Ask123

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WELCOME TO ASK123'S TALK PAGE. Comment about the content of a specific article on the Talk: page of that article, and not here Be complete and descriptive in your comments. Do not assume I know what you are talking about. Provide links to both the subject and any relevant policies if needed. Do not edit any other users comments. Do not make personal attacks or use the page for harassment. Please remember to: be polite, assume good faith, be welcoming, not to personally attack, show etiquette and stay cool. Comments which fail to follow these requests may be deleted immediately.

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Samurai Champloo

I notice you've made some comments on the Samurai Champloo page. Frankly, I was surprised. I'm responsible for most of the recent revisions since it looked like this back in March. Since then, there hasn't been much in the way of talk or progress on the discussion page. So I'm very happy to see another proclaimed fan who seems anxious to improve the quality of the article. If you ever want to discuss anything, or want any input on changes you make to the page, please feel free to contact me on my talk page. SpiderMMB 06:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Will do! ask123 14:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I've read through most of your suggestions, and I think they are sound. I would invite you to be bold, as you suggested you'd be on the talk page. Make the changes you think are necessary to improve the article, and we can always discuss revising them later. SpiderMMB 18:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I've already begun... ask123 18:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

no prob

on the vandal catch. The real person to thank is Alison, as she actually performed the block. VanTucky ^(talk) 22:33, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Yea, I saw that and sent her a shout too. Thanks for the note tho... As a former vandal myself (in the real world that is), it's kinda fun seeing these no-nothings try to play a game I helped write the rule book for. It's just too bad that it's all virtual otherwise we could really scare the daylights out of these 'em... ;) Cheers! ask123 23:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Fork Swimming into Competitive Swimming

You say you have some ideas? Lets see them. I'd be interested in helping out. I created USA Swimming, which I think some people are using as a stand-in for Competitive Swimming, but it really isn't. It doesn't seem like there are is a group of constant editors to swimming since your comment hasn't been replied to for almost 2 months now.Cpierswim 04:21, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

re:your vandalism query

If you check out the IP's talkpage, you can clearly see they have been blocked today. The normal procedure to deal with vandals is to go through their contribs, revert all the diffs, and then give the standard four warnings (using the appropriate template for the particular type of disruption). This is often painstaking work, but it's all you can do. Some users, especially admins and tech nuts, use an external editing program to speed this process up. If they vandalize after reception of the fourth warning, you may report them at WP:AIV. Admins are usually quite savvy when it comes to long-term vandals and shared accounts (such as at a school), and may enact accordingly long term blocks. VanTucky ^Talk 21:05, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help! I didn't realize that random IPs were afforded user pages. But now I can see (via the user page) that this IP's vandalism has been dealt with. Thanks again! ask123 21:20, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

They only get talk pages, so we can warn them. If you click on the IP address it goes to the contribs, not a user page. VanTucky ^Talk 21:21, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

LOL, gotcha! Cheers, ask123 21:23, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Cowboy Bebop

I don't have time to update, but I found mention of the staggared Japanese release, followed by the full release on the WOWWOW network on the english version of the Bebop site. No mention of Eva being the cause though. If I can find more later I'll edit it myself, but it might be a start for citing that section. Hewinsj 20:24, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

shōnen or seinen?

To be honest, I don't know the difference between the two. From looking at their Wikipedia entries, I'd say SC is more of a seinen. It definitely feels like it's targeting an older crowd than Bleach or FMA, which are two examples I see given of shōnen. But as I don't know more about the categories, I can't say for certain which it is. SpiderMMB 00:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

kafir article

I already tried to file a full protect request. It was denied. VanTucky ^Talk 03:06, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Woa! Some kind of mediation is necessary... ask123 03:09, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Post at WP:AIV

You posted the following at AIV: [1].

Please post this at WP:ANI instead. AIV is meant for simple vandalism. --Chris (talk) 15:24, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

ask

₪ ask123 {t}

₪ ask123 {t}

Reply on "Separate Entry Needed for Competitive Swimming"

I came acros your opinion on a seperate entry for competitive swimming as a sport (your comment can be found here. Since you've posted it some months ago, I thought I'd reply here, since it's some time ago. Anyway I agree on your opinion. In fact I wanted to start the same discussion on the talk page, but then I saw yours. I think that competitive swimming as a sport indeed needs it's own article. So you have my back-up on it ;-). -Jort227 12:51, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Genshiken tagging?

Would you care to elaborate on the article's talk page as to what specifically you feel is original research or unverified claims? As a whole, the article seems to be pretty well-sourced.--Julian Grybowski (talk) 01:47, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Done... See my response here... ask123 (talk) 05:57, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Fire sale

I just turned Fire sale into a disambig page. Do you want me to cut and paste your changes into the appropriate articles, or do you want to? — Reinyday, 20:58, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

If you could do that, it would be great. I have to leave my computer for many hours... And since the wording of some of it was pretty bad (and referenced an action movie!), it should be changed. Thanks! ask123 (talk) 22:00, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

December 2007

Please refrain from introducing inappropriate pages to Wikipedia. Doing so is not in accordance with our policies. For more information about creating articles, you may want to read Your first article. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. —Animum (talk) 04:41, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

What is this about? I've been on Wikipedia for a long time and have never had a problem. Over that time, I've been a major advocate of Wiki policies and often police for vandalism, original research and other inappropriate material. I haven't created that many articles, and none of them have been controversial or had suspect notability. Please explain what this is about. Thanks. ask123 (talk) 20:29, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I think (after parsing 7+ pages of archived contributions) that it had to do with User:L33t. Are you him? —Animum (talk) 02:30, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

That's not me. Don't know why there was confusion. Sorry for jumping at you. ask123 (talk) 04:28, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Moved Page

The history of the poage in question was merged into the page

Fire sale (attack)

here is the history that was merged Chrislk02 ^{Chris Kreider} 16:06, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! ask123 (talk) 16:06, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

AfD nomination of 11th dimension

An article that you have been involved in editing, 11th dimension, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/11th dimension. Thank you. --C S (talk) 15:54, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Hip_hop_music

Please pay attention to Talk:Hip_hop_music#Rename.2C_poll Netrat_msk (talk) 17:35, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Please do not leave condescending messages on my talk page. I made a comment about the title of the article, hip hop music, before the vote over the title was ever made. So there is really no reason to be telling me in your didactic tone to "pay attention" to some vote that occurred after I made the comment. Regardless of the vote (the result of which I respect), the phrase "hip hop music" is a misnomer. The correct term is rap music. Fortunately and unfortunately, Wikipedia is all about consensus. But regardless of the consensus among the opinions in the Wiki community, the title of this article is incorrect, and it will continue to misinform. ask123 (talk) 01:19, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

About Bobby Jindal and his wikipedia page.

If you think I have acted in bad faith, report it to a moderator. Otherwise, please do not warn me away from activities that I have no intention of participating in. DanielZimmerman (talk) 20:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps if you correctly interpreted what I wrote on the Bobby Jindal talk page, you would have realized that I am saying that it is, in my opinion, OKAY for you to edit the article so long as you provide credible sources and abide by other Wikipedia policies. So far, you have, and, thus, I see NO problem with your edits. Perhaps if you were less aggressive, you would be more popular and, ultimately, successful in your ventures. ask123 (talk) 01:08, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you did say that IF I post in a manner consistant with Wikipedia policy that I should be able to continue to edit the article. Of course, everyone has to follow the rules and guidelines of editing pages on wikipedia so restating that seems to be a little redundant. However, the tone of your post, including "One thing to point out is that his interests are clearly not with providing any useful information on Bobby Jindal." and "But, be advised, Mr. Zimmerman, you may not turn this article into a negative campaign ad or use any part of this article to that end.", is what prompted me to leave a message on your talk page. I see no aggression in my post to you. Just a suggestion and a request. DanielZimmerman (talk) 13:13, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

First of all, yes re-stating Wiki-policy is a redundancy and not an unnecessary one. There are necessary and unnecessary redundancies in the world (although your comment is phrased in a way that suggests that all redundancies are unncessary and a result of sloppy reasoning). For example, a traffic sign on the street may be redundant but, perhaps, a necessary one. Many systems of the world (DNA, for example) have relied on redundancies to work and develop properly. Re-stating Wiki-policy is a redundancy that many users find necessary -- hence, there are those that "patrol" Wikipedia for policy violations. In fact, many users are entirely unaware of policy or try to manipulate it for their own ends. The bottom line is that re-stating policy is not an unnecessary or inappropriate redundancy.

Second of all, I made many statements on the Bobby Jindal page. I stated that your edits to that page were, perhaps, not made in altruistic nature because you ran for public office against Mr. Jindal. That was a conclusion I drew on my own, and, frankly, it was not an umimaginable one. In fact, it was really an opinion. It was my opinion that there was a reasonable chance that your edits were for personal gain (pending a line-by-line analysis, of course). Obviously, in America, you come across opinions frequently and must deal with them in one way or another. You ran for public office -- you must be used to opinions of all kinds. So don't mind my opinions or what you perceive my tone to be. Have a thick skin. That's one of the most important traits of a public figure (politician no less), is it not?

Also, you culled a second sentence from my comments. This sentence is direct and unambiguous. It's fine that you felt the need to respond to my comments or to these two sentences. Frankly, I don't really care. But, as I said, that sentence is unambiguous and requires no further explication. So I won't say more of it.

Third and last of all, if you didn't find your response on this talk page "aggressive," then I believe that you are either not observant (which I doubt is the case), in denial or consciously avoiding recognition of this fact for your own personal reasons. It's not the only aggressive comment I've seen you make. In fact, I doubt that I'm the first person to tell you that a comment you made was aggressive. So, please, don't act so surprised. Do not feel the need to respond to this third point. Just think about it.

Cheers, ask123 (talk) 20:44, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

You made an assumption of bad faith (against a wikipedia guideline) and restated that I should follow the rules (after at least 2 others had already stated that I should be able to contribute to the article as long as I follow the rules). So yes, your statement was redundant and unnecessarily so. And the fact that you went against a wikipedia guideline while pointing out wikipedia guidelines makes you a bit of a hypocrite.

My skin is plenty thick (in more ways than one). People with thick skin need not be silent when they feel others are acting out of line. I think those comments made by you are out of line. That is my opinion.

And perhaps you should consider that there is a difference with confronting someone with aggression and responding to an aggressive comment in kind. Of course, I have dealt with others in an aggressive manner when called for.

As for what you find reasonable (pertaining to why I edit the wikipedia page) I find your views completely flawed. I have plenty of outlets to shine Bobby Jindal in a negative light when I feel the need. I would just suggest that you not make assumptions about why a person is here and instead look at what work is done by that person. I would suggest you look at previous comments made by me in the Bobby Jindal talk page. For example: And while I would argue that, it is not my job to post my argument in the article. It is my job when editing this encyclopedia to present the facts. and Political spin may be able to do it but policial spin has no place on wikipedia. Objective facts that are well sourced have a place on Wikipedia and However, my personal opinion is irrelevent to wikipedia. I have also removed statements attacking Jindal that were placed on the site. Removed unreferenced statement about his lack of support for Louisiana State Police. Definitely not within wikipedia inclusion guidelines for many reasons and I think if you eliminated the word "although", it would eliminate the "negative tone" of the sentance while keeping a factually relevant event that was well covered in the media.. I have even recently taken steps to protect the article because anonymous users where placing incorrect and unsourced information about Jindal. This doesn't seem like the actions of someone who has an agenda other than to maintain the integrity and encyclopedic value of the article does it?

