This page 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.
A
request for comment is in progress to determine whether the
administrator policy should be amended to require disclosure of paid editing activity at
WP:RFA and to prohibit the use of administrative tools as part of paid editing activity, with certain exceptions.
Thanks for uploading File:JARSspring2009cover.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).
An RfC
has closed with a consensus that candidates at
WP:RFA must disclose whether they have ever edited for pay and that administrators may never use administrative tools as part of any paid editing activity, except when they are acting as a
Wikipedian-in-Residence or when the payment is made by the Wikimedia Foundation or an affiliate of the WMF.
Editors
responding to threats of harm can now contact the Wikimedia Foundation's emergency address by using
Special:EmailUser/Emergency. If you don't have email enabled on Wikipedia, directly contacting the emergency address using your own email client remains an option.
Technical news
A
tagwill now be automatically applied to edits that blank a page, turn a page into a redirect, remove/replace almost all content in a page, undo an edit, or rollback an edit. These edits were previously denoted solely by
automatic edit summaries.
Arbitration
The Arbitration Committee
has enacted a change to the
discretionary sanctions procedure which requires administrators to add a
standardizededitnotice when placing page restrictions. Editors cannot be sanctioned for violations of page restrictions if this editnotice was not in place at the time of the violation.
Community ban discussions
must now stay open for at least 24 hours prior to being closed.
A change to the administrator inactivity policy
has been proposed. Under the proposal, if an administrator has not used their admin tools for a period of five years and is subsequently desysopped for inactivity, the administrator would have to file a new RfA in order to regain the tools.
A change to the banning policy
has been proposed which would specify conditions under which a repeat sockmaster may be considered de facto banned, reducing the need to start a community ban discussion for these users.
Technical news
CheckUsers
are now able to view private data such as IP addresses from the
edit filter log, e.g. when the filter prevents a user from creating an account. Previously, this information was unavailable to CheckUsers because access to it could not be logged.
The edit filter has
a new featurecontains_all that edit filter managers may use to check if one or more strings are all contained in another given string.
Bhadani (Gangadhar Bhadani) passed away on 8 February 2018. Bhadani joined Wikipedia in March 2005 and became an administrator in September 2005. While he was active, Bhadani was regarded as one of the most prolific Wikipedians from India.
Administrators who have been desysopped due to inactivity
are now required to have performed at least one (logged) administrative action in the past 5 years in order to qualify for a resysop without going through a new RfA.
Editors who have been found to have engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block, for whatever reason, are
now automatically considered banned by the community without the need to start a ban discussion.
There will soon be a
calendar widget at
Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.
Arbitration
The Arbitration Committee
is considering a change to the discretionary sanctions procedures which would require an editor to appeal a sanction to the community at
WP:AE or
WP:AN prior to appealing directly to the Arbitration Committee at
WP:ARCA.
Miscellaneous
A
discussion has closed which concluded that administrators are not required to
enable email, though many editors suggested doing so as a matter of best practice.
The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team has released the
Interaction Timeline. This shows a chronologic history for two users on pages where they have both made edits, which may be helpful in identifying sockpuppetry and investigating editing disputes.
Thank you for the novel that "was the first bestseller for Ayn Rand, a writer who still generates controversy (and sales) over 35 years after her death. Some readers find it inspirational and life-changing, while others think it is poorly written and immoral. It's about an architect, but it also has kinky sex, satires of other writers, critiques of the New Deal, and an explosion." --
Gerda Arendt (
talk) 10:00, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
The original closer
ACTRIAL → ACREQ: Please see
T192455•
Tthe ticket. This risks becoming the same fiasco as Bugzilla 2011.
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (
talk) 12:20, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
A
proposal is being discussed which would create a new "event coordinator" right that would allow users to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit.
Technical news
AbuseFilter has received numerous improvements, including an
OOUI overhaul,
syntax highlighting, ability to
search existing filters, and a few new functions. In particular, the search feature can be used to ensure there aren't existing filters for what you need, and the new equals_to_any function can be used when checking multiple namespaces. One major upcoming change is the ability to
see which filters are the slowest. This information is currently only available to those with access to
Logstash.
When blocking anonymous users, a
cookie will be applied that reloads the block if the user changes their IP. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. This currently only
occurs when hard-blocking accounts.
The block notice shown on mobile will soon
be more informative and point users to a
help page on how to request an unblock, just as it currently does on
desktop.
There will soon be a
calendar widget at
Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.
Lankiveil (Craig Franklin) passed away in mid-April. Lankiveil joined Wikipedia on 12 August 2004 and became an administrator on 31 August 2008. During his time with the Wikimedia community, Lankiveil served as an oversighter for the English Wikipedia and as president of Wikimedia Australia.
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article
The Unconquered (1940 play) you nominated for
GA-status according to the
criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by
Legobot, on behalf of
J Milburn --
J Milburn (
talk) 16:41, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
Following a
successful request for comment, administrators are now able to add and remove editors to the
"event coordinator" group. Users in the event coordinator group have the ability to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit. Users will no longer need to be in the
"account creator" group if they are in the event coordinator group.
IP-based
cookie blocks should be
deployed to English Wikipedia in June. This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.
The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team will build
granular types of blocks in 2018 (e.g. a block from uploading or editing specific pages, categories, or namespaces, as opposed to a full-site block). Feedback on the concept may be left at
the talk page.
It is
now easier for blocked mobile users to see why they were blocked.
Arbitration
A
recent technical issue with the Arbitration Committee's spam filter inadvertently caused all messages sent to the committee through Wikipedia (i.e.
Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee) to be discarded. If you attempted to send an email to the Arbitration Committee via Wikipedia between May 16 and May 31, your message was not received and you are encouraged to resend it. Messages sent outside of these dates or directly to the Arbitration Committee email address were not affected by this issue.
Pbsouthwood has just gotten through the grueling RfA process to become a Wikipedia administrator. Be sure to congratulate him.
The reason he went for it was: "For some time I expect to be busy with subpage deletion for Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals as mentioned above. The amount of work is expected to keep me busy for some time. I am primarly a content creator and contributor to policy discussions, but would be willing to consider other admin work on request, providing that I feel that my involvement would be appropriate and not too far outside my comfort zone."
New feature: Picture slideshow
Picture slideshow
Image 1State Capitol Building
Image 2Pocket Sacramento Canal
Image 3Tower Bridge
Image 4Old Town Sacramento, the capital as it looked like in 19th century
Image 5Capitol Mall, seen from the Capitol
Image 6Sacramento Memorial Auditorium
Image 7Sacramento from near the Sacramento River
Image 8US Bank Tower
Evad37 has figured out a way to let the user flip through pictures without purging the page. Purging is awkward because there is an intermediary confirmation screen that you have to click on "yes". In the new picture slideshow section, all you have to do is click on the > to go to the next picture or < to instantly show the previous feature. The feature also shuffles the pictures when the page is initiated, so that they are shown in a different order each time the user visits the page (or purges it).
We now have a one-page portal design. It isn't fully automated, nor is it even fully semi-automated, as there are still some manually filled-in areas. But it no longer requires any subpages in portal space, and that is a huge improvement. For example,
Portal:Sacramento, California utilizes the one-page design concept. While is employs heavy use of templates, it does not have any subpages of its own.
I commend you for your teamwork
This is the most cooperative team I've ever seen. With a strong spirit of working together to get an important job done. Kudos to you.
In conclusion...
There's more. A lot more. But it will have to wait until next issue, but you don't have to wait. See what's going on at the
WikiProject's talk page. — The Transhumanist 02:10, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
The horse (Equus ferus caballus) is a
domesticated,
one-toed,
hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family
Equidae and is one of two
extantsubspecies of
Equus ferus. The horse has
evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, close to Eohippus, into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began domesticating horses around 4000
BCE, and their
domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BCE. Horses in the subspecies caballus are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as
feral horses. These feral populations are not true
wild horses, which are horses that never have been domesticated and historically linked to the megafauna category of species. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from
anatomy to life stages, size,
colors,
markings,
breeds,
locomotion, and behavior.
Horses are
adapted to run, allowing them to quickly escape predators, and possess an good
sense of balance and a strong
fight-or-flight response. Related to this need to flee from predators in the wild is an unusual trait: horses are able to sleep both standing up and lying down, with younger horses tending to sleep significantly more than adults. Female horses, called
mares, carry their young for approximately 11 months and a young horse, called a
foal, can stand and run shortly following birth. Most domesticated horses begin training under a
saddle or in a
harness between the ages of two and four. They reach full adult development by age five, and have an average lifespan of between 25 and 30 years.
