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

Hi TGE, if I may abbreviate! Note, I had to remove some of the text from this article, as it came verbatim from previously published sources (Bloomberg is what flipped the trigger in this case). We can't use material like that unless it is explicitly released under a free license due to copyright concerns. If I'm mistaken and this was originally published under such a license, please let me know and I will correct it. Also, you should probably flesh out that article a bit. Even before the removal it was pretty bare-bones and looked more like a business directory entry than an encyclopedia article.

Feel free to ask me any questions about this, or anything. Thanks! Crow ^Caw 22:37, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

@ Crow: Thank you for the message about my edit to Kimley Horn! I can see what you mean by sourcing something versus the copyright. I will try to add more to the article - I wanted to provide samples of projects the company helped on ( A search can provide a general guideline of projects so I don't have redlinks) but at the same time not make the focus on the list. ♫ TheGridExe ( talk) 23:40, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

You'll just have to start anew. It was basically the directory information ("it is located at X and was listed on the National Register in Y") plus something derived from a dead link. Here's the photo and its minimal metadata:

[[File:Sarasota FL Chidsey Library01.jpg|thumb|Chidsey Library]] {{coord|27.3423|-82.5476|type:landmark_region:US-FL|display=title}} [[Category:Buildings and structures in Sarasota County, Florida]] [[Category:National Register of Historic Places in Sarasota County, Florida]]

Nyttend ( talk) 12:07, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

@ Nyttend: Thanks for the information! I greatly appreciate it! – TheGridExe ( talk) 23:56, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Florida Southwestern and Barry University also have campuses that have a "Fort Myers" address but aren't in the city. Since the article is actually about the city proper, I reverted the FGCU add. Niteshift36 ( talk) 16:40, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

@ Niteshift36: Sounds good. I guess a comment can be added in the section that it's only for institutions within the city? I see a similar comment for the notable people section. – TheGridExe ( talk) 16:53, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

• Done. Niteshift36 ( talk) 17:55, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

On 10 May 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Bradenton Riverwalk, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the Bradenton Riverwalk area was originally nicknamed "The Sand Pile"? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Bradenton Riverwalk. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page ( here's how, Bradenton Riverwalk), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Gatoclass ( talk) 12:01, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Plantation, Sarasota County, Florida, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Eastern Standard Time ( check to confirm |  fix with Dab solver). Such links are usually incorrect, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of unrelated topics with similar titles. (Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.)

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot ( talk) 09:20, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Endgame: Proving Ground, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Ingress ( check to confirm |  fix with Dab solver).

( Opt-out instructions.) -- DPL bot ( talk) 09:25, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

We have grown to 89 members.

This is the seventh issue of this newsletter. For previous issues, see our newsletter archive.

Welcome

A warm welcome to our nearly one dozen new members...

Our new members include:

• Evad37
• Checkingfax
• Grey Wanderer
• Voceditenore
• TestPAKISTAN
• Godsy
• Greatedits1
• Charlesdrakew
• Ww2censor
• Simon Burchell
• TheGridExe

Be sure to say "hi" and welcome them to the team.

The portal set has shrunk

There were 1515 portals, but now we have 1475, because we speedy deleted a bunch of incompleted portals that had been sitting around for ages, that were empty shells or had very little content. Because they were speedied, they can be rebuilt from scratch without acquiring approval from WP:DRV.

Maintenance runs on the portals set have begun

This is what we have been gearing up for: upgrading the portals en masse, using AWB.

More than half of the Associated Wikimedia sections have been converted to no longer use a subpage. This chore will probably be completed over the next week or two. Many thanks to the WikiGnome Squad, who have added an Associated Wikimedia section to the many geography-related portals that lacked one. The rest of the subjects await. :)

The next maintenance drive will be on the intro sections. Notices have gone out to the WikiProjects for which one or more portals fall within their subject scope. Once enough time has elapsed for them to respond (1 week), AWB processing of intro sections will begin.

Thank you, you

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your part in the RfC. I went back and reread much of it. I believe your enthusiasm played a major part in turning the tide on there. I'm proud of all of you.