And you accused me of being sneaky. If I wanted to be sneaky, don't you think I would have used a "sneaky" name and not my own? Just something for you to think about. DanielZimmerman (talk) 21:24, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Wrong wrong wrong again. There was a discussion in progress. Just because one or two people on a discussion page express opinions does not mean that the debate ends there. You are not pointing out an unnecessary redundancy; you're pointing out commonalities that occur in discussions all the time -- particularly on Wikipedia, where policy violators are rampant. You may think certain repetition is unnecessary, but it happens all the time. It's what happens in a discussion. People discuss things. In any event, you're changing your argument on redundancy. Before, the redundancy you had a problem with was my stating a policy that was already stated on a Wiki policy page. That is even more common; it happens all the time when Wiki users police the site for policy violators. Regardless of the argument you make though, both instances are common and acceptable. People recite and discuss policy all the time for various reasons.

Regarding the assume good faith guideline, I DID assume good faith by writing before that "it is, in my opinion, OKAY for you to edit the article so long as you provide credible sources and abide by other Wikipedia policies. So far, you have, and, thus, I see NO problem with your edits." You see how that IS an assumption of good faith? Some others, though, didn't assume good faith. They didn't do so because, when they connected your name with the election, they felt that good faith was compromised. This is not against the rules though. Obviously, everyone tries to assume good faith to whatever extent possible. But that's about all that's required. Assume Good Faith is only a guideline, not a policy. And guidelines are "more advisory than policies" (to quote the policies & guidelines page). In other words, it's a stong suggestion, not a hard rule. Some, however, seemed to feel that it was appropriate not to assume good faith and to question your actions. As of now, that's OK on Wikipedia. And, frankly, I don't blame them for questioning you. However, when discussing my actions, don't confuse me with others. I did give you the benefit of the doubt.

Regarding thick skin, you may think whatever you want about your level of sensativity. As you said, that's your opinion. I have mine. Frankly, Wikipedia is not the place for discussing/debating these types of things. And, anyway, I just don't care what you do or don't think on that topic.

Regarding my suggestion that you were, perhaps, being sneaky in editing your opponents page, I'll tell you what I thought might be sneaky about it. Nobody knows who Daniel Zimmerman is. Since your name is relatively unknown to the public, it doesn't matter if you use it or use a pseudonym instead. Nobody would know the difference. Frankly, I'm surprised that anyone caught onto the connection.

Lastly, regarding your editing of the Bobby Jindal page, as I said before (apparently, it needs repeating), "it is, in my opinion, OKAY for you to edit the article so long as you provide credible sources and abide by other Wikipedia policies. So far, you have, and, thus, I see NO problem with your edits."

Cheers, ₪ ask123 {t} 19:01, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

June 2008

Please do not delete content or templates from pages on Wikipedia, as you did to Samurai Champloo, without explaining the valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. Your content removal does not appear constructive, and has been reverted. Please make use of the sandbox if you'd like to experiment with test edits. Thank you. Also, do not remove hidden messages and refrain from using unhelpful redirects, like shonen over shōnen. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 02:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

You must have me confused. I practically wrote the entire lede and character sections for the article, Samurai Champloo, (and no one's had a problem with them - aka changed them) and for at least a year "policed" the page against just this type of negative editing. Regarding templates, the "chambara" and "comedy/drama" designations are appropriate. I have no issue with them -- never have. So save your form letters (or messages in this case) for users for whom they may actually be helpful. Thanks, ask123 (talk) 21:05, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia: WikiProject Swimming

Hi there, Ive recently joined the WP:WikiProject Swimming team. Im committed to getting on top of the project. Since you have listed yourself as a participant i thought i'd let you know what i've done. Ive got a bot thats going through the relevant catagouries that apply to the project and tagging them with our banner. Ive done all the stub class articles and assessed them automaticlly, and im starting on the 3000 other articles that ive identified. So this will mean that we will have all the articles in the scope of the project together and we can start working on them. So if you have any spare time theres going to be thousands of articles that will need assessing. There are around 2000 articles Just in Stub-Class swimming articles, and most of these will need the importance assessed. I think it's important we get all this assessing done, so we can start working on the articles.

Don't fell pressured to start assessing articles, i just thought that since theres going to be so many articles, you should know that theres heaps of work that needs to be done, ill be trying my best once my exams are finished. Remember many hands make light work.

Cheers Printer222 (talk) 13:35, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll work on some if I have time! ask123 (talk) 21:06, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Supermodel and Janice Dickinson

Will you stop putting in "erronerously" beside the part in the Supermodel article where it says that Janice Dickinson claims to be the first supermodel? It is POV to add your feelings that it was/is erronerous; it is also against Wikipedia policy, which you most likely already know. Not only that, but since it is pointed out that she is very likely wrong (though it does not say it that way), your POV word is beyond not needed. Readers can see all by themselves that the claim seems or is thought to be erronerous. Flyer22 (talk) 02:22, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

No, it is not POV. It is a fact. Her claims are erroneous. A POV statement would be to say something like "Janice Dickinson is a liar. Her claim is a lie." The sign of NPOV is stating just the facts, blandly. I think the word "erroneous" does that quite well. If Janice was actually the first supermodel, then you would be correct and the word would be pushing a POV. But, as we all know, she wasn't. This fact has been cited ad nauseam; it is not debatable. If you want to put it another way (i.e. use a word or phrasing besides "erroneous"), that's fine with me. Or, better yet, take the Janice Dickinson stuff out of the section entirely. Since she wasn't the first supermodel, she really has little to no relevance in the sub-section on the origin of "supermodel" (that is to say, the word and the profession itself). It seems that all anyone has to do to be mentioned in this article is to falsely claim to be the first supermodel. If I publish a book with HarperCollins in which I claim to have been the first supermodel, will you add me to the supermodel page and call "POV!" when people add the word "erroneous" next to my claim? Of course not. So let's just cut Janice out of the section entirely? Sound OK to you? ask123 (talk) 14:47, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

No, it does not sound okay to me. And your adding erroneous to that after that statement is POV, no doubt about it, especially since there is no reference attributed to your stating erroneous. As I already stated on your talk page, your POV word is also completely unneeded. Also, do not come to my talk page with an attitude, as if I am defending Janice Dickinson; I am simply following Wikipedia policy. And a big part of that is no POV. Your POV addition of that word in that part of the Supermodel article is particularly unneeded. Flyer22 (talk) 15:05, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

And, oh-looky, another editor has called your type of addition, which was recently added back by an IP (was it you?) POV as well.[2] Needless to say, that editor reverted that and other mess. Flyer22 (talk) 15:09, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

And you say, "If Janice was actually the first supermodel, then [I] would be correct and the word 'erroneous' would to be pushing a POV"? Whaaaaaaaaat? Uh, no, then that would be just plain false. POV is anything where an editor (or anyone) is adding his or her own thoughts to something of fact. Saying "Best couple"...."ludicrous claim"..."Greatest supermodel" are all examples of POV. That said, if we have valid sources backing up any of that POV, then we attribute those sources to those statements or titles. We would not say that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are the best celebrity couple in the world. We would say that People magazine has cited Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as "the the best celebrity couple in the world". Or not mention it at all. In the same way that we do not (well, you apparently do, but, still against Wikipedia policy to) put that "Janice Dickinson has erroneously claimed" blah, blah, blah... If a valid source specifically states that her claim is erroneous, then we state that that source has stated Dickinson's claim to be erroneous. Your addition of erroneous is not even anywhere close to being needed, anyway, considering that (like I stated on your talk page) readers can easily see that her claim is clearly disputed. I mean, jeez. Flyer22 (talk) 15:32, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Woa, woa, woa! FIRST OF ALL, YOU NEED TO TONE IT DOWN! ASSUME GOOD FAITH MAN! YOU'RE TONE IS WAY OUT OF LINE! I had no "attitude." Rather, I simply responded to your (rather aggressive) comment on my talk page.

Second, if I edit under an IP, it is because I forgot to sign in. That's all. I never sockpuppet, so don't even try that.

Third, you needn't explain what POV is, we all know that. So stop infantilizing. And if you're done with ad hominem arguing, I'll get to heart of the matter: the word "erroneous" is an adjective meaning "false," plain and simple. It's not POV unless it's attached to a true statement (in which case, it could be slander). Something is either erroneous or it's not; there is no "close to erroneous" or "almost erroneous" -- there's no middle ground. The word "best," on the other hand, is a adjective indicating a judgement based on comparison. One person's best may be another person's worst. People can differ on their interpretation of what the best is. But not with "erroneous." If it's erroneous, that's that. There are no opinions, there are no judgements on the "trueness" of something. A statement is either "true" or "false" (i.e. "erroneous"), even if, at the moment, you don't know which. For this reason, your analogy between the words "best" and "erroneous" is absurd.

Further, Janice's claim of being the first supermodel has been disputed in sources such as The New York Times ("The First Supermodel," Rosemary Ranck, 2/9/97), Parade (Walter Scott, page 2, 6/10,07) and the frequently cited Michael Gross book, Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women. In fact, the Janice Dickinson page has a whole sub-section devoted to her tubthumping of this false claim. The Janice Dickinson page also includes citations to each of these sources. I am not going out on a limb by stating that either Dorian Leigh or Lisa Fonssagrives was the first supermodel. This fact is substantiated by the aforementioned sources -- whereas Janice's claim is supported by, well, only Janice. So, unless you believe Janice's self-substantiated claim that she was the first supermodel, someone needs to remove the Janice stuff from the supermodel article. Alternatively, if there's a good counter-argument as to why Janice's claim should remain, then someone should add wording that indicates her claim is unsupported. Citing that should be easy since there are plenty of reliable sources contradicting her statements. But there is absolutely no reason to give her dubious claim of origination an equal amount of gravity as those claims that have sources! The question of whether or not Janice was the first supermodel has been pretty well settled: there are no sources supporting the claim, and there are many sources contradicting it. Thus, Janice's claims do not meet the burden of edivence. If this issue was still up in the air, then you'd have a point and I would be wrong in jumping to conclusions. But, no, it's not. Instead, it's been well settled with reliable sources. Janice's statements are unverified, unsubstantiated and, as the evidence overwhelmingly suggests, erroneous. ask123 (talk) 17:45, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I do not believe that I was in any way out of line. I also was not really saying that you are that IP. That IP is simply an annoying parasite that wants to inject a lot of original research into the article; he or she was simply just restoring the article back to "his" or "her" version. But he or she does seem to love to inject the word erroneous beside Dickinson's claim as much as you do, and even switched up the word's position as if no one would notice. As for what you just now stated to me... You say, "the word 'erroneous' is an adjective meaning 'false,' plain and simple. It's not POV unless it's attached to a true statement (in which case, it could be slander)." And you also say, "...your analogy between the words 'best' and 'erroneous' is absurd." Oh, come off of it! Another editor already cited your addition of erroneous as POV as well. Your trying to teach me the word erroneous is also absurd (and insulting!), as well as your pointing out to me the ways in which Janice Dickinson being the first supermodel has been challenged. You act as though I have been unaware of this, examples that you even cite from the Supermodel article, as well as hers. It just further shows the complete POV of adding the word erroneous, especially where it's not even remotely needed. Something is either erroneous or it's not? People throw around the word erroneous without knowing whether something is true or not. Or to express something that they do not believe; therefore erroneous is by all intents and purposes an opinion word. Using it in this case that you feel quite strongly is erroneous is still POV. Erroneous is POV because you are saying that she is lying, something that is completely unneeded, when the article is doing enough to suggest that itself. We do not straight-out call people, like Dickinson, liars on Wikipedia; we leave that up to readers to decide after presenting both sides. First, we present Dickinson stating she is the first supermodel and how she claimed the term; the second side shows opposing information. In cases like these, the readers can most of the time grasp what is likely ture or not. Two editors so far (I was/am one of those, of course) have reverted the POV of erroneous. I'm sure that other experienced Wikipedian editors would as well. Anyway, I really do not have anymore more patience to continue to "debate" this... If you want the word erroneous in there so badly, take it to the talk page and file an RfC (Request for comment). Flyer22 (talk) 19:55, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

1) So is my "teaching you" the definition of the word erroneous as insulting as your explaining to me what POV is? I have no idea who I'm conversing with. Half the people on Wikipedia are barely out of middle school. When I get someone trying to teach me what POV is my first thought is that this is a child. If I'm wrong, I apologize, but please see where I'm coming from.