Horse breeds are loosely divided into three categories based on general temperament: spirited "hot bloods" with speed and endurance; "cold bloods", such as
draft horses and some
ponies, suitable for slow, heavy work; and "
warmbloods", developed from crosses between hot bloods and cold bloods, often focusing on creating breeds for specific riding purposes, particularly in Europe. There are more than 300 breeds of horse in the world today, developed for many different uses. (Full article...)
the domestic cat was the second most popular pet in the
United States, with 95.6 million cats owned and around 42 million households owning at least one cat. In the
United Kingdom, 26% of adults have a cat, with an estimated population of 10.9 million pet cats there were an estimated 220 million owned and 480 million stray cats in the world. (Full article...)
Image 3
The dog (Canis familiaris or Canis lupus familiaris) is a
domesticated descendant of the
wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is
derived from
extinct gray wolves, and the gray wolf is the dog's closest living relative. The dog was the first
species to be domesticated by
humans. Experts estimate that
hunter-gatherers domesticated dogs more than 15,000 years ago, which was before the
development of agriculture. Due to their long association with humans, dogs have expanded to a large number of domestic individuals and gained the ability to thrive on a
starch-rich diet that would be inadequate for other
canids.
A mouse (<abbr title=" '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000010-QINU`"' ">pl.: mice) is a small
rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common
house mouse (Mus musculus). Mice are also popular as
pets. In some places, certain kinds of
field mice are locally common. They are known to invade homes for food and shelter.
Mice are typically distinguished from
rats by their size. Generally, when a
muroid rodent is discovered, its
common name includes the term mouse if it is smaller, or rat if it is larger. The common terms rat and mouse are not
taxonomically specific. Typical mice are classified in the genus Mus, but the term mouse is not confined to members of Mus and can also apply to species from other genera such as the
deer mouse (Peromyscus).
Domestic mice sold as pets often differ substantially in size from the common house mouse. This is attributable to breeding and different conditions in the wild. The best-known strain of mouse is the white
lab mouse. It has more uniform traits that are appropriate to its use in research. (Full article...)
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!
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.
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 11:05, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
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.
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 13:33, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
RE: Orphaned non-free image File:Arno Dorian.png
Arno Dorian was changed into a redirect. I don't know what to do in this case. There is a list of Assassin's Creed characters, may I put the image there? Greetings.--Tajotep (
talk) 19:55, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
@
Tajotep: The best response I can give is maybe. The requirements for using non-free images on lists are relatively restrictive -- see
WP:NFLISTS for the details. Because the games include a number of characters based on historical people who have free images available, it may be harder to justify the use of a non-free image. However, the fact that he is the main protagonist in one of the games is a point in favor. If you want to pursue that option, you would need to update the image's fair use rationale to match the new use. I have no opinion on it myself; I just happened across the image an noticed that it was unused. If you are able to use it, you can remove the CSD tag. --
RL0919 (
talk) 20:30, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
An
RfC about the deletion of drafts closed with a consensus to change the wording of
WP:NMFD. Specifically, a draft that has been repeatedly resubmitted and declined at AfC without any substantial improvement may be deleted at
MfD if consensus determines that it is unlikely to ever meet the requirements for mainspace and it otherwise meets one of the
reasons for deletion outlined in the deletion policy.
A
request for comment closed with a consensus that the {{
promising draft}} template cannot be used to indefinitely prevent a
WP:G13 speedy deletion nomination.
Technical news
Starting on July 9, the WMF Security team, Trust & Safety, and the broader technical community will be seeking input on an
upcoming change that will
restrict editing of site-wide JavaScript and CSS to a new
technical administrators user group. Bureaucrats and stewards will be able to grant this right per a community-defined process. The intention is to reduce the number of accounts who can edit frontend code to those who actually need to, which in turn lessens the risk of malicious code being added that compromises the security and privacy of everyone who accesses Wikipedia. For more information, please review the
FAQ.
Syntax highlighting has been graduated from a Beta feature on the English Wikipedia. To enable this feature, click the highlighter icon () in your editing toolbar (or under the
hamburger menu in the
2017 wikitext editor). This feature can help prevent you from making mistakes when editing complex templates.
IP-based
cookie blocks should be
deployed to English Wikipedia in July (previously scheduled for June). This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.
Miscellaneous
Currently around 20% of admins have enabled
two-factor authentication, up from 17% a year ago. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider
doing so. Regardless if you use 2FA, please practice appropriate
account security by ensuring your password is
secure and unique to Wikimedia.
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:
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.
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.
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 12:32, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
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.
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:
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 08:46, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Hi, I'm RonBot, a script that checks new non-free file uploads. I have found that the subject image that you recently uploaded was more than 5% in excess of the Non-free content guideline size of 100,000 pixels. I have tagged the image for a standard reduction, which (for jpg/gif/png/svg files) normally happens within a day. Please check the reduced image, and make sure that the image is not excessively corrupted. Other files will be added to
Category:Wikipedia non-free file size reduction requests for manual processing. There is a full seven-day period before the original oversized image will be hidden; during that time you might want to consider editing the original image yourself (perhaps an initial crop to allow a smaller reduction or none at all). A formula for calculation the desired size can be found at
WP:Image resolution, along with instructions on how to tag the image in the rare cases that it requires an oversized image (typically about 0.2% of non-free uploads are tagged as necessarily oversized). Please contact the
bot owner if you have any questions, or you can ask them at
Wikipedia talk:Non-free content.
RonBot (
talk) 17:18, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
My bad...
I forgot to remove the manual portals before I ran this pass. I've gone through them and reverted those. Fortunately, it was limited only to the portals starting with T and some U's, and only affected four portals. Thank you for the heads up. — The Transhumanist 06:22, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
Stuff happens; thanks for the quick correction and update. --
RL0919 (
talk) 06:27, 18 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.
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.
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}}.
(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.
Thank you for the play, introduced: "The comedy, mystery, and shocking twist ending of The Bat made it one of the most successful plays of the 1920s; it ran on Broadway for over two years at a time when only big hits ran more than a few months. It was the bellwether of a genre of "old dark house" thrillers that were popular through the end of the decade. In the years since, imitation and parody have turned its thrills into clichés, but it has another legacy: a movie version of its masked villain provided inspiration for a masked hero, Batman."! --
Gerda Arendt (
talk) 06:17, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
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:
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.
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.
A caiman (/ˈkeɪmən/; also cayman as a variant spelling from
Taínokaimanadditional citation(s) needed) is an
alligatorid belonging to the
subfamilyCaimaninae, one of two primary lineages within the
Alligatoridaefamily, the other being
alligators. Caimans inhabit
Mexico and
Central and
South America from marshes and swamps to mangrove rivers and lakes. They have scaly skin and live a fairly nocturnal existence. They are relatively small-sized
crocodilians with an average maximum weight of 6 to 40 kg (13 to 88 lb) depending on species, with the exception of the
black caiman (Melanosuchus niger), which can grow more than 4 m (13 ft) in length and weigh in excess of 1,000 kg (2,200 Ib). The black caiman is the largest caiman species in the world and is found in the slow-moving rivers and lakes that surround the Amazon basin. The smallest species is the
Cuvier's dwarf caiman (Paleosuchus palpebrosus), which grows to 1.2 to 1.5 m (3.9 to 4.9 ft) long. There are six different species of caiman found throughout the watery jungle habitats of Central and Southern America. The average length for most of the other caiman species is about 2 to 2.5 m (6.6 to 8.2 ft) long. (Full article...)
Tortoises (/ˈtɔːr.təs.ɪz/) are
reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order
Testudines (
Latin for "tortoise"). Like other
turtles, tortoises have a
shell to protect from
predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, and like other members of the suborder
Cryptodira, they retract their necks and heads directly backward into the shell to protect them. (Full article...)
Image 7
Male gharial
The gharial (Gavialis gangeticus), also known as gavial or fish-eating crocodile, is a
crocodilian in the
familyGavialidae and among the longest of all living crocodilians. Mature females are 2.6 to 4.5 m (8 ft 6 in to 14 ft 9 in) long, and males 3 to 6 m (9 ft 10 in to 19 ft 8 in). Adult males have a distinct boss at the end of the snout, which resembles an earthenware pot known as a ghara, hence the name "gharial". The gharial is well adapted to catching fish because of its long, narrow snout and 110 sharp, interlocking teeth. (Full article...)