Why reread that mess, you ask?

To harvest ideas, and to keep the problems that need to be fixed firmly in mind. But, also to keep in touch. See below...

Thank yous all around

I've contacted all of the other opposers of the RfC proposal to delete portals, to thank them for their support, and to assure them that their decision was not made in vain. I updated them on our activities, provided the link to the interviews about this project in the Signpost, pointed out our newsletter archive so they can keep up-to-date with what we are doing, and I invited them all to come and have a look-see at our operations (on our talk page).

Sockpuppet, and reverting his work

It so happened that one of our members was a sockpuppet: JLJ001. According to the admin who blocked him, he was a particularly tricky long term abuser. This is a weird situation, since the user was quite helpful. He will be missed.

This has been somewhat disruptive, because admins are doing routine deletions of the pages (portals, templates, etc.) he created, and reversion of his edits (I don't know if they will be reverting all of them). Please bear with them, as they are only doing what is best in the long run.

The following pages have been deleted by the admins so far, that I know of:

• Portal:Plymouth
• Portal:Bedfordshire
• Portal:Suffolk
• Portal:Norfolk
• User:JLJ001/tag
• Template:Non-standard portal flag
• Template:Portal flag

Automation so far, section by section...

• Intro – {{ Transclude lead excerpt}}
• Selected article – {{ Transclude random excerpt}}
• In the news – {{ Transclude selected current events}}
• Associated Wikimedia – {{Wikimedia for portals|species=no|voy=no}}
• Categories – {{#tag:categorytree|{{PAGENAME}}}}

Automatic article alerts is up and running

Automatic article alerts are now featured on the project page.

Some super out-of-date entries kept showing up on there, so posting it on the Project page was delayed. Thanks to Evad37 and AfroThundr for providing solutions on this one. Evad37 adjusted the workflow settings per Wikipedia:Article alerts/Subscribing#Choosing workflows, to make sure only the appropriate page types show up. AfroThundr removed the tags from the old entries that caused them to keep showing up in the article alerts.

Other things that could use some automation

Noyster pointed out that it would be nice to automate the updating of the portals section at the Community bulletin board.

Another major component of the portal system is the main list of portals, at Portal:Contents/Portals. How would we go about automating the updating of that?

Please post your ideas on the WikiProject's talk page. Thank you.

Deletion discussion survivors

Keep in mind that we have already speedy deleted almost all of the nearly empty portals, which can be rebuilt without approval whenever it is convenient to do so. Other portals should be completed if at all possible rather than delete them through MfD (which requires approval from Deletion review to rebuild).

• Portal:Juanes – see the discussion

(Current deletion discussions are posted on our WikiProject page).

Portals needing repair

• Portal:Toys

Wrapping up

There's still more, but it will have to wait until next issue.

Until then, see ya around the project.    — The Transhumanist   12:04, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

The WikiProject now has 92 participants, including 16 admins.

Welcome

A warm welcome to the newest members of the team:

• Keith D
• RL0919

Be sure to say hi.

Congrats

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

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).

It is featured in Portal:Sacramento, California. Check it out to the right.

Keep in mind that the feature is a beta version. Please share your comments on how to refine this feature, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals#Refining the Picture slideshow.

The one-page portal has been achieved

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   02:13, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

1) Replace the intro box sections on portals with an upgrade. See details at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Tasks#AWB task: converting/upgrading intro sections.

2) Replace categories box sections on portals with an upgrade. See details at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Tasks#AWB task: Converting category sections.

Enjoy.    — The Transhumanist   08:09, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Here are some incremental tasks for you to consider. Do one, or many, as time allows. Every little bit helps...

Task #1

We're getting close to having the main portals list up-to-date, but we aren't quite there yet. There are about 75 portals not yet listed there.

Therefore the first task, of course, is to add as many of these as you can. They can be found at Portal talk:Contents/Portals#These are not listed yet. Instructions are there.