2) Just because someone else confuses something as being POV doesn't make it so. The argument, "this other person agrees with me so you must be wrong" makes no sense.

3) Since you are already well aware of all of the sources contradicting Dickinson's claim, why are you pretending like there is still a debate. I could say that New York is the capital of France, but that doesn't mean there is suddenly a debate on the issue. There is no debate on whether or not Janice Dickinson was the first supermodel. The only ones debating it are the citizens of St. Janice somewhere in the Andromeda Galaxy.

4) You think the article is doing enough to suggest she is "lying" (your words). I don't. Whether it is a lie or she believes it, either way, it is false and, if it is to be included, it should noted as a misconception. Wikipedia is not in the business of subtle (to the point of confusion) suggestion. If something is false, delete it or indicate that it is a misconception. I'm all about letting the readers decide for themselves, but Janice's claim isn't even legitimate, i.e. worthy of offering up for judement. If tomorrow Christie Turlington claims to have been the first supermodel, are you going to add that to the article so that readers can decide for themselves? Allowing the reader to make his/her determination is, of course, the right thing to do, but only between verifiable/reliable choices. As you are aware, Wikipedia vets information based on reliable sourcing. Where is that here?

5) The only reason that I can see for including Dickinson's claim is that she's a figure in pop-culture whose claim of origination is well known. For that reason only, its inclusion can be argued. But, if one is to include her claim at all, it is also the his/her responsibility to note that, based on the sources we are both so familiar with, this is a misconception.

6) I don't really give a damn about this particular word or topic, and I don't care for your infantilizing comments. So I too would just love to drop this. But, rather, than RfC, perhaps I'll just Be bold and delete all of the Janice stuff. It doesn't meet the burden of proof for inclusion - especially not in its current form.

ask123 (talk) 20:42, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. I'm the child when you are the one trying to inject silly, unneeded POV into a Wikipedia article? I am not pretending that there is a debate. As I stated on the Supercouple talk page: "Her claim that she is the first supermodel is notable; it is a well-known claim, and has defined her career as much as anything else. All we need is her claiming that she is the first supermodel, with a valid reference showing that she has done so (no matter how familiar we are with this claim), then present evidence that disputes her claim. That is what that section in [the Supermodel} article is doing. That is how many "issues" like this go, not just on Wikipedia."

As for your feeling that the article is not doing enough to refute her claim, you have got to be kidding me! Take your problems with Wikipedia policy on not calling people liars up with someone else. Leave this "child" out of it. Flyer22 (talk) 20:53, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, it is quite clear that Dickinson has engrained the first supermodel claim enough into society's psyche that she is often referred to or introduced as the self-described first supermodel, sometimes simply being called the world's first supermodel:

Janice Dickinson Defends Hewitt In A Bikini As Healthy: "Tyra Banks Is Fat"

Janice Dickinson: the self-proclaimed first supermodel

Bulletin: Janice Dickinson Looks Hot!

Janice Dickinson

Let's not forget how her being a judge on America's Next Top Model helped this claim. Often, when people think of the world's first supermodel, Dickinson's claim comes to mind. She has created enough of a debate with it. So I would not say that there is entirely no debate about it. When presented with sources, like the Supermodel aricle does about this issue, however, it is easy to see how disputed her claim is, and I do not feel that the word erroneous helps to point this out any more than the way that section does already; all the word erroneous does is make it seem like a person is knocking the reader over the head with a bat even more than that section already is, asking "You see? You see?" I mean, yes, the person sees that her claim is significantly disputed. To suggest that readers need an added bonus of the word erroneous to grasp that fact is insulting to the readers.

In any case, that addition about Dickinson's claim is clearly notable enough for inclusion. Flyer22 (talk) 21:53, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

1) Ugh! It's not POV unless it represnts an opinion.

2) I am all about subtelty too, as long as the article is clear. This article is not. The section in question devotes more space to Dickinson's claim than to any other. In fact, the text is practically written around the Dickinson claim. I agree that we don't want to insult readers, of course not -- we're not here to tell them how to think - that's a given, Expository Writing 101, knowledge anyone who's picked up a book has. But we are here to present clearly and in a proportional manner material that's backed up by reliable sources. There is no proportionality here. Dickinson's claim should have one terse sentence if it's included at all, not 4 verbose ones. The Dickinson claim is the side note, rather than the current version's take, in which the other claims -- those backed by evidence -- are presented as tangential.

3) As I said, the only debate over this claim is St. Janice of Dickinson somewhere is a nebula far far away. There is no debate among those informed on the subject. As with any matter, those who are uninformed may debate till the cows come home - they don't know enough about the topic to have an informed argument. But that is not what we are talking about. We're talking about debate among those in the know. Also, her show does far less than you claim to promote a debate on this topic. We're talking about a worldwide issue, and her American syndie has done little to give her claim creedence on the international stage. You're presenting a purely American point of view -- as you know Wikipedia speaks to a global audience.

4) I don't care about the word "erroneous," as you keep on suggesting with your own sledgehammer. I do care about clarity in encyclopedia articles though. So pls don't suggest harp on one word or another. It's not about words; it's about ideas.

ask123 (talk) 22:37, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

It is POV; you see it as otherwise; I don't. I also see that part of the article as quite clear. And I did not state that "her American syndie" has given "her claim creedence on the international stage". I stated that her claim is notable, and Dickinson has engrained the first supermodel claim enough into society's psyche that she is often referred to or introduced as the self-described first supermodel, sometimes simply being called the world's first supermodel. I do not care if you reduce that to simply being the American audience. And I am not the one harping on one word. You are the one who so badly wanted the word erroneous in there, as if it would actually improve that section. And now you're saying that it's about ideas? Whatever. In any case, I'm done with this discussion or whatever the hell it was/is. I see nothing wrong with that section, and am for it staying how it is. You want it miminized as though it should be. Take it to RfC if you feel that strongly about it. Flyer22 (talk) 23:53, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Wow, you see nothing wrong with that section? I mean the entire article has problems - glaring ones. Whatever, that's besides the point here. Go down that road, and we'll be at it for weeks. I'm just gonna repeat what I said on the Supermodel talk page: you keep bring up the word "erroneous" - as if I care about that term or not. C'mon, man, I placed the word in once or twice, and that was after it was already there and I saw it get deleted. So just get over it already. The redundancy is starting to ring in my ears. As I said before, Dickinson's appropriation of the "first supermodel" moniker makes that particular point notable only to the topic, Janice Dickinson, not the topic, Supermodel. I can see where you're coming from if you use a exteremely loose interpretation of the concept of "notability," but, again, that just opens up the door for anyone to say, "Hey, I was the first supermodel," and suddenly be notable. Under your rationale, simply saying that enough times makes you notable enough not just to get into the Supermodel article but also to take up a pivotal position in the section on origination. Even taking that loose interpretation of notability, her claim is still worth only a sentence or two at most - it's just a tangential note. I doubt a fashion historian would devote as much space to Dickinson's claim as you have. Lastly, as I mentioned before to you: Assume good faith, AGF, AGF, AGF! Throughout this whole discussion on this page and on the Supermodel talk page, you've been a live-wire with a major attitude. You need to pipe down and stop trying so hard to infantalize. A little good faith goes a long way... ask123 (talk) 21:00, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with you! It's that damn simple. I see you with the attitude, and the one acting like a child, with your silly insults. Including Dickinson's claim in the Supermodel article does not open "up the door for anyone to say, 'Hey, I was the first supermodel,' and suddenly be notable." It is not about simply saying something enough times and becoming notable enough to get into the Supermodel article or taking "up a pivotal position in the section on origination." I disagree with you. No, we will not be at this for weeks, because I am done with you; it's that damn simple.

You make it out as though I am unaware that the Supermodel article needs work. I did not write it. I just keep crap out of it. You see Dickinson's claim being in the article as crap; that is your opinion. This whole thing started with your need to put erroneous in that section beside Dickinson's claim, and now you've made it about something else. I don't see how there can be any surprise that one would be a little "what?" at your sudden change in direction. I have stated that I disagree with you. You clearly disagree with me. I told you to take it to RfC if you feel so strongly about it because that is the next logical step. Not to give you an attitude. Done is done. Or at least I hope it is in this case. Flyer22 (talk) 22:48, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Woa, woa, woa! Pipe down...for the last time... That's fine that you disagree with me. But you keep coming back with these aggressive posts. You're using my talk page as a personal forum for your venting. Do that in real life, not here! You may have the ego to say things like "I'm done with you," but not on my personal talk page. If you can't be civil, then get lost! Yes, "it's that damn simple" indeed... ask123 (talk) 20:45, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay, whatever. Flyer22 (talk) 04:05, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

A123,

Thanks for all the good edits on Bernard Madoff. It looks like it is pretty much consistent with Wikipedia's goals and policy now. Perhaps we've clashed on grammar or what you think is trivia on the page, but that in itself is trivia.

Thanks again,

Smallbones (talk) 17:32, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy to help! Thank you too for your assistance with the article! It's very much appreciated. ask123 (talk) 17:41, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

In lieu of a barnstar

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch

I hereby award you with the sign of the TANSTAAFL. Do be aware that the last editor I awarded this to User:Samiharris was banned! Well, a little tarnish on a medal, in my view only increases its worth. Congratulations. Smallbones (talk) 17:52, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Hahahaha! Thanks! I really appreciate it, Smallbones! I'll have to send the .jpg to my friend. ask123 (talk) 18:24, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Can I "steal" [from] your user page?

I would like to make a change on my user page, but I'm still asking you first. Namely, I'd like to imitate or copy some of your way of arranging your userboxes, because mine look like crap. Also, I might want to copy some userboxes. Please contact me soon if you have any objections or reservations, because if I don't hear from you, I'm probably going to do it anyway. Thanks! Shanoman (talk) 22:01, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes you may. Of course, these aren't really my userboxes. They belong to everyone. So use as many as you want. And feel free to "steal" from anyone else's page as well. ask123 (talk) 00:49, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Bernie Madoff, his wiki article & anti-Semitism

What conclusion did you reach about the antisemitic/living person bio on Madoff? —Preceding unsigned comment added by BloodIron (talk • contribs) 00:47, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Although Jews were disproportionate among the Madoff victims, I still believe that the "Jewish factor" was a tangential element re: the fraud and had no causal relationship to it. The fact that many of Madoff's victims were Jewish can be explained in a much less interesting and exotic way than "he targeted Jews." It happened that way because he was a Jew and he associated and socialized with Jews and Jewish organizations. So, naturally, there was a disproportionate number of Jews in his coterie and client pool. But, make no mistake, these victims did not give Madoff their money to manage because he was Jewish. In fact, I don't think that was a factor at all. Instead, it went like this: they knew him because he was Jewish and so were they. Then, based on his "success" and reputation, they gave him money to manage. These things are never as interesting and complicated as people would like them to be. They're usually simple and all about one thing: money.