Amphisbaenia/æmfɪsˈbiːniə/ (called amphisbaenians or worm lizards) is a group of typically
legless lizards, comprising over 200 extant species. Amphisbaenians are characterized by their long bodies, the reduction or loss of the limbs, and rudimentary eyes. As many species have a pink body and scales arranged in rings, they have a superficial resemblance to
earthworms. While the genus Bipes retains forelimbs, all other genera are limbless. Phylogenetic studies suggest that they are nested within
Lacertoidea, closely related to the lizard family
Lacertidae. Amphisbaenians are widely distributed, occurring in North America, Europe, Africa, South America, Western Asia and the Caribbean. Most species are less than 6 inches (15 cm) long. (Full article...)
Turtles, or testudines, are
reptiles of the
orderTestudines, characterized by a special
shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the
Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and
Cryptodira (hidden necked turtles), which differ in the way the head retracts. There are 360 living and recently extinct
species of turtles, including land-dwelling
tortoises and freshwater
terrapins. They are found on most continents, some islands and, in the case of
sea turtles, much of the ocean. Like other
amniotes (reptiles,
birds, and
mammals) they breathe air and do not lay eggs underwater, although many species live in or around water. (Full article...)
Image 10
Snakes are elongated,
limbless,
carnivorousreptiles of the
suborderSerpentes (/sɜːrˈpɛntiːz/). Like all other
squamates, snakes are
ectothermic,
amniotevertebrates covered in overlapping
scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their
lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads (
cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional
lung. Some species retain a
pelvic girdle with a pair of
vestigial claws on either side of the
cloaca. Lizards have independently evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs at least twenty-five times via
convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of
legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, although this rule is not universal (see
Amphisbaenia,
Dibamidae, and
Pygopodidae). (Full article...)
Toad is a common name for certain
frogs, especially of the family
Bufonidae, that are characterized by dry, leathery skin, short legs, and large bumps covering the
parotoid glands.
A distinction between frogs and toads is not made in scientific
taxonomy, but is common in popular culture (
folk taxonomy), in which toads are associated with drier, rougher skin and more
terrestrial habitats. (Full article...)
Caecilians (/sɪˈsɪliən/;
New Latin for 'blind ones') are a group of limbless,
vermiform (worm-shaped) or serpentine (snake-shaped)
amphibians with small or sometimes nonexistent eyes. They mostly live hidden in soil or in streambeds, and this cryptic lifestyle renders caecilians among the least familiar amphibians. Modern caecilians live in the tropics of
South and
Central America,
Africa, and southern
Asia. Caecilians feed on small subterranean creatures such as
earthworms. The body is cylindrical and often darkly coloured, and the skull is bullet-shaped and strongly built. Caecilian heads have several unique adaptations, including fused cranial and jaw bones, a two-part system of jaw muscles, and a
chemosensory tentacle in front of the eye. The skin is slimy and bears ringlike markings or grooves and may contain scales.
Modern caecilians are a
clade, the
orderGymnophiona/ˌdʒɪmnəˈfaɪənə/ (or Apoda/ˈæpədə/), one of the three living amphibian groups alongside Anura (
frogs) and Urodela (
salamanders). Gymnophiona is a
crown group, encompassing all modern caecilians and all descendants of their last common ancestor. There are more than 220 living
species of caecilian classified in 10
families. Gymnophionomorpha is a recently coined name for the corresponding
total group which includes Gymnophiona as well as a few extinct
stem-group caecilians (extinct amphibians whose closest living relatives are caecilians but are not descended from any caecilian). Some palaeontologists have used the name Gymnophiona for the
total group and the old name Apoda for the crown group'. However, Apoda has other even older uses, including as the name of a genus of Butterfly making its use potentially confusing and best avoided. 'Gymnophiona' derives from the Greek words γυμνος / gymnos (
Ancient Greek for 'naked') and οφις / ophis (
Ancient Greek for 'snake'), as the caecilians were originally thought to be related to snakes and to lack scales.
The study of caecilian evolution is complicated by their poor fossil record and specialized anatomy. Genetic evidence and some anatomical details (such as
pedicellate teeth) support the idea that frogs, salamanders, and caecilians (collectively known as
lissamphibians) are each others' closest relatives. Frogs and salamanders show many similarities to
dissorophoids, a group of extinct amphibians in the order
Temnospondyli. Caecilians are more controversial; many studies extend dissorophoid ancestry to caecilians. Some studies have instead argued that caecilians descend from extinct
lepospondyl or
stereospondyl amphibians, contradicting evidence for lissamphibian
monophyly (common ancestry). Rare fossils of early gymnophionans such as Eocaecilia and Funcusvermis have helped to test the various conflicting hypotheses for the relationships between caecilians and other living and extinct amphibians. ('Full article...)
Salamanders are a group of
amphibians typically characterized by their
lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All ten extant salamander families are grouped together under the
orderUrodela from the group
Caudata. Salamander diversity is highest in eastern
North America, especially in the
Appalachian Mountains; most
species are found in the
Holarctic realm, with some species present in the
Neotropical realm.
Salamanders never have more than four toes on their front legs and five on their rear legs, but some species have fewer digits and others lack hind limbs. Their permeable skin usually makes them reliant on habitats in or near water or other cool, damp places. Some salamander species are fully aquatic throughout their lives, some take to the water intermittently, and others are entirely terrestrial as adults.
This group of amphibians is capable of
regenerating lost limbs as well as other damaged parts of their bodies. Researchers hope to reverse engineer the regenerative processes for potential human medical applications, such as brain and spinal cord injury treatment or preventing harmful scarring during heart surgery recovery. The remarkable ability of salamanders to regenerate is not just limited to limbs but extends to vital organs such as the heart, jaw, and parts of the spinal cord, showing their uniqueness compared to different types of vertebrates. This ability is most remarkable for occurring without any type of scarring. This has made salamanders an invaluable model organism in scientific research aimed at understanding and achieving regenerative processes for medical advancements in human and animal biology. (Full article...)
Image 4
Various types of frog
A frog is any member of a diverse and largely
carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless
amphibians composing the
orderAnura (ἀνούρα, literally without tail in
Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" Triadobatrachus is known from the
Early Triassic of
Madagascar, but
molecular clock dating suggests their split from other amphibians may extend further back to the
Permian, 265
million years ago. Frogs are widely distributed, ranging from the
tropics to
subarctic regions, but the greatest concentration of
species diversity is in
tropical rainforest. Frogs account for around 88% of extant amphibian species. They are also one of the five most diverse
vertebrate orders. Warty frog species tend to be called
toads, but the distinction between frogs and toads is informal, not from
taxonomy or evolutionary history.
An adult frog has a stout body, protruding
eyes, anteriorly-attached
tongue, limbs folded underneath, and no
tail (the tail of
tailed frogs is an extension of the male cloaca). Frogs have
glandular skin, with secretions ranging from distasteful to toxic. Their skin varies in colour from well-
camouflaged dappled brown, grey and green to vivid patterns of bright red or yellow and black to show toxicity and
ward off predators. Adult frogs live in fresh water and on dry land; some species are adapted for living underground or in trees.
Frogs typically lay their
eggs in water. The eggs hatch into aquatic
larvae called
tadpoles that have tails and internal
gills. They have highly specialized rasping mouth parts suitable for
herbivorous,
omnivorous or
planktivorous diets. The
life cycle is completed when they
metamorphose into adults. A few species deposit eggs on land or bypass the tadpole stage. Adult frogs generally have a carnivorous diet consisting of small
invertebrates, but omnivorous species exist and a few feed on plant matter. Frog skin has a rich
microbiome which is important to their health. Frogs are extremely efficient at converting what they eat into body mass. They are an important food source for
predators and part of the
food web dynamics of many of the world's
ecosystems. The skin is
semi-permeable, making them susceptible to dehydration, so they either live in moist places or have special adaptations to deal with dry habitats. Frogs produce a wide range of
vocalizations, particularly in their
breeding season, and exhibit many different kinds of complex
behaviors to attract mates, to fend off predators and to generally survive. (Full article...)
Turtles, or testudines, are
reptiles of the
orderTestudines, characterized by a special
shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the
Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and
Cryptodira (hidden necked turtles), which differ in the way the head retracts. There are 360 living and recently extinct
species of turtles, including land-dwelling
tortoises and freshwater
terrapins. They are found on most continents, some islands and, in the case of
sea turtles, much of the ocean. Like other
amniotes (reptiles,
birds, and
mammals) they breathe air and do not lay eggs underwater, although many species live in or around water. (Full article...)