Task #2

The second task on this wish list is to convert one selected picture section to a picture slideshow section. The template to use for this is {{ Random slideshow}}. Here are some examples of portals with a picture slideshow section: Portal:Bangladesh, Portal:Sacramento, California, Portal:Algae, and Portal:Reference works.

Note that selected picture sections display pictures from subpages (one subpage per pic), and that each picture would need to be listed in the {{ Random slideshow}} template.

Tip: Some portals have only a single picture covered in the selected picture section. Replacing their selected picture sections with a slideshow would be easiest. Eight or more pictures make a decent slide show. Search for pictures at Wikimedia Commons.

Have fun! Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   09:51, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Hello. I was looking at Template:Manatee County, Florida and noticed you removed a number of locations from the template after the articles about them were deleted. I'm curious why you removed them entirely. Per WP:GEOLAND the places that were removed would generally be seen as notable as inhabited places even if their corresponding articles were deleted and (so long as they actually exist) removing them would make the template inaccurate and incomplete. Conceivably could they not be could be de-linked, red-linked (not ideal but an option), or otherwise addressed without making it appear the locales do not exist? Thanks, Mifter ( talk) 03:30, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

@ Mifter: Thanks for letting me know about the guidelines. I think I was getting ahead of myself due to it being redlinks. I made a partial revert. – TheGridExe ( talk) 03:43, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

@ Mifter: Ok, I'm now realizing I've been doing CSD on places that have been defined in GNIS. smacks forehead I'm sorry for the confusion with promoting those articles as CSDs. Yeah, those would just be recreated again - guess I have a few articles to expand. – TheGridExe ( talk) 15:49, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! Its not a big deal and generally G5 is appropriate (for example on the random farm articles that at a quick glance might not even have been technically notable) but for the geographic locations there is a certain point where IAR comes in at the periphery as it is a bit redundant to delete a single sentence about a notable place and remove it from a geographic template when we are just going to have to recreate and re-add it for completeness. Best, Mifter ( talk) 04:15, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

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

Almost done...

With the portals upgrades?

No. :)

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

There are 23 portals left to be listed.

Kudos to the WikiGnome Squadron, for spearheading this.

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

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

Associated Wikimedia section conversion task complete

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

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

Further section conversions (using AWB)

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

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

Further section conversions (by hand)

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

Quality rating system for portals under development

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

What's coming: excerpt slideshows

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

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

Wow

I'm amazed at how rapidly portals are evolving. And we're still within a single generation of portal technological evolution. Imagine what they might be in 2 or 3 more generations of developments. Pretty soon, portals will be able to shake your hand. :)    — The Transhumanist   11:05, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi.

Portal:Tamil civilization could sure use a picture slideshow. See instructions at Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Install picture slideshows.

Please add as many pictures as you have time for. Even adding a single picture helps.

Thank you. Cheers,    — The Transhumanist   00:07, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

We've grown to 94 participants.

A warm welcome to dcljr and Kpgjhpjm.

Rating system for portals

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

Better than a barnstar

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

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

Congratulations, everyone. Keep up the great work.

Slideshow development

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

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

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

TemplateStyles RfC passed

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

Automation effort

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

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

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

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

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

Where is all this heading?

Henry.

Or some other name.

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

But, that is a few years off.

Until then, building portals is still (partially) up to us.    — The Transhumanist   13:34, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

We now have 97 participants.

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

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

Converting the intro sections

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

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

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

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

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

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

AWB tips

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

Portal automation

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

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

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

When should we start building new portals?

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

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

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

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

And on that note, I bid you adieu. Until next newsletter, see ya 'round the WikiProject.    — The Transhumanist   12:33, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

We have 97 participants.

Getting faster

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

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

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

Portal:Dresden took about 19 minutes.

Portal:Athens took less than 17 minutes.

Did Portal:Florence in about 13 minutes.

Portal:Stockholm also in about 13.

Portal:Palermo approx. 12 minutes.

Why?

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

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

The singularity is just around the corner. :)

Slideshows

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

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

Progress on intro conversions

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

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

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

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

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

Much more to come...