Circumcision

Hi Ask123,

I wonder if you could explain this edit on Talk:Circumcision? Your edit summary seemed rather too vague a statement of the problem(s) which you perceive. Jakew (talk) 16:26, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd be happy to answer your question. I placed the tags there because the article is unmistakably slanted toward the view that circumcision is a negative procedure. For example, the section Sexually Transmitted Diseases begins with the sentence: "The origin of the theory that circumcision can lower the risk of a man contracting HIV is disputed." This sentence is clearly biased toward the idea that circumcision has no effect on the transmission of illnesses. However, there is plenty of research indicating that circumcision does have an effect in this area and in a number of other areas as well. You can find many articles whose conclusions support circumcision in the following medical journals: the British Medical Journal, Sexually Transmitted Infections, the Journal of Urology, the International Journal of Urology, the Obstetrical & Gynecological Survey, the American Journal of Pathology and many others. There is also material published by the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (drawn from articles in accredited medical journals) on the subject that demonstrates, in no uncertain terms, the benefits of circumcision. Given that there are numerous accredited studies supporting this practice, the section on STDs should begin with a neutral sentence, not a biased one whose sole purpose is setting up an argument against the procedure.

To be honest with you, I found bias similiar to that present throughout the article, and it's quite intense, undue and consuming of the entire entry. The article doesn't so much describe circumcision as it sets out with the agenda of negating the potential benefits of it. And it does this despite the fact there is a lot of evidence to the contrary.

Now, please understand, I am not suggesting that there is a consensus among medical professionals that circumcision is something for all men. There is certainly some controversy over whether circumcision is an imperative procedure, one that should be recommended for all males or, alternatively, should be optional. Many doctors feel that it should be elective, the administration of which is determined by the child's primary or the adult patient. But this doesn't change the unmistakable POV of the writing contained in this entry.

I hope this sheds light on my edit for you. Please feel free to ask me any further questions you may have. I am happy to work with other editors. ask123 (talk) 16:54, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Ask123. Thanks for your response.

I wonder if you'd mind if one of us copied the above to Talk:Circumcision, and continued our discussion there? I would prefer it if others interested in that page can read and understand your objections. I'd like to comment further, but would rather do so there than here, again so that others can read. Thanks! Jakew (talk) 17:07, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Jake, that's fine. Please do so.

Also, please allow me to add the following points: there are many sections in the article devoted to certain issues surrounding circumcision like the transmission of illness, the loss/gain of sensativity, and ethical issues. Rather than presenting both sides equally and in an unbaised manner, many of these sections are structured to prove the point that circumcision has a negative effect on the individual in that given regard. These sections sometimes, in my opinion, stray from the topic in an effort to dispute circumcision, marginalize evidence that supports it, and, almost invariably, present supporting evidence after negating evidence and in a less prominent way. The overall effect is the minimization and deflation of very credible studies supporting circumcision. Whether intentional or not (I presume not), these tactics are designed to push an agenda, prove a point, sway a reader.

There are also a number of viewpoints in the article that are extremely controversial but are still presented as issues that undergo only minimal (in any) debate in the medical community. An example of that would be the idea that circumcision creates psychological trauma. This is not an idea held strongly by the medical community. The number of doctors that disagree with this opinion is many multiples of the number that supports it. Yet the section on the issue states first and most prominently, "it is now widely accepted..." The contrary position is given one marginal sentence.

Now I'm not trying to parse out each sentence in the article, but I am concerned with the overall tone and structure of the article. And I don't think that the tone and structure of the current version are even-handed. So thank you, Jake, for posting my comments on the talk page. I look forward to a productive discussion and, hopefully, changes. ask123 (talk) 17:46, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I've made a copy at Talk:Circumcision#Possible bias?, and will comment there in an hour or two. To keep things simple, I hope you'll reply there, too. Best wishes, Jakew (talk) 17:57, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'll do that. Thanks. ask123 (talk) 18:10, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

multiple columns/horizontal display of userboxes

Greetings! I am writing in response to the following comments you made on my talk page:

I was able to create clean column of user boxes, but I had trouble making multiple columns in a clean fashion. When I tried, I got a result like you have with your current version of your user page (with all due respect) -- boxes would not stay aligned and spaces popped up everywhere. Maybe I was writing the code incorrectly. I really don't know. Making multiple, neat columns is still a mystery to me. As you refine your user page, if you figure out any insights into this, please pass them along. ask123 (talk) 01:13, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I have found what you want or not; I got it by copying it from someone else's userpage, and as you can see, I'm still playing with it and my userpage looks crappier than ever. Still, maybe you can make it work for you. Just thought I would pass it along. Shanoman (talk) 22:55, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

P.S.---Maybe also check out User:Wintran 's user page. Shanoman (talk) 03:04, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips, Shanoman. A retooling of my user page is long overdue! Cheers, ask123 (talk) 04:02, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Attention

Hi -- I made some changes to your edit, and explained them on the talk page; just giving you a heads-up. Looie496 (talk) 15:13, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Not a problem. ask123 (talk) 16:46, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

POV tags

If you believe that an article is POV, like the John C. Turmel article, you can explain why you think so on its talk page, e.g., what parts you think are POV, and then add the POV tag to the article. THis way, other editors can clean up the article in order to remove the tag. Just adding the POV tag doesn't help get the article cleaned up. An even better way of addressing the problems you see in the article (and I have no idea what they are) would be to edit the article yourself in order to remove the POV you believe to be there. Thanks. Ground Zero | t 19:48, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I've thoroughly responded on the page, John C. Turmel. Tags are not the enemy. They alert editors who are invested in an article that that article has problems. I'm not invested in the John Turmel article. I have too much on my plate at the moment to spend time pouring over the details of it. I can only edit so many articles at once. Therefore, I'll make a small change here or there, but that's about it. Larger changes need to be addressed by those who are already invested in the topic. If I see a problem with an article that I'm not invested in at the moment, I point out the issues to those who are already committed to the piece. In this case, I didn't have time to make a talk page post at that moment. That's why I simply left a tag. But a discussion post was forthcoming in a reasonable amount of time. I work. I can't spend all day on Wikipedia. If I see an problematic article, I'll tag it and come back later that day to leave talk page comments. That is acceptable practice. Further, one doesn't always have to be bold and edit every article. It's OK to focus on a few articles and, if you come across problems in other articles, to point them out to others via tags and/or talk page comments. You can find further and more specific explainations of why I POV tagged the article on the talk page. Here's my post. ask123 (talk) 21:42, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Numbers under 100

"Numbers under 100 must be written out."

I wouldn't say "must". It's a point of style. It is neither fixed (e.g. many apply the rule to much smaller numbers), nor is it mandatory. (I do agree that, when describing ways to speak 4'33", spelling out "four minutes and thirty-three seconds" is necessary; but for a different reason.) ☺
überRegenbogen (talk) 20:47, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

No, conventionally speaking, numbers under 100 are written out. Another way of looking at it is that all numbers that can be written out with two words or less are written out. Of course, the rule does not necessarily apply in all situations (as you point out). Hours, minutes, seconds, degrees, radians, etc. do not necessarily need to be written out. But that's obvious. And, despite this exception, most numbers are supposed to be written out. Age is a good example of a form that is almost always written out. The bottom line, is the rule is applied case by case. There are obvious exceptions, but these are exceptions not the rule. The rule is to write them out if you can do so with less than two words (hyphenated). Also, this is not an arcane rule. It is widely used. I know there is some dispute on Wikipedia over this. In fact, the MoS does not promote one or another rule for numbers; it suggests that editors choose between alphabetical and numerical forms for numbers over nine. However, this is a choice created by Wikipedia editors. Grammarians have been writing out numbers that can be expressed with two words or less for a long time. Frankly, if I had more time on my hands, I'd lobby to change the MoS. ask123 (talk) 01:43, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Supercritical Water (properties)

Hi. just wanted to let you know, that I changed a description of supercritical water, made by you.
I'm positive that supercritical water (like all supercritical fluids), does only have one phase, so there is no destinction between liquid and gas - the two phases become one above the critical point (you can still have a solid phase though, if the pressure is extreme enough).
The remarkable thing about superfluids, is you cannot tell if they are a fluid or a gas, and actually you can heat a gas above the critical temperature, then raise the pressure above the critical pressure, then lower the temperature below the critical, and the pressure below the critical. What you get i a liquid, but although you started with a gas, there were absolutely no phase-change during any of the steps!
Personally I find that quite amazing :-)
Anyway, Critical_temperature#Vapor-liquid_critical_point clearly states this (only one homegenous phase above the point), so I hope you'll agree with my edit (or the meaning of it. I'm not native english, so feel free to correct my spelling and grammer!). Tøpholm (talk) 00:03, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Strange... I didn't write the sentence that you are referring to from the article water (properties). The language that you are referring to was written by other editors, not me. I simply rearranged the sentences and made some additions here and there. If you look at the history, you will see that that sentence was in the article well before I made my first edit. I took that sentence about supercritical fluids from the previous version of the article and incorporated it into the new version that I was writing. In other words, I just moved it around; I didn't write it.

This is what the article looked like before I edited it: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Water_(properties)&oldid=306104870

As you can see, the old sentence read: "Above a certain critical temperature and pressure (647 K and 22.064 MPa), water molecules assume a supercritical condition, in which liquid-like clusters float within a vapor-like phase." The language is identical. I changed nothing there.

Since that particular sentence was written by other editors, please comment on those editors' respective talk pages. But thanks for the helpful changes. Cheers, ask123 (talk) 01:07, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Morimoto

Morimoto wears (purely aesthetic)[citation needed] glasses.<<do...somethin.he never wore glasses til he opened nobu watch iron chef japan... or any old photo. it is aesthetics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.215.12.129 (talk) 06:14, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Look in the history tab. I did not add that fact. I simply moved it to another section. Regardless, your simple observation is not proof that his glasses are purely aesthetic. Often times, people acquire vision problems later in life, not in childhood. Furthermore, the fact that you saw him wearing glasses when he opened Nobu is irrelevant. You have no idea if he wore glasses before that. Maybe he wore contacts. Maybe you don't know him personally and have no idea if he really wears glasses in real life. Bottom line: you're "evidence" isn't really evidence of anything except your own potential gullibleness. You have no real proof. Whatever -- I didn't add the damn citation tag anyway! ask123 (talk) 18:26, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Debenture

You might want to trim your long comments at Talk:Debenture/Archives/2012#Debentures are bonds NOT secured by any assets or income. Reading the preceding sections, I see that as far back as January someone explained that the word is used differently in the US and UK, but you didn't seem to respect that.

I'll say this in your favour: at least you wrote "differently... from" as opposed to "differently than" like most Americans! Kind regards, Fayenatic (talk) 19:30, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Wd1

Hi, just made a small change to the edit you made to Wd1 because it changed the meaning somewhat. Your edit had "It is currently the most massive of the known star clusters", which is no longer correct - globular clusters are (considerably) more massive than Wd1. The important thing with Wd1 is that it's the most massive young open cluster known in the local group of galaxies, so it's close enough to study. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Westerlund1 (talk • contribs) 04:58, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you're absolutely right. Wd1 is the most massive of the known young star clusters. Globular clusters are certainly more massive. By the way, I like your user name. It's very apropos to our conversation. ask123 (talk) 20:16, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs

Hello Ask123! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 1 of the articles that you created is an Unreferenced Biography of a Living Person. Please note that all biographies of living persons must be sourced. If you were to add reliable, secondary sources to this article, it would greatly help us with the current 159 article backlog. Once the article is adequately referenced, please remove the {{unreferencedBLP}} tag. Here is the article:

1. Paul Warwick Thompson - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Thanks!--DASHBot (talk) 19:10, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done. Happy New Year! But please do come back and add further information to this tiny article. - Fayenatic (talk) 09:53, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the help... Don't have much time for Wikipedia at the moment... ask123 (talk) 16:07, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

You are now a Reviewer

Hello. Your account has been granted the "reviewer" userright, allowing you to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged protection, is currently undergoing a two-month trial scheduled to end 15 August 2010.