The gharial (Gavialis gangeticus), also known as gavial or fish-eating crocodile, is a
crocodilian in the
familyGavialidae and among the longest of all living crocodilians. Mature females are 2.6 to 4.5 m (8 ft 6 in to 14 ft 9 in) long, and males 3 to 6 m (9 ft 10 in to 19 ft 8 in). Adult males have a distinct boss at the end of the snout, which resembles an earthenware pot known as a ghara, hence the name "gharial". The gharial is well adapted to catching fish because of its long, narrow snout and 110 sharp, interlocking teeth. (Full article...)
Amphisbaenia/æmfɪsˈbiːniə/ (called amphisbaenians or worm lizards) is a group of typically
legless lizards, comprising over 200 extant species. Amphisbaenians are characterized by their long bodies, the reduction or loss of the limbs, and rudimentary eyes. As many species have a pink body and scales arranged in rings, they have a superficial resemblance to
earthworms. While the genus Bipes retains forelimbs, all other genera are limbless. Phylogenetic studies suggest that they are nested within
Lacertoidea, closely related to the lizard family
Lacertidae. Amphisbaenians are widely distributed, occurring in North America, Europe, Africa, South America, Western Asia and the Caribbean. Most species are less than 6 inches (15 cm) long. (Full article...)
A caiman (/ˈkeɪmən/; also cayman as a variant spelling from
Taínokaimanadditional citation(s) needed) is an
alligatorid belonging to the
subfamilyCaimaninae, one of two primary lineages within the
Alligatoridaefamily, the other being
alligators. Caimans inhabit
Mexico and
Central and
South America from marshes and swamps to mangrove rivers and lakes. They have scaly skin and live a fairly nocturnal existence. They are relatively small-sized
crocodilians with an average maximum weight of 6 to 40 kg (13 to 88 lb) depending on species, with the exception of the
black caiman (Melanosuchus niger), which can grow more than 4 m (13 ft) in length and weigh in excess of 1,000 kg (2,200 Ib). The black caiman is the largest caiman species in the world and is found in the slow-moving rivers and lakes that surround the Amazon basin. The smallest species is the
Cuvier's dwarf caiman (Paleosuchus palpebrosus), which grows to 1.2 to 1.5 m (3.9 to 4.9 ft) long. There are six different species of caiman found throughout the watery jungle habitats of Central and Southern America. The average length for most of the other caiman species is about 2 to 2.5 m (6.6 to 8.2 ft) long. (Full article...)
Tortoises (/ˈtɔːr.təs.ɪz/) are
reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order
Testudines (
Latin for "tortoise"). Like other
turtles, tortoises have a
shell to protect from
predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, and like other members of the suborder
Cryptodira, they retract their necks and heads directly backward into the shell to protect them. (Full article...)
Image 10
Snakes are elongated,
limbless,
carnivorousreptiles of the
suborderSerpentes (/sɜːrˈpɛntiːz/). Like all other
squamates, snakes are
ectothermic,
amniotevertebrates covered in overlapping
scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their
lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads (
cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional
lung. Some species retain a
pelvic girdle with a pair of
vestigial claws on either side of the
cloaca. Lizards have independently evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs at least twenty-five times via
convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of
legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, although this rule is not universal (see
Amphisbaenia,
Dibamidae, and
Pygopodidae). (Full article...)
Salamanders are a group of
amphibians typically characterized by their
lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All ten extant salamander families are grouped together under the
orderUrodela from the group
Caudata. Salamander diversity is highest in eastern
North America, especially in the
Appalachian Mountains; most
species are found in the
Holarctic realm, with some species present in the
Neotropical realm.
Salamanders never have more than four toes on their front legs and five on their rear legs, but some species have fewer digits and others lack hind limbs. Their permeable skin usually makes them reliant on habitats in or near water or other cool, damp places. Some salamander species are fully aquatic throughout their lives, some take to the water intermittently, and others are entirely terrestrial as adults.
This group of amphibians is capable of
regenerating lost limbs as well as other damaged parts of their bodies. Researchers hope to reverse engineer the regenerative processes for potential human medical applications, such as brain and spinal cord injury treatment or preventing harmful scarring during heart surgery recovery. The remarkable ability of salamanders to regenerate is not just limited to limbs but extends to vital organs such as the heart, jaw, and parts of the spinal cord, showing their uniqueness compared to different types of vertebrates. This ability is most remarkable for occurring without any type of scarring. This has made salamanders an invaluable model organism in scientific research aimed at understanding and achieving regenerative processes for medical advancements in human and animal biology. (Full article...)
Caecilians (/sɪˈsɪliən/;
New Latin for 'blind ones') are a group of limbless,
vermiform (worm-shaped) or serpentine (snake-shaped)
amphibians with small or sometimes nonexistent eyes. They mostly live hidden in soil or in streambeds, and this cryptic lifestyle renders caecilians among the least familiar amphibians. Modern caecilians live in the tropics of
South and
Central America,
Africa, and southern
Asia. Caecilians feed on small subterranean creatures such as
earthworms. The body is cylindrical and often darkly coloured, and the skull is bullet-shaped and strongly built. Caecilian heads have several unique adaptations, including fused cranial and jaw bones, a two-part system of jaw muscles, and a
chemosensory tentacle in front of the eye. The skin is slimy and bears ringlike markings or grooves and may contain scales.
Modern caecilians are a
clade, the
orderGymnophiona/ˌdʒɪmnəˈfaɪənə/ (or Apoda/ˈæpədə/), one of the three living amphibian groups alongside Anura (
frogs) and Urodela (
salamanders). Gymnophiona is a
crown group, encompassing all modern caecilians and all descendants of their last common ancestor. There are more than 220 living
species of caecilian classified in 10
families. Gymnophionomorpha is a recently coined name for the corresponding
total group which includes Gymnophiona as well as a few extinct
stem-group caecilians (extinct amphibians whose closest living relatives are caecilians but are not descended from any caecilian). Some palaeontologists have used the name Gymnophiona for the
total group and the old name Apoda for the crown group'. However, Apoda has other even older uses, including as the name of a genus of Butterfly making its use potentially confusing and best avoided. 'Gymnophiona' derives from the Greek words γυμνος / gymnos (
Ancient Greek for 'naked') and οφις / ophis (
Ancient Greek for 'snake'), as the caecilians were originally thought to be related to snakes and to lack scales.
The study of caecilian evolution is complicated by their poor fossil record and specialized anatomy. Genetic evidence and some anatomical details (such as
pedicellate teeth) support the idea that frogs, salamanders, and caecilians (collectively known as
lissamphibians) are each others' closest relatives. Frogs and salamanders show many similarities to
dissorophoids, a group of extinct amphibians in the order
Temnospondyli. Caecilians are more controversial; many studies extend dissorophoid ancestry to caecilians. Some studies have instead argued that caecilians descend from extinct
lepospondyl or
stereospondyl amphibians, contradicting evidence for lissamphibian
monophyly (common ancestry). Rare fossils of early gymnophionans such as Eocaecilia and Funcusvermis have helped to test the various conflicting hypotheses for the relationships between caecilians and other living and extinct amphibians. ('Full article...)
Image 3
Various types of frog
A frog is any member of a diverse and largely
carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless
amphibians composing the
orderAnura (ἀνούρα, literally without tail in
Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" Triadobatrachus is known from the
Early Triassic of
Madagascar, but
molecular clock dating suggests their split from other amphibians may extend further back to the
Permian, 265
million years ago. Frogs are widely distributed, ranging from the
tropics to
subarctic regions, but the greatest concentration of
species diversity is in
tropical rainforest. Frogs account for around 88% of extant amphibian species. They are also one of the five most diverse
vertebrate orders. Warty frog species tend to be called
toads, but the distinction between frogs and toads is informal, not from
taxonomy or evolutionary history.
An adult frog has a stout body, protruding
eyes, anteriorly-attached
tongue, limbs folded underneath, and no
tail (the tail of
tailed frogs is an extension of the male cloaca). Frogs have
glandular skin, with secretions ranging from distasteful to toxic. Their skin varies in colour from well-
camouflaged dappled brown, grey and green to vivid patterns of bright red or yellow and black to show toxicity and
ward off predators. Adult frogs live in fresh water and on dry land; some species are adapted for living underground or in trees.