So much has been happening with portals that I can't keep up with it. (That's good). Which means, more in the upcoming issue. Until then, see ya 'round the project. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   08:47, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

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

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

Panoramas!

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

Check these out:

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

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

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

Auto-populated slideshows

Speaking of pictures...

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

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

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

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

New Template:Box-header colour

Speaking of new templates, here's another one!

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

For color support, see Web colors.

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

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

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

Where are we on the redesign?

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

Where are we on portal conversion?

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

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

Next, we'll be converting the categories sections!

What's the plan, man?

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

1) Design a one-page automated portal model

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

3) Remove subpages no longer needed

4) Develop further tools to empower editors working on portals

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

Are we caught up yet?

Probably not.

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

See ya again soon,    — The Transhumanist   11:09, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings about this naming, not just the WP article, but various business and government entities. The creek is of course the oldest entity, and it's spelled Fishhawk. When Newland communities started developing and plastered the name on neighborhoods and streets, they named everything "FishHawk". After the development became home to about 15-20k people, it became a CDP, and however it happened, it was misspelled "Fish Hawk". But as you point out, the article is technically about the CDP, and it's a more "official" name, even though it's really "wrong". Probably few people really care, most people tend to feel that a blank is the same thing as nothing. Anyway, thanks for your help! Jacona ( talk) 16:52, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

@ JaconaFrere: Very legit concerns you raise and when I did the page move, I was surprised that no error popped up in the move. I will admit that CDPs like this are a pain especially when the CDP comes from the development because editors will come in and add info about the development and not the actual Census entity that made the article: the CDP.

• WP:COMMONNAME could be used for the geoname entity and a case for "FishHawk" would be sufficient if ever raised.
• I don't think any misspelling happened, it looks like they attempted to trademark "FishHawk" as "Fish Hawk" would be generic to prevent establishing trademark. I decided to look at the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council, the regional authority responsible to look over Developments of Regional Impact (DRIs) as Development Orders are established and processed to these entities before it's submitted to the State Legislative. *breathes* So the authority listed the status of ALL DRIs in the Tampa Bay Area (Manatee, Hillsborough, and Pasco County). It looks like Fishhawk Ranch was adopted in 1989 with a built-out date in 2016. However, a look in the DO sees a built-out date past that and I don't know how DRIs are processed fully nowadays with the new bill gutting out more of it and essentially giving the respective Counties more control over them versus the state. (I think already approved DOs still go to the state but....back to the point...) The documentation just confirms more confusion - Fishhawk, Fish Hawk, and FishHawk are all used. In summary, my head hurts. The confusion is very real. – TheGridExe ( talk) 19:34, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Please don't add block templates to users - the blocking admin/checkuser likely opted not to add the template. The template you used is also only used on the talk page, not the user page. Thank you! - TNT ^💖 14:36, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry about that, There'sNoTime! Thank you for the notice. – TheGridExe ( talk) 14:45, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Not a problem! Have a good day - TNT ^💖 14:47, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Development of design continues, full speed ahead...

Excerpt slideshows are here!

Can you say " paradigm shift"?

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

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

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

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

{{ Transclude excerpts as random slideshow}}

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

{{ Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow}}

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

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

{{ Transclude linked excerpts as random slideshow}}

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

Panoramic banners

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

Give resizing the page a try:

You can now balance section boxes

Before:

After:

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

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

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

Box-header colour

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

Testing, testing

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time...

Have fun.    — The Transhumanist   01:00, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fun activity #2: install "Selected images" sections

That is, image slideshows!

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

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

The toys we have to work with for this are:

{{ Random slideshow}}

and

{{ Transclude files as random slideshow}}

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

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

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

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

For example, in Portal:California, this code:

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

was replaced with this code:

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

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

Fun activity #3: upgrade "Selected article" sections

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

They can be upgraded with:

{{ Transclude random excerpt}}

or

{{ Transclude list item excerpt}}

or

{{ Transclude linked excerpt}}

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

Where will this put us?

