keep bumping heads. 

Letting go of the false disclaimer that he has not speculated why and moving on... He posted all my sources on the talk page and divvied them up himself--there are 53 and he found 9 he thought were "questionable." So is 9 out of 53 predominantly anything? He doesn't acknowledge or respond to me pointing out the numbers don't support his statement.

The thematized by contemporary evangelical issues bit turns out to be about how we structure our articles. He likes things in separate sections. I like to go topically and include all points of view in each topic. His response was Yes theological intepretations have a place. A place. Not woven throughout. It impossible to weave all of them throughout; which is why they all need to be handled in a separate "history of theological interpretation" section Why is it impossible? I was doing it. Jytdog's method and structure are his--not Wikipedia's. The fact I structure things topically and include sociology and history and theology and so on, with each topic, instead of putting all the sociological views in one section and leaving people to figure out for themselves what applies where--does not prove anything about my point of view. If something is written from a neutral point of view, what difference does it make if it is in a separate section or throughout the article on each topic? So I asked that--and now he has stopped talking altogether. That's how it has gone so far on each of these differences he and I have had. I ask for explanation--that he make his case for his position, that I am willing to change my mind and do things his way if he can make a reasonable case for why it's better--then he stops responding.

I don't want to escalate, but this will continue, I am confidant. Just because I am different than he doesn't prove me wrong though. I don't do things his way. Do I have to? Do I have any recourse? Or should I just let this article go and move on? Jenhawk777 ( talk) 16:08, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Let me take that in for a little bit. It's 2:15am here and I'm going back to bed. Hang in there. Andrewa ( talk) 16:17, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Holy Toledo! It's noon here. Go to bed!  :-) Sleep well and have sweet dreams and don't think about any of this! Later, Jenhawk777 ( talk) 16:37, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

We have 97 participants.

Getting faster

Automation makes things go faster, even portal creation. One of the components Certes made was {{ Transclude list item excerpt}}. I became curious about its possible applications.

So I worked out a portal design using it, the initial prototypes being Portal:Kyoto (without a "Selected pictures" section), and Portal:Dubai (with a "Selected pictures" section). Then I used Portal:Dubai as the basis for further portals of this type...

I was able to revamp Portal:Munich from start to finish in less than 22 minutes.

Portal:Dresden took about 19 minutes.

Portal:Athens took less than 17 minutes.

Did Portal:Florence in about 13 minutes.

Portal:Stockholm also in about 13.

Portal:Palermo approx. 12 minutes.

Why?

To see, and to show, what may become feasible via automation.

It now looks highly feasible that we could get portal construction time down to a few minutes, or maybe even down to a few seconds.

The singularity is just around the corner. :)

Slideshows

When using the {{ Random slideshow}} template to display pictures, be sure to use the plural tense in the section title: "Selected pictures". That's because slideshows don't show up on many mobile devices. Instead the whole set of pictures is shown, hence the section title "Selected pictures", as it fits both situations.

In case you are curious, here is a list of the portals so far that have a slideshow:

Progress on intro conversions

The intros for most of the portals up through the letter "O" have been converted, using this wikicode:

{{/box-header|Introduction|noedit=yes|}}
{{Transclude lead excerpt | {{PAGENAME}} | paragraphs=1-2 | files=1}}
{{Box-footer|[[{{PAGENAME}}|Read more...]]}}

Where the pagename didn't match the article title for the subject, the title was typed in.

Most of the portals that do not contain {{/intro}} or {{{{FULLPGENAME}}/Intro}} have not yet been processed.

About a thousand portals use the method of selective transclusion for the intro section. That's about two-thirds. That means we have one-third of the way to go on the intro section conversions.

Much more to come...

So much has been happening with portals that I can't keep up with it. (That's good). Which means, more in the upcoming issue. Until then, see ya 'round the project. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   08:43, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

I got overwhelmed IRL (in real life) during the production of issue #12. So, here is a catch-up issue, to help bring you (and me) up to speed on what is happening with portals...

By the way, we still have 97 participants. (Tell all your friends about this WikiProject, and have them join!)

Panoramas!

One cool feature of some of the geographical portals is a panoramic picture at the top of the intro section.

Check these out:

• Portal:Kyoto
• Portal:Miami
• Portal:Seattle
• Portal:Houston
• Portal:Tokyo
• Portal:New Orleans
• Portal:Brisbane
• Portal:Calgary
• Portal:Moscow

The Portals WikiGnome squadron is busy adding panoramas to geographical portals that don't yet have one. Feel free to join in on the fun. See task details at Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Add a panorama or skyline to a geographic portal.