Frogs typically lay their
eggs in water. The eggs hatch into aquatic
larvae called
tadpoles that have tails and internal
gills. They have highly specialized rasping mouth parts suitable for
herbivorous,
omnivorous or
planktivorous diets. The
life cycle is completed when they
metamorphose into adults. A few species deposit eggs on land or bypass the tadpole stage. Adult frogs generally have a carnivorous diet consisting of small
invertebrates, but omnivorous species exist and a few feed on plant matter. Frog skin has a rich
microbiome which is important to their health. Frogs are extremely efficient at converting what they eat into body mass. They are an important food source for
predators and part of the
food web dynamics of many of the world's
ecosystems. The skin is
semi-permeable, making them susceptible to dehydration, so they either live in moist places or have special adaptations to deal with dry habitats. Frogs produce a wide range of
vocalizations, particularly in their
breeding season, and exhibit many different kinds of complex
behaviors to attract mates, to fend off predators and to generally survive. (Full article...)
Toad is a common name for certain
frogs, especially of the family
Bufonidae, that are characterized by dry, leathery skin, short legs, and large bumps covering the
parotoid glands.
A distinction between frogs and toads is not made in scientific
taxonomy, but is common in popular culture (
folk taxonomy), in which toads are associated with drier, rougher skin and more
terrestrial habitats. (Full article...)
Notice how the box bottoms line up. That readjusts even if you click the slideshow buttons.
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:
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 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:
Selected images
Image 1Koi are ornamental domesticated varieties of the
common carpCyprinus carpio, originated from
China and widely spread in
Japan. They are very closely related to
goldfish. The word "koi" comes from
Japanese meaning "
carp".
Image 2Salmon fry hatching (Salmo salar) - the larva has grown around the remains of the yolk - visible are the arteries spinning around the yolk and little oildrops, also the gut, the spine, the main caudal blood vessel, the bladder and the arcs of the gills.
Image 3The red lionfish (Pterois volitans) is a venomous
coral reef fish from the
Indian and western
Pacific Oceans. The red lionfish is also found off the east coast of the
United States, and was likely first introduced off the
Florida coast in the early to mid 1990s.
Image 4A discus (Symphysodon discus) is guarding its eggs. As for most
cichlids, brood care is highly developed with both the parents caring for the young. Additionally, adult discus produce a
secretion through their skin, off which the
larvae live during their first few days.
Image 5Animation of diaphragmatic breathing with the diaphragm shown in green (from Wildfire)
Image 6A thin transverse section showing the internal structure of conifer wood (from Conifer)
Image 7Aerial view of deliberate wildfires on the
Khun Tan Range,
Thailand. These fires are lit by local farmers every year to promote the growth of a certain mushroom. (from Wildfire)
Image 10Wildfire near
Yosemite National Park, United States, in 2013. The
Rim Fire burned more than 250,000 acres (1,000 km2) of forest. (from Wildfire)
Image 11A Russian firefighter extinguishing a wildfire (from Wildfire)
Image 19In Abies grandis (grand fir), and many other species with spirally arranged leaves, leaf bases are twisted to flatten their arrangement and maximize light capture. (from Conifer)
Image 27Wildland firefighter working a brush fire in
Hopkinton, New Hampshire, US (from Wildfire)
Image 28National map of groundwater and soil moisture in the United States. It shows the very low soil moisture associated with the 2011 fire season in
Texas. (from Wildfire)
Image 29A prescribed burn in a Pinus nigra stand in Portugal (from Wildfire)
Image 37A dirt road acted as a fire barrier in South Africa. The effects of the barrier can clearly be seen on the unburnt (left) and burnt (right) sides of the road. (from Wildfire)
Image 38Sediment off the Yucatán Peninsula (from Wildfire)
Image 45Elk Bath, an award-winning photograph of elk avoiding a wildfire in
Montana (from Wildfire)
Image 46The
northern spotted owl primarily inhabits old-growth forests in the northern part of its range (Canada to southern
Oregon) and landscapes with a mix of old and younger forest types in the southern part of its range (the
Klamath region and California). (from Old-growth forest)
Image 47First growth or virgin forest near Mount Rainier, 1914 (from Old-growth forest)
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.
{{/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.
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 19:16, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
After
a discussion at Meta, a new user group called "
interface administrators" (formerly "technical administrator") has been created. Come the end of August, interface admins will be the only users able to edit site-wide JavaScript and CSS pages like
MediaWiki:Common.js and
MediaWiki:Common.css, or edit other user's personal JavaScript and CSS. The intention is to improve security and privacy by reducing the number of accounts which could be used to compromise the site or another user's account through malicious code. The new user group can be assigned and revoked by
bureaucrats.
Discussion is ongoing to establish details for implementing the group on the English Wikipedia.
Following a
request for comment, the
WP:SISTER style guideline now states that in the mainspace, interwiki links to
Wikinews should only be made as per the
external links guideline. This generally means that within the body of an article, you should not link to Wikinews about a particular event that is only a part of the larger topic. Wikinews links in "external links" sections can be used where helpful, but not automatically if an equivalent article from a reliable news outlet could be linked in the same manner.
Technical news
The WMF
Anti-Harassment Tools team is seeking input on the
second set of wireframes for the
Special:Block redesign that will introduce
partial blocks. The new functionality will allow you to block a user from editing a specific set of pages, pages in a category, a namespace, and for specific actions such as moving pages and uploading files.
Sorry - it looks like we collided while cleaning up that self-promotional cesspool.
Toddst1 (
talk) 04:54, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I noticed when my second edit seemed to have unexpected results! I came across it more or less randomly, so you are welcome to have at it. --
RL0919 (
talk) 04:57, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
Discussions are underway on the design of a portal tool (user script) that will hopefully have features for modifying portals at the click of a menu item, to make editing them easier. It might do things like change the color for you, add to a selection, add a new section, move a section, and so on.
As new portal components are built by our Lua gurus, those components are being used to upgrade portals. Each component automates a section of a portal in a particular way.
The sections that are mostly upgraded so far are the Intro, and the Associated Wikimedia section.
The sections currently undergoing upgrade are: Selected image, Categories, and the Intro.
The Intro? Isn't that done already?
Yes, and no.
The upgrade of the excerpt in intros is mostly complete (there are about 70 non-standard portals that still need it).
Now we are doing another upgrade of intros in the form of adding a panoramic picture at the top of the intro, on portals for which such a picture is available on
Commons:. Dozens of panoramas have been added so far, and they are really starting to affect the look of portals — the portals that have them look really good.
Regions are the most likely subjects to have panoramas, but a surprising number of other subjects have banner-shaped pictures too. Some examples of non-geographic portals that they have been added to are:
Speaking of pictures, several hundred Selected image sections have been upgraded to include image slideshows.
Progress report: design
The push for automation continues, with new components under continuous testing in the field. As problems are spotted, they are reported to our programmers, who have done a fantastic job of keeping up with bug reports and fixing the relevant Lua modules fast. I am highly impressed.
Construction time on new portals is now down to as little as a minute or less. Though not in general. If you are lucky enough to spot portals that fit the profile of the new tools (their strengths), then a portal can be complete almost as soon as it is created, with the added time it takes to find and add a panorama. Source page titles are not generally standardized, and so it source pages in many cases must be entered manually. Where source page titles follow a standard naming convention, portal creation for those subjects goes quickly.
So, we still have some hurdles, but the outlook on portals is very good. New features, and many improvements to features are on the horizon. I'll be sure to report them when they become available.
What will the portal of the future look like? That is up to you!
Myself and others have been testing and experimenting with the new components in upgrading existing portals and in building new portals. They have now been applied in hundreds of portals.
The templates are ready for general use for portal creation.
They are still a bit buggy, but the only way we are going to work the rest of the bugs out is by using them and reporting the bugs as we come across them.
I look forward to seeing what new portals you create!
Placing a panorama (banner picture) at the top of the intro section is a nice touch, and really makes a portal look good. {{
box portal skeleton}} doesn't automatically insert panoramas. So, you will need to do that by hand. They can be found at
Commons:. For some examples, check out
Portal:Sharks,
Portal:Cheese, and
Portal:Florence
Check the In the news and Did you know? sections for mismatches. That is, sometimes entries come up that shouldn't be displayed. If there are any, refine the search strings further, so they don't return such results.
Finish each portal you've created before creating a new one. We don't want unfinished portals sitting around.
Following
a "stop-gap" discussion, six users have temporarily been made
interface administrators while
discussion is ongoing for a more permanent process for assigning the permission. Interface administrators are now the only editors allowed to edit sitewide
CSS and
JavaScript pages, as well as CSS/JS pages in another user's userspace. Previously, all administrators had this ability. The right can be granted and revoked by bureaucrats.
Technical news
Because of
a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 12 September and 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour.
Some
abuse filter variables
have changed. They are now easier to understand for non-experts. The old variables will still work but filter editors are encouraged to replace them with the new ones. You can find the list of changed variables
on mediawiki.org. They have a note which says Deprecated. Use ... instead. An example is article_text which is now page_title.