Reviewers can review edits made by users who are not autoconfirmed to articles placed under pending changes. Pending changes is applied to only a small number of articles, similarly to how semi-protection is applied but in a more controlled way for the trial. The list of articles with pending changes awaiting review is located at Special:OldReviewedPages.

When reviewing, edits should be accepted if they are not obvious vandalism or BLP violations, and not clearly problematic in light of the reason given for protection (see Wikipedia:Reviewing process). More detailed documentation and guidelines can be found here.

If you do not want this userright, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. Courcelles (talk) 04:54, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the Reviewer userright, Courcelles! I'll use it in good conscience! ask123 (talk) 16:58, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Why isn't there a wikiproject for Macross?

When searching for a wikiproject for Macross, since some articles related to the series are now up for deletion, I couldn't find one, but did spot Category:Wikipedians_who_like_Macross which has 44 people listed. Your name is first, since it starts with the letter A, so I decided to just talk to you. If there is enough interest in this series, a wikiproject could be created, for people who are knowledgeable about it to contribute on articles. Or if there is no way to save the articles from deletion, help transwiki that information, and the pictures, over to the http://robotech.wikia.com/ Dream Focus 00:16, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I probably put my name down many years ago. Although it isn't my absolute favorite series of shows, I do very much like the Macross franchise. I've been a fan of Shinichirō Watanabe for over 15 years now, beginning with his work on Macross Plus. That's what got me interested in Macross in the first place. I was aware of the series, but had never watched it in full until I viewed the OVA in the early 90s. I must admit though: I haven't really kept up. I've become interested in many other shows; so my attention is split. Still, I am certainly interested enough in Macross to be a part of a proposed Wikiproject. Speaking candidly, I probably wouldn't be the most frequent contributor -- I already have so much on my plate. But I'm sure there is enough interest out there for a project to be created. After all, it's quite a popular group of shows/OVAs...

By the way, what exactly is the problem now? Are some of the Macross articles up for deletion? You mentioned that, and, if that's the case, it does very much concern me. I can't imagine any reason for deleting a Wiki article on one of the Macross series or OVAs. Please explain. Many thanks. Cheers, ask123 (talk) 03:54, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

• So far just two have been nominated, but the rest will follow. That's how they have done this with other series.Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Boddole_ZerWikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bruno J. Global If you can find some mention in a news or magazine review to use as a reference, you can save them, otherwise they'll just delete them no matter what. If you create a Wikiproject, you just doing it the same way you would any article, Wikipedia:WikiProject Macross, we could then invite everyone on the list to join it, and perhaps some fans could find some old magazines they remember having around their house that did review the characters, or otherwise offer some input.
• If the articles can not be saved, and I do doubt most of them will be since this past year they've successfully wiped out other series, such most of the Gundam characters, He-man characters, and whatnot, then the only way to save the articles is to Special:Export them to your harddrive, and then import them to a wikia, that bringing over the histories and all. I'd do it myself, but you have to be an administrator to have the import feature. I recently adopted another Wikia, so I can't adopt the abandoned stub for http://macross.wikia.com/wiki/Macross_Wiki . If you were to go to [3] and ask to adopt it, they'd give it to you, since under the rules if no one has posted there in months, anyone can adopt it. Once you have adopted it, you can appoint other people administrators, and I can then help import all the articles over. And the Wikia can grow from there. Just make a few edits there to show you are serious. I can start exporting all the nominated articles now, and upload them once you gain control of that Wikia, if you are interested in helping me. It won't take long at all. Or if you don't want to be bothered, I'll ask another fan of the series, until someone agrees to adopt it.
• There is already a Robotech wiki, but it was recently adopted by a guy who said he doesn't want any content from the Wikipedia at all, even if its going to be deleted [4], and that he had gone and deleted articles that I had copied over there previously, such as all the famous battles from the series. So no hope there. Dream Focus 15:07, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Graham's number#Too technical?

You might be interested in this discussion: Talk:Graham's number#Too technical?. I agree with r.e.s. that this article is as non-technical as it can be, but we'd love your input on what we could do to make it more accessible. Cheers, — sligocki (talk) 01:34, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

We're recruiting art lovers!

Archives of American Art Wikimedia Partnership - We need you!

Hi! I'm the Wikipedian In Residence at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art and I'm recruiting Wikipedians who are passionate about art to participate in furthering art coverage on Wikipedia. I am planning contests and projects that will allow you access, no matter where you live, to the world's largest collection of archives related to American art. Please sign up to participate here, and I look forward to working with you! SarahStierch (talk) 00:14, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Siegel+Gale Wikipedia entry

Hi Ask123. Saw your notes to the Siegel+Gale entry. This page was built with the help of T3chl0v3r and Ten Pound Hammer in compliance with Wikipedia rules so as to be factual and non-promotional. This information has been up for a year+ and found to be neutral per the COI. I understand Wikipedia is always evolving to better the information and would greatly appreciate you helping me understand where you feel this is promotional (other than what has been identified below.)

I saw notes on the following:

It gained media coverage[where?] and industry recognition[by whom?] for using plain English to simplify and clarify legal documents, such as loan applications, mortgage agreements, insurance policies and leases. (I believe I can source that)

In the 1990s, Siegel+Gale became an early investor in digital media[which?] (Would enumerating all the various types of digital media help? The early 90s was the dot-com boom and that is what this is referring to. It also included less revolutionary things- by today's standards- of converting items to CD-ROM.)

Looking forward to hearing your feedback.

Thank you!

Sgnyc01 (talk) 20:36, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I have no time to deal with this now. But I will make one comment. The article is filled with puffery and excessive length and detail. Articles on minor topics should be reduced in length and not overly detailed. Length and detail creates the sense of legitimacy and importance. In other words, the article on Sony should be longer and more detailed than the article on Skullcandy. And, in the case of these electronics makers, this is certainly true. The article on Sony is at least 4x the length of that on Skullcandy and has 87 sources vs 15 sources for the Skullcandy article. This is appropriate. In the case of Siegel+Gale, the article is MUCH longer than that of even its much larger parent company, the advertising giant Omnicom. The Omnicom article has 5 sources; the Siegel+Gale entry has 23 sources. The Siegel+Gale article is about as prominent as is the Ogilvy & Mather entry; Ogilvy is obviously a MUCH larger and more prominent player than S+G. The S+G article is out of proportion. Also the S+G article is chock full of small facts and trivia and language that sounds like promotion. Now obviously everyone wants good articles. But what we don't want are articles filled with trivia and promotion. That is the problem here. The article reads like a promotion piece with lots of strange and small facts about the company and its founder. It needs to read more like an encyclopedia entry and have a level of detail that is in line with its size and stature as a company. ask123 (talk) 20:16, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

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Fixed. ask123 (talk) 20:03, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Spofford Juvenile Center

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A tag has been placed on Spofford Juvenile Center requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G12 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be a clear copyright infringement. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material, and as a consequence, your addition will most likely be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. This part is crucial: say it in your own words. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously and persistent violators will be blocked from editing.

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This is LUDICROUS. I created this page over 4 years ago. I am not aware of any copyright infringement when it was created. It is possible that someone did place copyrighted material there subsequent to my creating it, but I cannot tell you for sure.

Since you put the tag up, user Alzarian16 removed the tag, claiming that there was in fact NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT on the page. I have also since edited the page with more accurate info. I am considering this issue settled. ask123 (talk) 20:03, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

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No, this was intended.ask123 (talk) 17:27, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

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Michael Shermer discussion

Hi. Can you offer your opinion in this discussion? Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 17:56, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

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Proposed deletion of Hat note

The article Hat note has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

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Invitation to WikiProject Portals

WikiProject Portals has been rebooted.

You are invited to rejoin.

You definitely want to see this. Major undertaking underway:

Operation: Upgrade portals

Your input is needed.

Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   14:27, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update, April 22, 2018

Thank you for joining the Portals WikiProject.

Here's our first project-wide update. I hope you enjoy it...

Reboot

The WikiProject reboot has been a success: the new re-envisioned project is up and running, with new members, ongoing discussions about automation, design, and upkeep; maintained task queques; and updates to members, like this, the very first one!

The RfC

As you know, there's a proposal to delete all portals. It started out looking pretty dismal for portals, with primarily posts supporting their demise. It turned out that the proposer didn't post a deletion notice on the very pages being nominated for deletion (a requirement for all deletion discussions). Once that was done, a flood of opposition came in and has apparently turned the tide.

RfCs generally run for 30 days. It started April 8th, and so it has about 14 more days to run its course.

The more work we can do during that time on the portals, the stronger the reasons for keeping them will be. And the more prepared we will be for any MfDs that follow the closing of the RfC.

AWB?

You may be wondering why we asked for AWB experience in the member-sign-up list.

We are gearing up to do maintenance runs on the entire set of portals, and the more people we have who can use AWB, the better.

But we're not quite ready to start this yet.

To be able to use AWB on the portals, we first need to know what the end result needs to be. Like on the news sections, do we comment out the out-of-date ones, or do we place the code to activate the newsbot on those pages? That would require an assessment of WikiNews and its news generating performance (areas covered, volume in each area), etc.

You can help us figure this out at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals#Discussions about news sections.

Another area we're gearing up for, to do passes with AWB, are upgrades to the intro sections of portals. Many of these have static (copied/pasted) excerpts that go stale over time.

We're trying to figure out how to make self-updating excerpts to replace the existing static excerpts that are on many portals, and once this is done, AWB will be used to place the new code. See the discussion on this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals#Discussions about selective transclusion in intros.

"What can I do?"

There are 3 major areas of activity right now:

Update the main portal list at Portal:Contents/Portals

There are a few hundred existing portals that are missing from this list.

The list of missing entries, and instructions on what to do, can be found at Portal talk:Contents/Portals#These are not listed yet.

We need everybody's help on this. It's a big chore for one persons. But, many hands make light work. Please help chip away at this chore as much as you can. A little each day, form all of us, will get this done pretty quick.

Familiarize yourself with the portal system

In addition to browsing the portals in the 2 lists mentioned in the section above, you should take a look at the portal name space itself and what is in it.

That can be done at Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Watchlist.

Join in on the discussions

There are discussions on many aspects of the WikiProject's operations, with more to come.

Such as about the purposes and functions of portals, design discussions, and so on.

There's even a automated design discussion over at Village Pump Technical, on selective transclusion.

I hope to see you on the talk page.

What's coming?

In addition to the automation efforts mentioned above, we will be looking into how to automate the selection and display of alternating excerpts, and alternating pictures, for the various portal sections.

Watch for these discussions on the Wikiproject's talk page.

Summing up...

Get ready, get set, go!    — The Transhumanist   22:54, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

P.S.: The main example given at the RfC of the problems of portals was Portal:Cricket. Therefore, it's the top priority portal to update. Please lend a hand. - TT

Portals WikiProject heads up, April 27, 2018

We now have 52 members, and more are joining daily.

New and easier way to handle excerpts

Attention portal maintainers!

There's a new template to improve existing and new portals, called {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.

It is a lot easier to use than copying and pasting text from articles, as it displays the paragraphs you specify automatically for you.

It makes excerpts so that they are always current and never go stale or fork.

It is more powerful than it looks, because it has the Lua Module:Excerpt supporting it.

Be careful, as it is alpha software. Please notify the WikiProject talkpage of any problems you come across.