Caveat: avoid super-huge pics, as they can cause portal scripts to time-out. Please try to keep picture size down below 2 megabytes. Thank you.

Auto-populated slideshows

Speaking of pictures...

We now have two slideshow templates. You may be familiar with {{ Random slideshow}}, in which the editor types in (or copies/pastes) a list of pictures he or she wants it to display.

Well, now we have another template, courtesy of Evad37, which accepts one or more page names instead, and displays a random image off of the listed pages. So instead of listing dozens of files by hand, you can include a title or three to be scanned automatically. It even lets you specify particular sections.

The new slideshow template is {{ Transclude files as random slideshow}}.

Here's a sample, that grabs images from a single page:

New Template:Box-header colour

Speaking of new templates, here's another one!

Also from Evad37, we have a new component for starting section boxes, that is color configurable, and that bypasses the need for box-header subpages altogether. It is {{ Box-header colour}}.

For color support, see Web colors.

For the discussion in which this was inspired, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Tasks#Colour combinations for accessibility.

(In case you didn't notice, the slideshow box above uses this new template).

BTW, don't forget to close your box with {{ Box-footer}}.

Where are we on the redesign?

The answer to this question is quite involved, and would fill this page to overflowing. Therefore, this subject, including a complete update on where we are at and where we are going with portal design, is covered at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design.

Where are we on portal conversion?

An AWB pass to convert intros on the portals has been completed. The pass couldn't convert them all (due to various formatting configurations, etc.).

All but about 170 portals now have introductions selectively transcluded on the base page. Not counting manually maintained portals, that leaves about 70 portals that either need their intros converted, or they need an intro.

Next, we'll be converting the categories sections!

What's the plan, man?

The course of action we have been taking goes something like this, with all steps being pursued simultaeneously...

1) Design a one-page automated portal model

2) Convert existing portals to that design (except those being manually maintained)

3) Remove subpages no longer needed

4) Develop further tools to empower editors working on portals

Later, when the tools are up to the task, filling in the gaps in coverage (with new portals) will also become practical.

Are we caught up yet?

Probably not.

Who knows what our programmers and editors have dreamed up while I was writing this.

See ya again soon,    — The Transhumanist   11:04, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Development of design continues, full speed ahead...

Excerpt slideshows are here!

Can you say " paradigm shift"?

Now, in addition to picture slideshows, we have slideshows that can display excerpts. Portals are not just for topic tasting anymore. Now they can be made useful for surveying Wikipedia's coverage of entire subjects. This gives a deeper meaning to their name. Hmmm. "Portals"... Doorways to knowledge.

Portal:Lithuania was redesigned using excerpt slideshows. Check it out.

For those of you who cannot wait to test out these new toys...

We have not one, but three excerpt slideshow components to pick from:

{{ Transclude excerpts as random slideshow}}

For this one, you specify the page names where the excerpts are to be extracted from.

{{ Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow}}

This one accepts source pages from where the page names are gathered from list items. Then an excerpt from one of those pages is displayed. The selection of what is included in the slide show can be limited to a specific number from the collection (of the page names gathered), and that selection is renewed from scratch each time the page is purged.

For example, if you specify Template:World Heritage Sites in Spain as a source page, the slideshow will cycle through those sites. Now you don't have to type them in one-by-one. This greatly reduces portal creation time.

{{ Transclude linked excerpts as random slideshow}}

Same as above, but gathers links instead of just linked list items.

Panoramic banners

{{ Portal image banner}} displays a panoramic picture the width of the page, and adjusts its size, so it stays that way even if the user changes page view size. And it accepts multiple file names, so that the picture displayed randomizes between them each time the page is visited/purged.

Give resizing the page a try:

You can now balance section boxes

Before:

After:

Notice how the box bottoms line up. That readjusts even if you click the slideshow buttons.

The template used for this is {{ Flex columns}}.

By the way, when you include more than one box in a column, any left over whitespace in that column is divided between them.

Box-header colour

You may have noticed the new {{ Box-header colour}} template used above. It lets you pick the color locally (right on the same page). Before, this was handled on a subpage somewhere.

Testing, testing

Now that we have lots of toys to play with for making cool portals...

Don't forget, that the majority of views of Wikipedia these days are from mobile devices. We need to make certain that portals display well on those. So, remember to check your work on portals in mobile view mode...

To see a portal in mobile view mode, insert a ".m" into a portal's url, after "en", like this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Reptile

If you discover problems in a portal you can't fix, report them on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design.

Until next time...