Abuse filters
can now use how old a page is. The variable is page_age.
Arbitration
The Arbitration Committee has resolved to perform a round of
Checkuser and Oversight appointments. The usernames of all applicants will be shared with the
Functionaries team, and they will be requested to assist in the vetting process. The deadline to submit an application is 23:59 UTC, 12 September, and the candidates that move forward will be published on-wiki for community comments on 18 September.
As you know, portals are now supported by a number of new templates, which are in turn supported by some new
Lua modules.
Those templates and modules are being put to the test, in the new portals that have been created since this WikiProject rebooted, plus a number of existing portals that have been revamped.
Please browse the new portals at your leisure, and report any and all problems that you spot. Post bug and other portal problem reports at
WT:WPPORTD. Please report bugs, quirks, awkward aspects, or anything weird or off that you notice. Compliments and suggestions are also welcome. :)
When you report a bug, please indicate the portal's name, the section that the problem appeared in, and the name of the article appearing (first) in the section with the problem. Most problems will likely be encountered in the Selected general articles" section, due to quirks in a displayed article's wikicode that the lua modules don't handle yet. Your help in spotting those is of utmost value. Thank you.
Don't delete portal subpages just yet
For portals that have been converted to the single-page design, we are not deleting their subpages at this time, because we are working on ways to harvest the data from those pages. For example, the Selected picture subpages include filenames and captions that would be valuable for the image slideshows. Please don't delete portal subpages, for now. They'll be slated for d-batch speedy deletion after harvesting. Thank you.
Development notes
We are currently testing a feature added to {{
Transclude files as random slideshow}} that allows it to accept both sourcepages and filenames. Courtesy of
Evad37. This will pave the way for harvesting files and their captions from portal subpages, for use in image slideshows.
We need your help
The bulk of the work is being done by a handful of editors. But we can't do it all. We need help with spotting bugs, refining the search parameters in new/revamped portals (in the "Did you know..." and "In the news" sections), adding images to slideshows for a broader selection (they default to showing the images on the root article page but are capable of showing so much more), adding panoramic pictures at the top of the intro section of region portals (cities, counties, states, provinces, countries, continents, and other regions), to name but a few task types.
It is rewarding to be a part of the growing portal phenomenon. And you get to see its expansion and refinement up close.
AfroCine: Join us for the Months of African Cinema in October!
Greetings!
You are receiving this message because your username or portal was listed as a participant of a WikiProject that is related to Africa, the Carribean, Cinema or theatre.
This is to introduce you to a new Wikiproject called AfroCine. This new project is dedicated to improving the Wikipedia coverage of the history, works, people, places, events, etc, that are associated with the cinema, theatre and arts of Africa, African countries, the carribbean, and the diaspora. If you would love to be part of this or you're already contributing in this area, kindly list your name as a participant on the project page here.
Furthermore, In the months of October and November, the WikiProject is organizing a global on-wiki contest and edit-a-thon tagged: The Months of African Cinema. If you would love to join us for this exciting event, also list your username as a participant for this event
here. In preparation for the contest, please do
suggest relevant articles that need to be created or expanded in different countries, during this event!
If you have any questions, complaints, suggestions, etc., please reach out to me personally on my talkpage! Cheers!--
Jamie Tubers (
talk) 20:50, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
A {{
Portal}} box in the See also section of the corresponding root article for each portal. If there is no See also section, create one and place the portal template in that. (Rather than placing them in an external links section -- they're not external links).
A {{
Portal}} template placed at the top of the category page corresponding to each portal.
Portals now have a new rating system of their own designed specifically to support portal evaluation! We were trying to use the standard assessment system for articles, but that doesn't fit portals very well.
The new system can be found at the top of all portal talk pages, in the WikiProject portals box. Those with "???" ratings need to be assessed, which makes up most of the older portals.
Most of the new portals were started out with an initial "Low" level of importance when their talk pages were created. Those deserving higher importance should be promoted as you come across them.
Improving the new portals
The starting point for new portals included minimal parameters and content, in the form of default values in the template(s) used for their creation.
Embellishing embedded search strings
So, for the search strings in the "Did you know..." and "In the news" sections, this was the magic word {{PAGENAME}}, which represents the portal's name. Unfortunately, the resulting term is alway capitalized, which limits its effectiveness as a search string for anything but proper nouns. Results for those two sections can be improved, by replacing the "PAGENAME" magic word with multiple search strings, and search strings that begin with lower case letters. There is no inherent limit as to how many search parameters may be included. Lua search notation is used. The more general the subject, the more subtopic search terms you may want to include. For example, on
Portal:Avengers (comics), {{PAGENAME}} turned up nothing. But, when more parameters were added, as in the wikicode below...
{{Transclude selected recent additions | {{PAGENAME}} | Iron Man | Spiderman | Antman | Hawkeye | The Hulk | Incredible Hulk | David Banner | Captain America | Scarlet Witch | Black Widow | Tony Stark | Nick Fury | Age of Ultron | Infinity War | months=36 | header={{Box-header colour|Did you know... }}|max=6}}
... that returned several results in the portal's DYK section.
Be sure you make the improvements to both the DYK section and the "In the news" section, as they both require the search strings.
Expanding the slideshow contents
The default starting selection for the image slideshow in most new portals is whatever images happen to be in the corresponding root article (via the PAGENAME magic word). You can improve image slideshows by adding more sourcepages and filenames as parameters in the "Selected images" section of portals.
Portals used to take about 6 hours or more to create. Now, for subjects that have particular navigation support, we've got that down to about one minute each, with even more content displayed than ever. True, that means the new portals pick you, rather than the other way around. Creating a specific portal that doesn't happen to have the requisite navigation support is still pretty time consuming. But, we are working on extending our reach beyond the low-hanging fruit.
And efforts are ongoing to keep shaving time off of the creation process. Eventually, we may get it down to seconds each.
In addition to improving automation, we're always looking for new features and improvements that we can add to portals, and there is plenty of potential to expand on the standard design so that new portals are even better right out of the starting gate. Additional designs are also possible.
On the horizon, there are many more portals waiting to be created. And we can expect to see at least a few more section types emerge. I never expected slideshows, for example, especially not for excerpts. Who knows where innovation will take us next?
This is a global online edit-a-thon, which is happening in at least 5 language editions of Wikipedia, including the English Wikipedia! Join us in this exciting venture, by helping to create or expand articles which are connected to this scope. Also remember to
list your name under the participants section, if you haven't done so already.
On English Wikipedia, we would be recognizing Users who are able to achieve the following:
Overall winner (1st, 2nd, 3rd places)
Country Winners
Diversity winner
High quality contributors
Gender-gap fillers
Page improvers
Wikidata Translators
For further information about the contest, the recognition categories and how to participate, please visit the contest page
here. For further inquiries, please leave comments on the contest talkpage or on the main project talkpage. See you around :).--
Jamie Tubers (
talk) 22:50, 03 October 2018 (UTC)
There is an open
request for comment on Meta regarding the creation a new user group for global edit filter management.
Technical news
Partial blocks should be available for testing in October on the
Test Wikipedia and the
Beta-Cluster. This new feature allows admins to block users from editing specific pages and in the near-future, namespaces and uploading files. You can expect more updates and an invitation to help with testing once it is available.
The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team is currently looking for input on how to
measure the effectiveness of blocks. This is in particular related to how they will measure the success of the aforementioned partial blocks.
Because of
a data centre test, you will be able to read but not edit the Wikimedia projects for up to an hour on 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time.
Following a
request for comment, the size of the Arbitration Committee will be decreased to 13 arbitrators, starting in 2019. Additionally, the minimum support percentage required to be appointed to a two-year term on ArbCom has been increased to 60%. ArbCom candidates who receive between 50% and 60% support will be appointed to one-year terms instead.
Nominations for the 2018 Arbitration Committee Electoral Commission are
being accepted until 12 October. These are the editors who help run the ArbCom election smoothly. If you are interested in volunteering for this role, please consider nominating yourself.
There was also some discussion of creation criteria for portals. The result was that one of the participants in the discussion reverted the portal guidelines to the old version, which has the minimum number of articles for a portal included in there: "about 20 articles", a guideline that was in place since 2009.
Many of the portals that existed prior to April 2018 do not have that many (being limited to however many subpages the portal creator created), and therefore, these portals need to be upgraded to the new design (which automatically provides many articles for display). Using the new design, exceeding 20 articles for display is very easy.
Linking to the new portals
Efforts have been underway to place links to new portals (all 2200 of them created since April).