To give you a sense of the reaction this template is generating, here is an excerpt of a discussion thread from the WikiProject's talk page:

• This new template is fantastic. I've added it to the intro sections of the portals on Australian cities (eg P:PER) and it works brilliantly. My compliments to its creators. It can probably also be used in other sections of many portals (eg "Selected article" and "Selected biography"), and, for that reason, will probably make the task of maintaining portals a great deal easier. Bahnfrend (talk) 09:02, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

  Thank you for being so brave. Portal:Adelaide/Intro just got a lot simpler! Certes (talk) 10:43, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Kudos on a wonderful template.    — The Transhumanist   03:27, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

This is amazing stuff. I'm going to get to work on using it on the selected content at most of these portals very soon. WaggersTALK 13:40, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

The RfC

I wrote a comment in the the April 26 section of the RfC explaining what we are up to. I liked the excerpt above so much, that I went back to my RfC posting, and inserted it.

Wish list

What's this? An old oil lamp. It's so dirty, I think I'll polish it...

*poof*

Whoa! Are you a WikiGenie? In that case, I get 3 wishes!

I wish...

1. ...that Portal:Contents/Portals becomes up-to-date.   (The missing entries are listed on the talk page, with instructions).
2. ...the WikiProject to have Article Alerts.   ({{WikiProject Portals}} templates have already been placed on all portal talk pages).
3. ...that Portal:Cricket becomes a shining example of portal excellence.   (It was the main example of a crappy and unmaintained portal at the RfC).

Please make my wishes come true. See you around the portals!    — The Transhumanist   07:55, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Portals Overview, May 04, 2018

Thank you for being a member of the Portals WikiProject, and thank you for all the work you have all been doing on the portal namespace. To see the activity, check out the watchlist.

This is our 3rd issue, see previous issues at the Newsletter archive.

Top priority: Main list of portals needs updating

The top, and one of the most visible parts, of the portal system is Portal:Contents/Portals, which is intended to list all (completed) portals on Wikipedia.

About half of the missing existing portals have been added since this WikiProject's reboot (April 17th). Thank you to RockMagnetist, TriNitrobrick, Polyamorph, PratyushSinha101, Ganesha811, Bermicourt, Javert2113, Noyster, Ɱ, Lepricavark, XOR'easter, and Emir of Wikipedia, for working on this.

We are half-way to completion with this. We need everyone to chip in until it is done. Instructions, and the list of missing entries are at Portal talk:Contents/Portals#These are not listed yet.

I hope you'll join me there. ("Many hands make light work").

Thank you.

Membership

We're at 66 members, with more joining daily. We even have 6 WikiGnomes!

Special thanks

I have awarded Certes with a portals barnstar on his talk page for his work on the new excerpt templates that are revolutionizing the portal system (Template:Transclude lead excerpt & Template:Transclude random excerpt). If you'd like to show your appreciation, please feel free to stop by his talk page and add your signature to the barnstar itself.

Thank you Certes. You are enabling this WikiProject to get the right things done, fast.

By the way, the templates have already gone international. After being told about the templates, Mossab wrote:

Thanks You very much!. Those are fantastic and great templates! I transferred them to Arabic Wikipedia and they do a magic great job. I worked to improve portal anatomy here and i do every thing i can to improve it and i am very sad for the nomination for deletion of portals :(. I am glad to be member on WikiProject Portals and i added my name with pleasure. Kind regards

RFC

As you know, the (April 8th) proposal to delete all portals and the portal namespace inspired the reboot of this WikiProject. RfCs typically run for 30 days, which means there are 5 days left including today, before the RfC will be closed. The !votes are predominantly "oppose", but many editors have shared their disappointment with the portal system. We have our work cut out for us in correcting the problems of the portals to address their concerns. Complaints ranged from being out of date and lacking maintenance, to taking up the time of editors that they felt (due to low traffic) would be better spent improving articles.

Anti-WikiProject drama

This past week has been somewhat stressful for me, with more than a little conflict...

It culminated with my being reported at the Administrator's Noticeboard "for spamming and canvassing". This is the second time I've been reported there during the RfC; the first one was for posting notices of the deletion discussion (the RfC) at the top of all portal pages.

The accusations were 1) Posting notices of the deletion discussion (the RfC) at the top of all portal pages, 2) Adding an Article alerts section to the Portals WikiProject page, and 3) posting notices (invitations) about this WikiProject on user talk and portal talk pages.

None of which fall under the Wikipedia definitions of spamming or canvassing.

Thank you, Lionelt and Lepricavark, for coming to my rescue. I don't know how the discussion would have turned out if you had not spoken up.

The discussion was closed as "no action necessary".

After that, the person responsible posted their thoughts to my talk page. Here they are, with my response:

Congratulations, it appears your relentless targeted advertising of the RFC, your beating the RFC Supporters with a stick by posting countless times there, your dishonest insistence that Current Events was on the chopping block, and your obstruction of clean up efforts at MfD are paying dividends. Have fun playing with Portal space where no one will read your work. I'm sure someone will eventually clean up the mess when your interest wanes. Cheers. Legacypac

Thank you. I accept your congratulations on behalf of Wikiproject Portals and the portal-loving community – it was a team effort. In addition, I'd like to clarify some things about your claims above...

1. Each page nominated for deletion must have a notice at the top of its page, per the deletion guideline. Not to have one there, would be unfair to those who use such pages, and would constitute a secret deletion tribunal. We don't do things that way on Wikipedia.
2. As new facts became available (e.g., a motivated and thriving WikiProject to support the portals, new building blocks, etc.), it was appropriate to post the developments to the RfC, to support informed decision making.
3. Proposals are literal, not figurative. The proposal specified "all portals". All means all.
4. The fact is, the rebooted WikiProject is cleaning up the mess, rather rapidly. By updating and upgrading the portals, rather than getting rid of them.
5. I think I'll be hanging around for awhile, but the project is more than likely to achieve critical mass and may outlive us all, due in part to the development of tools to assist editors in building, upgrading, and maintaining portals that are fully dynamic and self-updating.

Portals are more fun to work with than ever. Thank you for your role in making this happen. You made us try even harder, and inspired us to pull together as a team. You'll have a warm place in our hearts, forever. The Transhumanist

Automatically refreshed excerpts

The main advancement we've made so far is applying selective transclusion Transclusion is template technology, showing a page on another page. Selective transclusion shows only part of that page. We use it to show excerpts that always match the source. The two templates we have so far, are Template:Transclude lead excerpt and Template:Transclude random excerpt.

Obsoleting subpages

Excerpts are migrating toward the base page of each portal, and where this is done, a subpage is no longer needed.

Template:Transclude lead excerpt will be able to be used to put the intro excerpt directly on the portal page, rather than on an intro subpage, once we adapt a portal design to accommodate this.

Template:Transclude random excerpt is currently being used on 1st-level subpages, and eliminates the need for 2nd-level subpages. (Many portals have 2 levels of subpages).

There are about 1500 portals, but there are around 148,000 subpages in portal space. Further discussions are needed to develop designs and components that do not require them.

It is my hope that the portal of the future will be a single page, or close to it, pulling in excerpts from specified dynamic sources (like category pages), filtered by ratings. This would obviate the need for subpages at all (except for maybe the header and footer subpages, which store a portal's settings). A more likely near-term solution would be subpages with a list maintained by a bot, or editors using semi-automatic tools.

New portals

Since the reboot, a new portal has been created:

Portal:Limited recognition

Please watchlist these pages

Some central pages in the portal system. The more eyes on them, the better.

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals
• User:The Transhumanist (there's a fair amount of portal project traffic on my talk page these days)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Portal/List of all portals/Page 1
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Portal/List of all portals/Page 2
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Portal/List of all portals/Page 3
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Portal/List of all portals/Page 4
• Wikipedia:Portal:Portal Example portal. And funny.
• Portal:Contents/Portals
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Culture and the arts
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Geography and places
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Health and fitness
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/History and events
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Infobox
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Intro
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Mathematics and logic
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Natural and physical sciences
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/People and self
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Philosophy and thinking
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Portal nav footer
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Reference
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Religion and belief systems
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Society and social sciences
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Technology and applied sciences
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Topic

Wrapping up...

There's more in the works, like a rating system, further redesigns, etc. Keep an eye on the discussions on the project's talk page. They should start showing up there soon.

Hope to see you there. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   06:21, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Portals update, 11 May 2018

We've grown to 73 members, and morale is high. Thank you for joining. Here is some news, and some tasks...

The RfC will be closed soon...

2018-05-11: preparations are being made to close the RfC. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure#Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/RfC: Ending the system of portals.

When there, be sure to notice the consultation link.

We're trying to get a prototypical single-page portal developed in time to show the RfC closers before they make their final decision. You can help. It's Portal:Humanism. So far, we've applied selective transclusion (automation) to excerpts, and have made the following sections without subpages: intro, selected article, selected biography, categories, related portals, wikiprojects, things to do, and wikimedia. Eight down, 4 to go, plus 2 formatting subpages (not sure we can migrate those). Automating every section, would also be nice.

Main objectives

Our main objectives currently, are:

1. Replace static excerpts with selective transclusions, so that the excerpts always stay fresh (that is, match the source content). We are now doing this on the portal base page as much as possible, to reduce the number of subpages that are needed. See #2...
2. Migrate the functions of subpages to the portal base pages. There are around 150,000 subpages in portal space. We aim to make these obsolete by using templates and other calls from the portal base pages.
3. Improve portal design to make portals self-update. Semi-dynamic sections update from a static list, as used in {{Transclude random excerpt}}. Fully-dynamic sections would update from a list maintained elsewhere on Wikipedia, like a category. We haven't found a way to do this yet, other than to create a bot (which we will probably need to do).

Maintenance pass #1: Upgrading the intro section

The intro section of many portals transcludes an "Intro" subpage that has an excerpt in it.

We're replacing that with a selective transclusion directly in the intro section, bypassing the subpage. Though, there's a little more to it...

For instructions, see: Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Transclude intro excerpt directly on the portal base page.

Please skip Portal:American Civil War, as that is specifically being maintained by hand.

Maintenance pass #2: Obsoleting the Wikimedia subpages

One of the sections on many portals links to sister projects on the subject. This needlessly takes a subpage. The subpage can be made obsolete by using the template {{Wikimedia for portals}} directly on the portal base page.

This has been done for several hundred portals so far.

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Obsolete a Wikimedia subpage for instructions.

Maintenance pass #3: calling the category tree from the portal base page

Certes figured out how...

{{subst:Text|<category|tree>}}{{subst:PAGENAME}}{{subst:Text|</categorytree>}}

For more information, see the thread Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Rendering PAGENAME inside categorytree tag doesn't work (it does now).

More to come...

In the meantime, see ya around the portals!    — The Transhumanist   15:22, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update, 15 May 2018

We are at 74 members. If you know anyone who might find this WikiProject interesting, please invite them.

The RfC has ended

The RfC was closed May 11th, and a closing statement was posted May 12th which says "There exists a strong consensus against deleting or even deprecating portals at this time."

Ongoing tasks

Some major activities that we are in the middle of include:

• Adding the missing existing portals to the main portals list at Portal:Contents/Portals. Instructions are on the talk page. There are about 125 portals left to be processed. (There were 400). Keep up the good work!
• Development discussions on how to migrate the subpages to the base pages. There are around 150,000 subpages in portal space, associated with the various sections on a typical portal. We are trying to obsolete them section type by section type. Currently, we're working on obsoleting the intro subpages and the "selected articles" subpages. Please join in.

Other tasks

• The list of portals not ready to be listed on the main list can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#These are not listed yet (scroll down to see them - they are marked Not ready). They are incomplete. If you want a specific portal to work on, please consider choosing one from that list.
• Over the years, some incomplete portals (portals under construction) got added to Portal:Contents/Portals. Therefore, every portal listed there needs to be inspected, and any that are incomplete should be removed from that list and added to the not ready list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#These are not listed yet (scroll down to see it). On Portal:Contents/Portals, I'm already almost done inspecting the portals in the culture section, and so you can skip those. The types of things to look for are empty sections (most will have a redlinked subpage), lack of "selected" sections, portal stubs with just an intro and end sections, and very poor layout (like seriously unbalanced columns).