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

Keep up the great work.    — The Transhumanist   19:18, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Future portal tool

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.

If you'd like to be involved and suggest features for the tool, please join us at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design#What would you want a portal tool to be able to do?.

Progress report: upgrade of portals

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:

• Portal:Underwater diving
• Portal:Sharks
• Portal:Reptiles
• Portal:Meat
• Portal:Cheese
• Portal:Cereals
• Portal:Tea
• Portal:Milk
• Portal:Wheat
• Portal:Rice
• Portal:Clothing

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!

See you on the project's talk pages.

Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   21:10, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

This issue is about portal creation...

Creating new portals

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!

Be sure to report bugs at WT:WPPORTD.

The main portal creation template is {{ box portal skeleton}}.

Portal creation tips

After starting a portal using {{ box portal skeleton}}...

1. 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
2. The search term provided in the Did you know? and In the news sections is very basic and rarely matches anything. It is best to replace that term with multiple search arguments, if possible (separate each argument with a pipe character). For example, in Portal:Capital punishment, see https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Portal:Capital_punishment&diff=855255361&oldid=855137403 Searches in templates use Lua search notation.
3. 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.
4. Finish each portal you've created before creating a new one. We don't want unfinished portals sitting around.

Need a laugh?

Check out the Did you know? section on Portal:Determinism.    — The Transhumanist   02:24, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

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

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. -- B-bot ( talk) 17:30, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

I noticed over at the Portals WikiProject that you have or use AWB (or JWB).

There are some tasks that have turned up that are perfect for AWB.

We have many new portals, and they need:

1. To have a {{ Portal}} template placed in the See also section on the corresponding root article, outline article, and index article.
2. A {{ Portal}} template placed on the corresponding category page.
3. A link placed at the end (in the "bottom" section) on the corresponding navigation template. For an example, see Template:Birds.

The new portals can be found on Category:Single-page portals along with some revamped ones. You'll need to use the skip feature of AWB.

If you have any questions, please {{ ping}} me, and ask them below.    — The Transhumanist   01:59, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

This month: WikiProject X: The resumption

Work has resumed on WikiProject X and CollaborationKit, backed by a successfully funded Project Grant. For more information on the current status and planned work, please see this month's issue of the newsletter!

-— Isarra ༆ 22:24, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Bug hunt!

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.

The new portals, and revamped ones, can be found at Category:Single-page portals.

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.

Feel free to join in on the fun. ;)

Thank you,    — The Transhumanist   06:58, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Hey...

If you have AWB laying around, please dust it off and crank it up! ;)

We have a growing backlog!

There are now 538 portals. Of those, 52 are of the new design.

Many of the new portals are orphaned or near orphaned, and need links pointing to them:

1. A portal link at the bottom of corresponding navigation footer template. E.g., Template:Machines for Portal:Machines. See examples of a portals link at the bottom of Template:Robotics and Template:Forestry.
2. 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).
3. A {{ Portal}} template placed at the top of the category page corresponding to each portal.

To make a list of corresponding templates, you can use AWB's make list feature to make a list of the pages in Category:Single-page portals. Then you copy that list to a sandbox, and replace \nPortal: with ]]\n* [[Template:, using WP:wikEd. That will give you a list of templates to work on. Then you set skip in AWB to skip the ones that already have the portal link.

To make a list of corresponding root articles, make a list of portal links, and then remove "Portal:" from the links.

To make a list of category links to process, make sure you use a leading colon (:) in the category links, like this: [[:Category:Blue Öyster Cult]].

All new and revamped portals can be found at Category:Single-page portals.

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   20:45, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Portals progress report

Don't blink. You might miss something.

As of a few days ago, portals had doubled in about a month and a half.

Also, there were 98 incompleted portals in Category:Portals under construction. Now there are just 43.

The WikiProject page has been thoroughly revised

The goals, plans, and task sections have all been updated.

Orphaned portals need a home...