Link (portal button) from corresponding category pages. Done
Link from See also section on corresponding root articles. Partially implemented
Link from bottom of corresponding templates. Partially implemented
Your help is needed. It is easy to access the page mentioned in #1, #2, & #3 from the portals themselves.
AWBers could do these tasks even faster (that's how the category pages were done), except #4...
Item #4 above pretty much has to be done by hand. (If you can find a way to speed that up, I would be very impressed). The links needing placement can be found at
Portal talk:Contents/Portals#These are not listed yet. Instructions are included there.
The conversion effort: news sections
There are still around 1200 old-style portals that have only undergone partial conversion to the new design concepts, still relying on subpages with copied/pasted excerpts that have been going stale for years, out of date (manually posted) news entries, etc.
The section currently being tackled on these is news. You can help by deleting any news section on the old-style portals that has news entries that are years old (that is the dead giveaway to a manual news section). Be sure not to delete the news sections of portals that have up-to-date news, or active maintainers. For maintainers, look at the portal's categories, and/or check the participants list at
WP:WPPORT.
Eventually, conditional news sections (that appear only when news items are available for display) will be added using AWB to all portals without a news section.
News items (and even the news sections themselves) are automatically generated for portals that were created using the Basic portal start page. On those portals, there is a hidden comment at the top of the page (that you can see in the edit window), that says this:
<!-- This portal was created using subst:Basic portal start page -->
Design development
Presently, we are in the process of implementing the new design features, creating new portals with them, and installing them in existing portals.
But, what about development of new new design features?
A resource that has been elusive so far will be obtained eventually: categories. That is, the ability to pull category member links to populate a page.
Rather than populate portals directly with such links, it may be more beneficial to the encyclopedia to utilize them in navigation footers, because portals already have the ability to generate themselves based on those.
So, this would create a cascade effect: auto-gathering entries from categories, would enable the construction of new navigation footers, that would in turn support the development of new portals.
The cascade effect would also be felt by existing portals, as existing navigation footers could be expanded using the category harvesting methods, which would in turn expand the coverage of portals that access those navigation footers.
You can help by providing leads about any potential category harvesting methods. Please report anything you know about harvesting categories at
WT:WPPORTD. Thank you.
Looking into the future: the quantum portal?
One idea that has been floating around is the concept of a pageless portal. That is, a portal that isn't stored anywhere, instead being generated when you click on a menu item or button.
Many of the new portals were generated by a single click, and then saved via a second click.
Therefore, it seems likely that the portals of the future will employ the one-click concept.
Because of the need for customization by users, this concept would need to be augmented with a way to integrate user contributions. This could be done in at least two ways: posting an existing portal, autogenerating one from scratch if such does not yet exist, or have a special data page for user contributions that is folded into the auto-generated portal.
How soon? That is up to you. All that is needed are persons to implement it.
Until next time...
Keep up the good work on portals. They are improving daily. Thank you. — The Transhumanist 04:25, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
Ayn Rand
Hi.
I
put Chernyshevsky before Nietzsche because It's in reaction to Rand's claim that she devised her philosophy herself. But the core of her philosophy is Rational egoism and God-man that comes completely and directly form Chernyshevsky. Nietzsche's influence is on details, especially on Übermensch. So, by your sorting according to length of description that paragraph lost it's logical order. Look at it again and you find it by yourself.
P. Pajouhesh (
talk) 18:57, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
The view that Nietzsche influenced her draws the same contrast, and it is much more strongly attested in sources. (The sorting I applied is by how commonly the influence is discussed in reliable sources, not "length of description".) I'm looking at various sources now about how Rand relates to Chernyshevsky, and Weiner seems to be out on a limb in claiming Chernyshevsky is foundational for Rand's views. Other sources don't make this type of claim. So most likely the passage will need to be revised to reflect something closer to the dominant view of how the two relate. --
RL0919 (
talk) 19:58, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Actually, I have came to Rand when researching on Chernyshevsky. I do read his works and some paper about relation between Chernyshevsky and Rand, but unfortunately mostly in other languages such as Persian, Russian, Polish, French. It's seems that English world completely ignored Chernyshevsky. So, It's not odd that there's little mention of his influence on Rand and Weiner as an associate professor of Russian being out on a limb in claiming Chernyshevsky is foundational for Rand's views. But the relationship is very deep and fundamental. In short, Rand takes Chernyshevsky's idea, replace its pre-communistic radical Utopian socialism with capitalism and adding some Nietzschean Übermensch to it.
P. Pajouhesh (
talk) 20:56, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
"non-controversial cleanup for portal project"
Great, someone who has no clue what is "non controversial" deletes my work and heavily needed important notable article list because someone else fucks up a link in the portal page. Why would I even continue working here at all, with such people around?
Tisquesusa (
talk) 10:34, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
If I've deleted something that shouldn't have been, tell me what and I can get it restored quickly. --
RL0919 (
talk) 14:05, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
Ha thanks a lot, no apologies needed, it was not your fault at all. I felt a bit frustrated about the pages disappearing. Will fix the portal to have them linked again as do the other Prehistory of... portals. Have a good day,
Tisquesusa (
talk) 15:12, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
Please inspect these portals, report problems or suggest improvements at
WT:WPPORTD, or develop them further (see below). Thank you.
What's next?
There is still lots to do...
There are many subject gaps that need to be filled. This can be done by creating new portals, or by adding Selected article sections to existing portals. To create a new portal, simply place {{subst:Basic portal start page}} on an empty portal page, and click "Preview". If the portal is complete, click "Save". After you try it, come share your experience and excitement at
WT:WPPORTD.
Each new portal is just a starting point. Each portal of the new design can be further developed by:
refining the search parameters to improve the results displayed in the Did you know and In the news sections.
adding more specific Selected articles sections, like Selected biographies.
inserting a Recognized content section.
adding more pictures to the image slideshow.
placing a panoramic picture at the top of the intro section (especially for geographic portals).
Besides the new portals, there are still about 1200 portals of the old design that need to be converted to the new design.
Many portals need to be de-orphaned, by placing links to them (in the See also section of the corresponding root articles, at the bottom of the corresponding navigation footer templates, and on the corresponding category pages).
Bugs keep popping up in portals. These need to be tracked down and reported at
WT:WPPORTD.
Tools are needed to make developing and maintaining portals quicker and easier.
Dreaming up new features and capabilities. Innovation needs to continue, to design the portal of tomorrow, and the portal development-maintenance-system of the future. Automation!
So, if you find yourself with a little (or a lot) of free time, pick an area (or more) above and...
Hi, I'm RonBot, a script that checks new non-free file uploads. I have found that the subject image that you recently uploaded was more than 5% in excess of the Non-free content guideline size of 100,000 pixels. I have tagged the image for a standard reduction, which (for jpg/gif/png/svg files) normally happens within a day. Please check the reduced image, and make sure that the image is not excessively corrupted. Other files will be added to
Category:Wikipedia non-free file size reduction requests for manual processing. There is a full seven-day period before the original oversized image will be hidden; during that time you might want to consider editing the original image yourself (perhaps an initial crop to allow a smaller reduction or none at all). A formula for calculation the desired size can be found at
WP:Image resolution, along with instructions on how to tag the image in the rare cases that it requires an oversized image (typically about 0.2% of non-free uploads are tagged as necessarily oversized). Please contact the
bot owner if you have any questions, or you can ask them at
Wikipedia talk:Non-free content. See
User:RonBot for info on how to not get these messages.
RonBot (
talk) 22:58, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
Hi, I'm RonBot, a script that checks new non-free file uploads. I have found that the subject image that you recently uploaded was more than 5% in excess of the Non-free content guideline size of 100,000 pixels. I have tagged the image for a standard reduction, which (for jpg/gif/png/svg files) normally happens within a day. Please check the reduced image, and make sure that the image is not excessively corrupted. Other files will be added to
Category:Wikipedia non-free file size reduction requests for manual processing. There is a full seven-day period before the original oversized image will be hidden; during that time you might want to consider editing the original image yourself (perhaps an initial crop to allow a smaller reduction or none at all). A formula for calculation the desired size can be found at
WP:Image resolution, along with instructions on how to tag the image in the rare cases that it requires an oversized image (typically about 0.2% of non-free uploads are tagged as necessarily oversized). Please contact the
bot owner if you have any questions, or you can ask them at
Wikipedia talk:Non-free content. See
User:RonBot for info on how to not get these messages.