Portal-building resources

During his work on portals, Broter found a quote randomizer. It is {{Random quotation}}.

Trailblazer: approaching the one-page portal

Broter has transformed the Portal:Community of Christ so it is comprised of only 3 pages in portal space: the base page, its box-header subpage, and its box-footer subpage. Its other other subpages are now obsolete and are waiting for deletion. Nice job, Broter!

Well, that's all for now. See ya around the portals.    — The Transhumanist   06:37, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update, 25 May 2018

We have grown to 79 members.

Please provide a warm welcome to our latest additions, Wpgbrown, Cactus.man, JLJ001, and Wumbolo.

A lot is going on, much of it on the WikiProject's talk page, so be sure to go there and join in on any of the many discussions taking place there.

Elsewhere around the portal project, or related to portals, the following is happening...

New news template ready for testing

Evad37 has created a new template, with supporting lua module, to handle news in portals...

{{Transclude selected current events}} is ready to be tested in some actual portals. Let Evad37 know if you need help with the search patterns.

Noyster commented that "This is the best portal innovation since sliced bread!"

See the relevant discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals#Alternative to Wikinews.

Thank you, Evad.

Coming soon: Automatic article alerts (but there is a glitch)

Our WikiProject is now subscribed to the bot that makes automatic article alerts, but the subpage where they are posted has not been added to our WikiProject page yet because of a weird problem...

Featured portal nominations from two years ago keep popping up on there.

Please check Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals/Article alerts to see if you can figure out how to fix this.

Once that is remedied, it will be posted on our WikiProject page.

Thank you.

Note that, this will only track base pages, because to track the rest, we'd have to create over 140,000 talk pages for the subpages, and that just isn't worthwhile (as we're trying to remove the subpages anyways). Therefore, any alerts for subpages will still need to be posted manually.

New portal, still needs work

• Portal:Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, courtesy of Mozart834428196. See also, the discussion.

Drafting a new portals guideline

Your input/editing is welcome on the draft-in-progress of a new guideline for portals.

See or work on the draft at User:Cesdeva/sandbox11.

See also the discussion at: Wikipedia talk:Portal guidelines#RfC on new portal guidelines

RfC on new TOC layout for main portal list

There is a proposal to change the look of the table of contents at Portal:Contents/Portals.

See: Portal talk:Contents/Portals#RFC on layout update.

Deletion discussion survivors

Thank you to those who have participated in portal deletion discussions. There are still some editors out there who despise portals, and this comes across in their argumentation style. Wow. Such negativity. But, there is some good news...

• Portal:Quidditch survived its 2nd deletion nomination
• Portal:Prehistory of Antarctica did the same

Current deletion discussions are posted on our WikiProject page.

Portal space clean up

While portal detractors are trying to get rid of portals via MfD, we have deleted many of them via speedy deletion (per {{Db-p1}} or {{Db-p2}}). Essentially, they were bare skeletons, with maybe a little meat on them. The plus here is that speedy deletion is without prejudice to re-creating the portals. They can easily be restarted from scratch without getting approval, or be undeleted by request by someone willing to work on them. We have kept track of these, for when someone wants to rebuild them. They are listed at Portal talk:Contents/Portals#These are not listed yet.

We are also removing subpages, the functions of which have been migrated to portal base pages. To see which ones have been removed, look for the redlinks in our watchlist.

There is also an MfD concerning some of these at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Redundant subpages of the Cornwall portal.

For subpages that need to be deleted, you can conveniently place this speedy deletion template at the top of each of them:

{{Db-g6|rationale=of subpage clean up – this subpage's function has been migrated to the portal base page and is no longer needed}}

Then an admin will come along and delete them.

Please help list the unlisted portals!

There are still 100 existing portals not yet presented on the main portal list at Portal:Contents/Portals. There were 400, so we've come a long way. Thank you! But we are not done yet...

Please list a couple of them. Every little bit helps. If each member of this project listed one more, it would almost all be done. Many hands make light work.

The list of missings, and instructions, are to be found at Portal talk:Contents/Portals#These are not listed yet.

I hope to see you there!

Wrapping up

These developments make up just the tip of the iceberg. I'll have more to report in the next update, soon.    — The Transhumanist   00:31, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Whoa, I missed one...

There's an article about the Portals WikiProject in the new issue of Signpost:

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-05-24/WikiProject report

Enjoy.

P.S.: We now have 80 members. Evad37 just joined!    — The Transhumanist   01:35, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #007, 31 May 2018

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   12:00, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #008, 7 June 2018

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

Picture slideshow

• 
  Sacramento Memorial Auditorium
• 
  Capitol Mall, seen from the Capitol
• 
  Sacramento from near the Sacramento River
• 
  Tower Bridge
• 
  State Capitol Building
• 
  Old Town Sacramento, the capital as it looked like in 19th century
• 
  Pocket Sacramento Canal
• 
  US 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).

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   02:07, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #009, 15 June 2018

(Article slideshow prototype)
Selected animals

• 

  

  
  The horse (Equus ferus caballus) is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, 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. 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 a 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 cat (Felis catus), also referred to as domestic cat or house cat, is a small domesticated carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species of the family Felidae. Advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the domestication of the cat occurred in the Near East around 7500 BC. It is commonly kept as a pet and farm cat, but also ranges freely as a feral cat avoiding human contact. Valued by humans for companionship and its ability to kill vermin, the cat's retractable claws are adapted to killing small prey like mice and rats. It has a strong, flexible body, quick reflexes, and sharp teeth, and its night vision and sense of smell are well developed. It is a social species, but a solitary hunter and a crepuscular predator. Cat communication includes vocalizations—including meowing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling, and grunting–as well as body language. It can hear sounds too faint or too high in frequency for human ears, such as those made by small mammals. It secretes and perceives pheromones.
  
  Female domestic cats can have kittens from spring to late autumn in temperate zones and throughout the year in equatorial regions, with litter sizes often ranging from two to five kittens. Domestic cats are bred and shown at events as registered pedigreed cats, a hobby known as cat fancy. Animal population control of cats may be achieved by spaying and neutering, but their proliferation and the abandonment of pets has resulted in large numbers of feral cats worldwide, contributing to the extinction of bird, mammal, and reptile species.
  
  As of 2017
  '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000012-QINU`"'
  ,
  '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000013-QINU`"'
  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 as of 2020
  '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000014-QINU`"'
  .
  '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000015-QINU`"'
  As of 2021
  '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000016-QINU`"'
  ,
  '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000017-QINU`"'
  there were an estimated 220 million owned and 480 million stray cats in the world. (Full article...)
• 

  

  
  

  

  
  The dog (Canis familiaris or Canis lupus familiaris) is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it was selectively bred from an extinct population of wolves during the Late Pleistocene by hunter-gatherers. The dog was the first species to be domesticated by humans, over 14,000 years ago and before the development of agriculture. Experts estimate that due to their long association with humans, dogs have gained the ability to thrive on a starch-rich diet that would be inadequate for other canids.
  
  Dogs have been bred for desired behaviors, sensory capabilities, and physical attributes. Dog breeds vary widely in shape, size, and color. They have the same number of bones (with the exception of the tail), powerful jaws that house around 42 teeth, and well-developed senses of smell, hearing, and sight. Compared to humans, dogs have an inferior visual acuity, a superior sense of smell, and a relatively large olfactory cortex. They perform many roles for humans, such as hunting, herding, pulling loads, protection, companionship, therapy, aiding disabled people, and assisting police and the military.
  
  Communication in dogs includes eye gaze, facial expression, vocalization, body posture (including movements of bodies and limbs), and gustatory communication (scents, pheromones, and taste). They mark their territories by urinating on them, which is more likely when entering a new environment. Over the millennia, dogs became uniquely adapted to human behavior; this adaptation includes being able to understand and communicate with humans. As such, the human–canine bond has been a topic of frequent study, and dogs' influence on human society has given them the sobriquet of "man's best friend". (Full article...)
• 

  

  House mouse (Mus musculus)

  
  A mouse (<abbr title="
  '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000018-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!

There are 23 portals left to be listed.

Kudos to the WikiGnome Squadron, for spearheading this.

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

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

Associated Wikimedia section conversion task complete

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

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

Further section conversions (using AWB)

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

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

Further section conversions (by hand)

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

Quality rating system for portals under development

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

What's coming: excerpt slideshows

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

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

Wow

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

Portals WikiProject update #010, 30 June 2018

We've grown to 94 participants.

A warm welcome to dcljr and Kpgjhpjm.

Rating system for portals

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

Better than a barnstar

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

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

Congratulations, everyone. Keep up the great work.

Slideshow development

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

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

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

TemplateStyles RfC passed

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

Automation effort

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

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

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

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

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

Where is all this heading?

Henry.

Or some other name.

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

But, that is a few years off.

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

Portals WikiProject update #011, 10 July 2018

We now have 97 participants.

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

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

Converting the intro sections

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

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

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

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

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

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

AWB tips

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

Portal automation

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

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

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

When should we start building new portals?

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

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

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

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

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

Portals WikiProject update #012, 15 July 2018

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:

• Algae
• Amphibians
• Anatomy
• Ancient Tamil civilization
• Athens
• Bangladesh.
• Berkshire
• Birds
• Buckinghamshire
• Cenozoic
• Dresden
• Dubai
• East Sussex
• Fish
• Florence
• Florida

• Genocide
• Gilgit-Baltistan
• H. P. Lovecraft
• Hampshire
• Human body
• Humanism
• Isle of Wight
• Kent
• London transport
• Mammals
• Milan
• Munich
• Oxfordshire
• Palermo
• Prague
• Reference works
• Reptiles

• Sacramento
• Saint Petersburg
• Salem
• Scottish Islands
• South East England
• Stockholm
• Surrey
• Sydney
• Tamil People
• Telephones (empty – please add some pictures)
• Turin
• Underwater diving
• Vienna
• West Sussex

Progress on intro conversions

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

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

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

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

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

Much more to come...

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

Portals WikiProject update #013, 18 July 2018

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:

Selected motorcycle or motorcycling pictures

• 
  Joey Dunlop on his Honda RC30 ready for the Senior TT (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  Brough Superior SS 100 1925 (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  Honda CB750 inline four, the first to be called a 'superbike', and the archetypal Universal Japanese Motorcycle (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  BMW's first motorcycle, the 1923-1925 R32 (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  Lucius Copeland 1894 (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  Honda Super Cub, the archetypal underbone and the world's best-selling motor vehicle (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  2015 BMW R1200RT Sport Touring Motorcycle (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  Ernesto 'Che' Guevara (left) holding the handlebars of his 500 cc single cylinder Norton motorcycle (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  Logo of the British Motorcyclists Federation (BMF) (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  A 1954 Triumph T110 (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  A 1969 Harley-Davidson chopper, a replica of the 'Captain America' bike from Easy Rider (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  FIM Motocross World Championship, taking place at Mallory Park, England (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)

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   11:05, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #014, 27 July 2018

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:

Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.