Have fun.    — The Transhumanist   00:55, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a Move review of Indian Army operations in Jammu and Kashmir. Because you closed the move discussion for this page, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the move review. Sumit Singh ^T 11:18, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Now that we have lots of toys to play with, it's play time!

Here are some fun activities to use our new toys on...

Fun activity #1: put the improved panorama template to use

Would you like to travel around the world? Well, this may be the next best thing...

Here's another fun toy to play with: {{ Portal image banner}}

To see what it looks like, check out the panoramas at the tops of the following portals:

• Portal:India
• Portal:Melbourne
• Portal:Perth
• Portal:Monaco
• Portal:South Sudan
• Portal:Thiruvananthapuram
• Portal:Lithuania
• Portal:Brisbane
• Portal:Abu Dhabi
• Portal:Athens
• Portal:Barcelona
• Portal:Calgary
• Portal:Dhaka
• Portal:Dresden
• Portal:Edinburgh
• Portal:Florence
• Portal:Houston
• Portal:Miami
• Portal:Milan
• Portal:Moscow
• Portal:Munich
• Portal:Seattle
• Portal:Stockholm
• Portal:Turin
• Portal:Bermuda

The task: There are many geography portals that lack panoramas. Please add some. Please keep the file size down below 2 megabytes, and keep in mind that you may find quality banners at commons: at less than 200K (.2 megabytes). Good search terms to include with the place name are "banner", "cityscape", "skyline", "panorama", "landscape", etc.

Related task: There are also lots of geography portals that have panoramas used as gaudy banners (with print or icons splattered across them) or that display them in some random location on the page. In many cases, those pages would be improved by displaying the panorama as a clean picture at the top of the intro section, like on the examples above. This works best with banner-like panoramas. Please fix such pages when you come across them, if you believe it would improve the look of the page.

Taller images might be better suited displayed further down the page, or in the "Selected images" section.

Note that {{ Portal image banner}} supports multiple images, and displays one at random upon the first visit, and each time the page is purged.

Fun activity #2: install "Selected images" sections

That is, image slideshows!

Over 200 have been installed so far. Just 1200 to go. (Be sure not to install them on portals with active maintainers, unless they want you to).

The title "Selected images" reflects the fact that not all images on Wikipedia are pictures, and encompasses maps, graphs, diagrams, sketches, paintings, pictures, and so on.

The toys we have to work with for this are:

{{ Random slideshow}}

and

{{ Transclude files as random slideshow}}

The task: Using one of the above templates directly on a portal's base page, replace static "Selected picture" sections, with a section like one of these:

The one on the left uses {{ Random slideshow}} (which accepts file names), and the one on the right uses {{ Transclude files as random slideshow}} (which accepts source pages from which the filenames are gathered).

The above section formatting is used on many of the pages you will come across, but not all. In those cases, use whatever section formatting matches the rest of the page.

Note that you may come across "Selected picture" sections done with {{ Random portal component}} templates. That template call is the entire section. Replace it with a section that matches the other sections on the page, and put the new slideshow inside that.

For example, in Portal:California, this code:

{{Random portal component|max=21|seed=27|header=Selected picture|subpage=Selected picture}}

was replaced with this code:

{{/box-header|Selected images|noedit=yes}}
{{Transclude files as random slideshow
| {{PAGENAME}}
| Culture of {{PAGENAME}}
}}
{{Box-footer}}

And the new section blended right in with the formatting of the rest of the page. Note the use of the {{PAGENAME}} magic word. Plain article titles also work. Don't feel limited to one or two page names. But be sure to test each slideshow before installing the next one. (Or if you prefer, in batches - just don't leave them hanging). Report technical problems at the Portal design talk page.

Fun activity #3: upgrade "Selected article" sections

These sections, where unmaintained, have gone stale. That's because 1) the excerpts are static, having been manually copied and pasted, and 2) because they lack automatic addition of new entries.

They can be upgraded with:

{{ Transclude random excerpt}}

or

{{ Transclude list item excerpt}}

or

{{ Transclude linked excerpt}}

All three of these will provide excerpts that won't go stale. The latter two can provide excerpt collections that won't go stale, by providing new entries over time. The key is to select source pages or source sections that are frequently updated, such as root article sections, mainstream lists, or navigation templates.

Where will this put us?

When the above tasks are completed for the entire collection of portals (except the ones with specific maintainers), we'll be more than half-way done with the portal system upgrade.

Keep up the great work.    — The Transhumanist   19:07, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

This may be of interest: Wikipedia:Village pump (idea_lab)#Draft RfC on upper/lower-case for standardized breeds. I've had your input in mind in particular.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:01, 2 August 2018 (UTC)