RonBot (
talk) 23:46, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
Partial blocks is now available for testing on the
Test Wikipedia. The new functionality allows you to block users from editing specific pages. Bugs may exist and can be reported on the
local talk page or on
Meta. A discussion regarding deployment to English Wikipedia will be started by community liaisons sometime in the near future.
A
user script is now available to quickly review unblock requests.
The
2019 Community Wishlist Survey is now accepting new proposals until November 11, 2018. The results of this survey will determine what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year. Voting on the proposals will take place from November 16 to November 30, 2018. Specifically, there is a proposal category for
admins and stewards that may be of interest.
Arbitration
Eligible editors will be invited to nominate themselves as candidates in the
2018 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 4 until November 13. Voting will begin on November 19 and last until December 2.
The Arbitration Committee's email address
has changed to arbcom-enwikimedia.org. Other email lists, such as functionaries-en and clerks-l, remain unchanged.
Give a hearty welcome to
AmericanAir88, who has adopted working on portals as one of his main purposes on Wikipedia. So far, he has created the following portals:
He has been, and will continue to be, sorely missed.
Hopefully, he is okay, on a Caribbean cruise or something.
The conversion continues
Portals of the old design, are slowly but surely being converted to the new single-page design.
One factor that has slowed things down is that for many sections, the section header call and section contents call are integrated into a template and buried in a lua module, locking them in on each portal. They have been that way for years.
This means that these sections can't be directly edited like the other sections on the same portal. So, search/replaces affect all the sections except those. So, upgrading headers on these portals, for example, misses the integrated sections and inadvertently results in 2 different header colors.
Before we can continue with the upgrade of these portals, the headers and section contents calls need to be restored to each portal, so that those can be edited in concert with the other sections on the portal, and worked on independently of each other.
This is underway, with a solution implemented on about 1/4 of the affected portals so far. Around 300 of them. The remaining 900 should be done within a couple weeks or so.
Going wide...
We now have banner-shaped pictures included in the introduction sections of 180 portals. The rarity of such pictures has made it difficult to find suitably narrow images for display across the tops of portals.
We have a solution for this, courtesy of
FR30799386...
Most pictures are not banner-shaped. But, you can still use them as banners. Here's how:
Using both maxheight=120px and overflow=Hidden produces this:
Project's status
There are now 4,140 portals, with more being created almost daily. Prior to this project's reboot, portals were created at about the rate of 80 per year. Since April of this year, we've created about 2,600 new portals, or 32.5 years' worth at the old rate.
Of those new portals, about 3/4 of them need links leading to them. Almost all of them are linked to from the category system, but they still need links in article see also sections, at the bottom of navigation templates, and on the main portals list at
Portal:Contents/Portals.
Of the 1500 portals created before the reboot, about 300 have been completely converted to the new design so far. About 1100 more have been partially converted, with intros, image slideshows, and associated wikimedia sections getting the most attention.
Discussion has resumed on the portal guidelines.
Until next issue...
See ya round the portal system! — The Transhumanist 11:45, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
Draft rescue
Hi, I see you are a part of WikiProject Theater. I've been trying to expand this draft:
Draft:Richard Ganthony but maybe you can help expand it too so it can be good enough to be accepted?? It has such promise and I'd hate to see it get G13'd in 5 months.
JC7V (
talk) 15:51, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
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( New portals are created with {{subst:Basic portal start page}} or
{{subst:bpsp}} )
Happy Holidays
Hello everyone! Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice (if it's occurring in your area of the world), and thanks for your work in maintaining, improving, and expanding
portals. Cheers, — The Transhumanist 06:51, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
By the way, the above list was generated using
this Petscan query. It can be easily modified by changing the date. The data page (under the Output tab) also has options for receiving the data in CSV or tabbed format, which some operating systems automatically load into a spreadsheet program for ease of use, such as copying and pasting the desired column (like page names).
A
request for comment is in progress to determine whether members of the
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A
request for comment is in progress regarding whether to change the administrator inactivity policy, such that administrators "who have made no logged administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped". Currently, the policy states that administrators "who have made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped".
Administrators and bureaucrats can no longer unblock themselves unless they placed the block initially. This
change has been implemented globally. See also
this ongoing village pump discussion (
permalink).
To complement the aforementioned change, blocked administrators will soon have the ability to block the administrator that placed their block to mitigate the possibility of a compromised administrator account blocking all other active administrators.
In late November, an attacker compromised multiple accounts, including at least four administrator accounts, and used them to vandalize Wikipedia. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. Sharing the same password across multiple websites makes your account vulnerable, especially if your password was used on
a website that suffered a data breach. As these incidents have shown, these concerns are not pure fantasies.
Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (Raymond Arritt) passed away on 14 November 2018. Boris joined Wikipedia as Raymond arritt on 8 May 2006 and was an administrator from 30 July 2007 to 2 June 2008.
I see that is was deleted by the abuse by the IOTA community. Is there anyway for me to get the draft back so I can continue working on it?
I have suggestions by
DGG that I was going to work though.
Tsangares (
talk) 00:53, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
@
Tsangares: I deleted the page as the result of a discussion at
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:TheAbascus/sandbox. After reviewing the discussion and the deleted page again, I don't see a justification for me to reverse the consensus of that discussion. If you want to pursue overturning the result, you could post a request at
Wikipedia:Deletion review. --
RL0919 (
talk) 06:53, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
Last issue, I mentioned there would be a flood, and so, here it is...
Portals status
We now have 4,620 portals.
And the race to pass 5,000 by year's end is on...
Can we make it?
The New Year, and the 5,001st portal, await.
( New portals are created with {{subst:Basic portal start page}} or
{{subst:bpsp}} )
Evad is back!
After disappearing in mid-thread, Evad37 has returned from a longer than expected wikibreak.
Be sure to welcome him back.
Improved cropping is coming to Portal image banner
User:FR30799386 is working on making {{
Portal image banner}} even better by enabling it to chop the top off an image as well as the bottom.
Many pictures aren't suitable for banners because they are too tall. Therefor, User:FR30799386 added cropping to this template, so that an editor could specify part of a picture to be used rather than the whole thing.
Upgrade of flagship portals is underway
Work has begun on upgrading Wikipedia's flagship portals (those listed at the top of the
Main page).
Work continues on the other five. Feel free to join in on the fun.
Spotting missing portals that are redirects
In place of many missing portals, there is a redirect that leads to "the next best topic", such as a parent topic.
Most of these were created before we had the tools to easily create portals (they used to take 6 hours or more to create, because it was all done manually). Rather than leave a portal link red, some editors thought it was best that those titles led somewhere.
The subjects that have sufficient coverage should have their own portals rather than a redirect to some other subject.
Unfortunately, being blue like all other live links, redirects are harder to spot than redlinks.
Hi, can you please check if I deprodded the above article, regards
Atlantic306 (
talk) 19:26, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
You definitely did and I somehow managed to overlook that. I've restored the page and opened
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Buzan's Book of Genius so it can be properly discussed. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. --
RL0919 (
talk) 19:43, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
List of stakes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Excuse me, but why did you delete that page? I really loved that page! They were even improving it by adding links and when they were organized and which stakes were discontinued and such! So could you please revive it? — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
RobThomas15 (
talk •
contribs) 20:32, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
The page was deleted as the result of a discussion at
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of stakes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Unfortunately, your enjoyment of the page is not a sufficient reason for me to reverse the result of that discussion. If you (or any editor) thinks the outcome of the discussion was wrong, you do have the option of requesting a
deletion review. Instructions on how to do so are provided on the linked page. --
RL0919 (
talk) 20:57, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
{{Portal image banner|File:American Falls from Canadian side in winter.jpg | [[Niagara falls]], from the Canadian side |maxheight=175px |overflow=Hidden|croptop=10}}
...there is plenty else to do in addition to building new portals:
The new portals need to be linked to from the encyclopedia.
On those portals about subjects that are not typically capitalized, the search parameters need to be refined/expanded, to maximize the chances of Did you know and In the news items being found and displayed.
A Recognized content section needs to be added to each portal that has a corresponding WikiProject.
Addition of a category on those portals that lack a subject category.
Implement the portal category system, adding the appropriate categories to each portal.
Upgrade, and complete (as per the tasks enumerated above), the old-style portals that are not regularly maintained, which have not been converted yet (about 1,100 of them).
Find and fix the remaining bugs in the underlying lua modules.
Build portal tools (scripts) to assist in the creation, development, and maintenance of portals.
Build a script to help build navbox footer templates, via the harvesting of categories, amongst other methods.
Update the portal building instructions.
Update the portal guideline.
Refine the programming of the portals to reduce their load time.
Design and develop the next generation of portals and portal components.
This page 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.