Many new portals are still orphans, and need links pointing to them:

1. A portal link at the bottom of corresponding navigation footer template. E.g., Template:Machines for Portal:Machines. See examples of a portals link at the bottom of Template:Robotics and Template:Forestry.
2. 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).
3. A {{ Portal}} template placed at the top of the category page corresponding to each portal.

All new and revamped portals can be found at Category:Single-page portals.

Portal:Contents/Portals

This is the main list of portals.

Nearly 2,000 of the new portals need to be listed here.

They can be found at Portal talk:Contents/Portals#These are not listed yet. Instructions are included there.

Customized Portal Rating system is now in place

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.

Many thanks to Evad37, Waggers, AfroThundr3007730, SMcCandlish, Tom, BrendonTheWizard, and Pbsouthwood for their work and input on this.

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.

See Template:Transclude files as random slideshow/doc for instructions.

More exciting things are to come...

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?

Keep up the great work everyone.

Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   07:10, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

84.78.21.1 ( talk) 17:54, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

SuggestBot predicts that you will enjoy editing some of these articles. Have fun!

Views/Day	Quality	Title	Tagged with…
22		A Cross the Universe (album) ( talk)	Add sources
177		Mobile World Congress ( talk)	Add sources
25		Florida State Highway System ( talk)	Add sources
782		Sarasota, Florida ( talk)	Add sources
401		Bradenton, Florida ( talk)	Add sources
86		Haitian diaspora ( talk)	Add sources
49		U.S. Route 301 in Florida ( talk)	Cleanup
271		Alessandro Strumia ( talk)	Cleanup
746		Forklift ( talk)	Cleanup
1,404		St. Petersburg, Florida ( talk)	Expand
82		U.S. Route 41 in Florida ( talk)	Expand
348		Pinellas County, Florida ( talk)	Expand
20		Tthhee Ppaarrttyy ( talk)	Unencyclopaedic
173		MTV2 ( talk)	Unencyclopaedic
29		Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area ( talk)	Unencyclopaedic
6,845		Star Wars: Episode IX ( talk)	Merge
81		Normandie-Niemen ( talk)	Merge
4		Raise It Up (Slum Village song) ( talk)	Merge
42		Gandy Bridge ( talk)	Wikify
22		Mark L. Taylor ( talk)	Wikify
15		Splashdown (band) ( talk)	Wikify
2		Ann McNamara ( talk)	Orphan
31		Tropical cyclones in 2010 ( talk)	Orphan
4		Priscila Navarro ( talk)	Orphan
12		Al-P ( talk)	Stub
4		Florida State Road 700 ( talk)	Stub
2		Route 7 BRT ( talk)	Stub
1,533		Resident Evil 2 (2019 video game) ( talk)	Stub
5		Florida State Road 281 ( talk)	Stub
5		Bermont, Florida ( talk)	Stub

Note: All columns in this table are sortable, allowing you to rearrange the table so the articles most interesting to you are shown at the top. All images have mouse-over popups with more information. For more information about the columns and categories, please consult the documentation and please get in touch on SuggestBot's talk page with any questions you might have.

SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. Your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping.

If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please tell me on SuggestBot's talk page. Thanks from Nettrom ( talk), SuggestBot's caretaker. -- SuggestBot ( talk) 09:11, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

SuggestBot predicts that you will enjoy editing some of these articles. Have fun!

Views/Day	Quality	Title	Tagged with…
10,842		George Soros ( talk)	Add sources
6,943		National Basketball Association ( talk)	Add sources
24		That's Amore! (TV series) ( talk)	Add sources
95		Ed Banger Records ( talk)	Add sources
445		Discovery (Daft Punk album) ( talk)	Add sources
26		Live PA ( talk)	Add sources
7		Radio with Pictures ( talk)	Cleanup
35		History of Sarasota, Florida ( talk)	Cleanup
94		Interstate 75 in Ohio ( talk)	Cleanup
43		United States Senate Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee ( talk)	Expand
253		A-Trak ( talk)	Expand
12		Florida State Road 29 ( talk)	Expand
2,613		Mental disorder ( talk)	Unencyclopaedic
38		Edward Hallowell (psychiatrist) ( talk)	Unencyclopaedic
646		Anchor baby ( talk)	Unencyclopaedic
328		GMC Envoy ( talk)	Merge
46		Coalgebra ( talk)	Merge
3		Etna Turpentine Camp Archeological Site ( talk)	Merge
24		Viacom criticisms and controversies ( talk)	Wikify
370		Mashup (music) ( talk)	Wikify
52		Fantasia: Music Evolved ( talk)	Wikify
5		Gabriel Stricker ( talk)	Orphan
4		Marc Rémillard ( talk)	Orphan
8		Voxofon ( talk)	Orphan
5		Remixes (Sebastian album) ( talk)	Stub
41		PX4 autopilot ( talk)	Stub
26		Together (French band) ( talk)	Stub
81		Elizabethton Twins ( talk)	Stub
25		2018 Barkan Industrial Park shooting ( talk)	Stub
85		Lakewood Ranch, Florida ( talk)	Stub

Note: All columns in this table are sortable, allowing you to rearrange the table so the articles most interesting to you are shown at the top. All images have mouse-over popups with more information. For more information about the columns and categories, please consult the documentation and please get in touch on SuggestBot's talk page with any questions you might have.

SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. Your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping.

If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please tell me on SuggestBot's talk page. Thanks from Nettrom ( talk), SuggestBot's caretaker. -- SuggestBot ( talk) 22:12, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Portals have passed the 4,000 mark.

More new portals...

Here's a list of portals created since the last issue

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).

Many of the new portals still need to be listed at Portal:Contents/Portals.

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...

...dive in!    — The Transhumanist   07:05, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Hello, The Grid. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

There are now 4,180 portals.

Will we break 5,000 by the end of the year?

I know we can. But, that is up to you!

( 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)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{ subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

Jingling along

The following portals have been created since the last issue:

Keep 'em coming!

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).

In closing

We'll keep it short this issue.

Expect a flood next time. Or the one after that.

Cheerio,    — The Transhumanist   08:06, 26 November 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) 18:04, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

This month: A general update.

The current status of the project is as follows:

• Progress of the project has been generally delayed since September due to development issues (more bitrot than expected, some of the code just being genuinely confusing, etc) and personal injury (I suffered a concussion in October and was out of commission for almost two months as a result).
• I currently expect to be putting out a proper call for CollaborationKit pilots in January/February, with estimated deployment in February/March if things don't go horribly wrong (they will, though, don't worry). As a part of that, I will properly update the page and send out announcement and reach out to all projects already signed up as pilots for WikiProject X in general, at which point those (still) interested can volunteer specifically to test the CollaborationKit extension.
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Pilots was originally created for the first WikiProject X prototype, and given this is where the project has since gone, it's only logical to continue to use it. While I haven't yet updated the page to properly reflect this:
  • If you want to add your project to this page now, feel free. Just bear in mind that more information what to actually expect will be added later/included in the announcement, because by then I will have a much better idea myself.
• Until then, you can find me in my corner working on making the CollaborationKit code do what we want and not just what we told it, per the workboard.

Until next time,

-— Isarra ༆ 22:44, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

We can now crop the tops of pics to make banners

Before, we could only cut off the bottom of pics.

User:FR30799386 has pulled it off, and made the upgrade to {{ Portal image banner}}...

So, this:

Becomes this:

Here's the code for the above banner:

{{Portal image banner|File:American Falls from Canadian side in winter.jpg | [[Niagara falls]], from the Canadian side |maxheight=175px |overflow=Hidden|croptop=10}}

To see it employed in a portal, check out Portal:Niagara Falls.

About that end of the year goal...

We were racing against time to create 5,000 portals by the end of the year (just for the heck of it).

We made it. We've passed the 5,000 portals mark, with time to spare!

And the 5,000th portal is Portal:Major League Baseball, by Happypillsjr.

Congratulations!

What's next?

The 10,000th portal mark. But...

...there is plenty else to do in addition to building new portals:

1. The new portals need to be linked to from the encyclopedia.
2. 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.
3. A Recognized content section needs to be added to each portal that has a corresponding WikiProject.
4. Addition of a category on those portals that lack a subject category.
5. Implement the portal category system, adding the appropriate categories to each portal.
6. 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).
7. Find and fix the remaining bugs in the underlying lua modules.
8. Build portal tools (scripts) to assist in the creation, development, and maintenance of portals.
9. Build a script to help build navbox footer templates, via the harvesting of categories, amongst other methods.
10. Update the portal building instructions.
11. Update the portal guideline.
12. Refine the programming of the portals to reduce their load time.
13. Design and develop the next generation of portals and portal components.

And whatever else you can dream up.

But most of all, have a...

Happy New Year!

The Grid, thank you for your contributions to the Portals Project, and have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year.

Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   12:38, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Well, here's the first issue of the new year. Enjoy...

New participants

A hearty welcome to new arrivals to the portals department:

• Emoteplump
• Pakieditor
• CASSIOPEIA
• Venomous Sniper
• DannyS712

Harvesting categories tool prototype

DannyS712 has created a user script prototype, User:DannyS712/Cat links, that can pull members from a category, a functionality we've been after since the project's revamp last Spring. Now, it's a matter of applying this technique to scripts that will place the items where needed, such as with a section starter script and/or portal builder script.

New portals since last issue

What else is going on

There have been some discussions at Wikipedia talk:Portal guidelines.

DreamyJazz is working on a bot to place links to portals on root articles, category pages, and navigation footer templates.

Portal bugs are getting dealt with soon after they are reported.

Lots of wikignome activity (using Hotcat, etc.).

Keep up the good work.    — The Transhumanist   09:35, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Portal styles

For a visually intensive portal, see Portal:Hummingbirds.

If you find any other portals that stand out, please send me the links so I can include them in the next issue. Thank you.

Conversion continues

There are about 1100 portals left in the old style, with subpages and static excerpts. As those are very labor intensive to maintain (because their maintenance is manual), all those except the ones with active maintainers (about 100) are slated for upgrade = approximately 1000. We started with 1500, and so over a quarter of them have been processed so far. That's good, but at this rate, conversion will take another 3 years. So, some automation (AWB?) is in order. We just need to keep at it, and push down on the gas pedal a bit harder.

You can find the old-style portals with an insource search of "box portal skeleton".

Flagship portals: the portals on the Main Page

Speaking of upgrades...

The following portals are listed in the header at the top of Wikipedia's Main Page, and get far more traffic than all other portals:

1. Portal:Arts
2. Portal:Biography
3. Portal:Geography
4. Portal:History
5. Portal:Mathematics
6. Portal:Science
7. Portal:Society
8. Portal:Technology

Of those, all but one have been revamped to an automated self-updating single-page design.

The remaining one, Portal:Mathematics has manual maintainers, and has been partially upgraded.

As these are our flagship fleet, they need to be kept in top-notch condition.

Check 'em out, and improve them if you can.

And be sure they are on your watchlist.

New portals since last issue

Keep 'em coming!

Deorphanizing the new portals

As you know, thousands of the new portals are orphans, that is, having no links to them from article space. For all practical purposes, that means they are not part of the encyclopedia yet, and readers will be unlikely to find them.

What is needed are links to these portals from the See also sections of the corresponding root articles.

Dreamy Jazz to the rescue...

Dreamy Jazz has created a bot to place the corresponding category link to the end of each portal (if it is missing), and place a link to each portal in the See also section of the corresponding root articles.

That bot, named User:Dreamy Jazz Bot, is currently in its trial period performing the above described edits!

To take a look at the edits it has made so far, see Special:Contributions/Dreamy_Jazz_Bot.

It shouldn't be long before the bot is processing the entire set of new portals.

Good news indeed.

Way to go, Dreamy Jazz!

And, that's a wrap

That's all I have to report this time around.

No doubt there will be more to tell soon.

Until then,    — The Transhumanist   13:16, 28 January 2019 (UTC)