You can now balance section boxes

Before:

Reptile types

• 
  
  

  

  Clockwise from top left: veiled chameleon (Chamaeleo calyptratus), rock monitor (Varanus albigularis), common blue-tongued skink (Tiliqua scincoides), Italian wall lizard (Podarcis sicula), giant leaf-tailed gecko (Uroplatus fimbriatus), and legless lizard (Anelytropsis papillosus)

  
  Lizard is the common name used for all squamate reptiles other than snakes (and to a lesser extent amphisbaenians), encompassing over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The grouping is paraphyletic as some lizards are more closely related to snakes than they are to other lizards. Lizards range in size from chameleons and geckos a few centimeters long to the 3-meter-long Komodo dragon. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Blanus cinereus, Spain

  
  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...)
• 
  
  

  

  Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus)

  
  Crocodiles (family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term crocodile is sometimes used even more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia, which includes the alligators and caimans (family Alligatoridae), the gharial and false gharial (family Gavialidae) among other extinct taxa. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Aldabra giant tortoise
  (Aldabrachelys gigantea)

  
  Tortoises (/ˈtɔːrtəs.ɪz/ TOR-təs-iz) 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...)
• 
  
  

  

  Corallus caninus

  
  Snakes are elongated, limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (/sɜːrˈpɛntiːz/). Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates 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...)
• 
  
  

  

  Yacare caiman, Caiman yacare

  
  A caiman (/ˈkeɪmən/ (also spelled cayman) from Taíno kaiman) is an alligatorid belonging to the subfamily Caimaninae, one of two primary lineages within the Alligatoridae family, the other being alligators. Caimans are native to Central and South America and inhabit marshes, swamps, lakes, and mangrove rivers. 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 450 kg (1,000 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...)
• 
  
  

  

  An American alligator (top) and a Chinese alligator

  
  An alligator, or colloquially gator, is a large reptile in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae of the order Crocodilia. The two extant species are the American alligator (A. mississippiensis) and the Chinese alligator (A. sinensis). Additionally, several extinct species of alligator are known from fossil remains. Alligators first appeared during the late Eocene epoch about 37 million years ago. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Northern tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus punctatus)

  
  The tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) is a species of reptile endemic to New Zealand. Despite its close resemblance to lizards, it is part of a distinct lineage, the order Rhynchocephalia. The name tuatara is derived from the Māori language and means "peaks on the back". (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Male gharial

  
  The gharial (Gavialis gangeticus), also known as gavial or fish-eating crocodile, is a crocodilian in the family Gavialidae 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...)
• 
  
  

  

  Common box turtle

  
  Turtles are reptiles of the order Testudines, 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...)

Amphibian types

• 
  
  

  

  Oscaecilia ochrocephala (Caeciliidae)

  
  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 order Gymnophiona /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 other's 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...)
• 
  
  

  

  European fire-bellied toad (Bombina bombina), a member of the family Bombinatoridae

  
  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.
  
  In popular culture (folk taxonomy), toads are associated with drier, rougher skin and more terrestrial habitats. However, this distinction does not align precisely with scientific taxonomy. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Various types of frog

  
  A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek ἀνούρα, literally 'without tail'). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" Triadobatrachus is known from the Early Triassic of Madagascar (250 million years ago), 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 the water. The eggs hatch into aquatic larvae called tadpoles that have tails and internal gills. They have highly specialised 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 vocalisations, 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...)
• 
  
  

  

  Spotted salamander, Ambystoma maculatum

  
  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 order Urodela from the group Caudata. Urodela is a scientific Latin term based on the Ancient Greek οὐρά δήλη: ourà dēlē "conspicuous tail". Caudata is the Latin for "tailed ones", from cauda: "tail".
  
  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...)

After:

Reptile types

• 
  
  

  

  Clockwise from top left: veiled chameleon (Chamaeleo calyptratus), rock monitor (Varanus albigularis), common blue-tongued skink (Tiliqua scincoides), Italian wall lizard (Podarcis sicula), giant leaf-tailed gecko (Uroplatus fimbriatus), and legless lizard (Anelytropsis papillosus)

  
  Lizard is the common name used for all squamate reptiles other than snakes (and to a lesser extent amphisbaenians), encompassing over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The grouping is paraphyletic as some lizards are more closely related to snakes than they are to other lizards. Lizards range in size from chameleons and geckos a few centimeters long to the 3-meter-long Komodo dragon. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Common box turtle

  
  Turtles are reptiles of the order Testudines, 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...)
• 
  
  

  

  An American alligator (top) and a Chinese alligator

  
  An alligator, or colloquially gator, is a large reptile in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae of the order Crocodilia. The two extant species are the American alligator (A. mississippiensis) and the Chinese alligator (A. sinensis). Additionally, several extinct species of alligator are known from fossil remains. Alligators first appeared during the late Eocene epoch about 37 million years ago. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Blanus cinereus, Spain

  
  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...)
• 
  
  

  

  Aldabra giant tortoise
  (Aldabrachelys gigantea)

  
  Tortoises (/ˈtɔːrtəs.ɪz/ TOR-təs-iz) 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...)
• 
  
  

  

  Male gharial

  
  The gharial (Gavialis gangeticus), also known as gavial or fish-eating crocodile, is a crocodilian in the family Gavialidae 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...)
• 
  
  

  

  Yacare caiman, Caiman yacare

  
  A caiman (/ˈkeɪmən/ (also spelled cayman) from Taíno kaiman) is an alligatorid belonging to the subfamily Caimaninae, one of two primary lineages within the Alligatoridae family, the other being alligators. Caimans are native to Central and South America and inhabit marshes, swamps, lakes, and mangrove rivers. 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 450 kg (1,000 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...)
• 
  
  

  

  Northern tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus punctatus)

  
  The tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) is a species of reptile endemic to New Zealand. Despite its close resemblance to lizards, it is part of a distinct lineage, the order Rhynchocephalia. The name tuatara is derived from the Māori language and means "peaks on the back". (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus)

  
  Crocodiles (family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term crocodile is sometimes used even more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia, which includes the alligators and caimans (family Alligatoridae), the gharial and false gharial (family Gavialidae) among other extinct taxa. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Corallus caninus

  
  Snakes are elongated, limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (/sɜːrˈpɛntiːz/). Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates 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...)

Amphibian types

• 
  
  

  

  Various types of frog

  
  A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek ἀνούρα, literally 'without tail'). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" Triadobatrachus is known from the Early Triassic of Madagascar (250 million years ago), 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 the water. The eggs hatch into aquatic larvae called tadpoles that have tails and internal gills. They have highly specialised 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 vocalisations, 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...)
• 
  
  

  

  European fire-bellied toad (Bombina bombina), a member of the family Bombinatoridae

  
  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.
  
  In popular culture (folk taxonomy), toads are associated with drier, rougher skin and more terrestrial habitats. However, this distinction does not align precisely with scientific taxonomy. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Spotted salamander, Ambystoma maculatum

  
  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 order Urodela from the group Caudata. Urodela is a scientific Latin term based on the Ancient Greek οὐρά δήλη: ourà dēlē "conspicuous tail". Caudata is the Latin for "tailed ones", from cauda: "tail".
  
  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...)
• 
  
  

  

  Oscaecilia ochrocephala (Caeciliidae)

  
  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 order Gymnophiona /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 other's 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...)

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

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

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

Box-header colour

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

Testing, testing

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time...

Have fun.    — The Transhumanist   00:56, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #015, 31 July 2018

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:

Selected images

• 
  Salmon 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.
• 
  Koi are ornamental domesticated varieties of the common carp Cyprinus carpio, originated from China and widely spread in Japan. They are very closely related to goldfish. The word "koi" comes from Japanese meaning "carp".
• 
  The 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.
• 
  A 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.

Selected images

• 
  A prescribed burn in a Pinus nigra stand in Portugal (from Wildfire)
• 
  Pinaceae: needle-like leaves and vegetative buds of Coast Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii) (from Conifer)
• 
  National 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)
• 
  Phylogeny of the Pinophyta based on cladistic analysis of molecular data. (from Conifer)
• 
  The 2020 Córdoba wildfires imaged by NASA's FIRMS (from Wildfire)
• 
  Araucariaceae: awl-like leaves of Cook pine (Araucaria columnaris) (from Conifer)
• 
  Eucalyptus regnans forest in Tasmania, Australia (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Redwood tree in northern California redwood forest: According to the National Park Service, "96 percent of the original old-growth coast redwoods have been logged." (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  A wildfire in Venezuela during a drought (from Wildfire)
• 
  Sediment off the Yucatán Peninsula (from Wildfire)
• 
  A coniferous forest pictured in the coat of arms of the Kainuu region in Finland (from Conifer)
• 
  Wildfire near Yosemite National Park, United States, in 2013. The Rim Fire burned more than 250,000 acres (1,000 km²) of forest. (from Wildfire)
• 
  Ecological succession after a wildfire in a boreal pine forest next to Hara Bog, Lahemaa National Park, Estonia. The pictures were taken one and two years after the fire. (from Wildfire)
• 
  First-growth or virgin forest near Mount Rainier, 1914 (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Cupressaceae: scale leaves of Lawson's cypress (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana); scale in mm (from Conifer)
• 
  Mist condensing over rainforest in Danum Valley Conservation Area, Malaysia (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Pinaceae: unopened female cones of subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa) (from Conifer)
• 
  In 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)
• 
  Animation of diaphragmatic breathing with the diaphragm shown in green (from Wildfire)
• 
  Dry Mountain Fire Lookout in the Ochoco National Forest, Oregon, US circa 1930 (from Wildfire)
• 
  Aerial 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)
• 
  2003 Canberra bushfires, visible from Parliament House (from Wildfire)
• 
  Wildfire smoke in atmosphere off the U.S. West Coast in 2020 (from Wildfire)
• 
  Charred landscape following a crown fire in the North Cascades, United States (from Wildfire)
• 
  Forest fires visible from a distance in Dajti National Park, Tirana, Albania (from Wildfire)
• 
  Antarctic beech old growth in Lamington National Park, Queensland, Australia (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  The narrow conical shape of northern conifers, and their downward-drooping limbs, help them shed snow. (from Conifer)
• 
  The 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)
• 
  A 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)
• 
  Fungus Climacocystis borealis on a tree stump in the Białowieża Forest, one of the last largely intact primeval forests in Central Europe (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Tāne Mahuta, the biggest kauri (Agathis australis) tree alive, in the Waipoua Forest of the Northland Region of New Zealand. (from Conifer)
• 
  Elk Bath, an award-winning photograph of elk avoiding a wildfire in Montana (from Wildfire)
• 
  Globosa, a cultivar of Pinus sylvestris, a northern European species, in the North American Red Butte Garden (from Conifer)
• 
  Old-growth European beech forest in Biogradska Gora National Park, Montenegro (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  A Monterey pine forest in Sydney, Australia (from Conifer)
• 
  Charred shrubland in suburban Sydney (2019–20 Australian bushfires). (from Wildfire)
• 
  Avatar Grove near Port Renfrew, British Columbia: Giant Douglas firs (left) and red cedars (right) fill the grove. (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  A surface fire in the western desert of Utah, United States (from Wildfire)
• 
  Wildfire burning in the Kaibab National Forest, Arizona, United States, in 2020. The Mangum Fire burned more than 70,000 acres (280 km²) of forest. (from Wildfire)
• 
  Old-growth red cedar stump near Port Renfrew, British Columbia (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Global fires during the year 2008 for the months of August (top image) and February (bottom image), as detected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite. (from Wildfire)
• 
  Wildland firefighter working a brush fire in Hopkinton, New Hampshire, US (from Wildfire)
• 
  A thin transverse section showing the internal structure of conifer wood (from Conifer)
• 
  Fire Propagation Model (from Wildfire)
• 
  Smoke from the 2020 California wildfires settles over San Francisco (from Wildfire)
• 
  Cool temperate rainforest in Tasmania, Australia (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Virgin forest about 2,500 m (8,200 ft) above sea level in Shennongjia Forestry District, Hubei, China (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Downed wood replenishes topsoil as it decays. (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Old-growth forest in the Opal Creek Wilderness, a wilderness area located in the Willamette National Forest in the U.S. state of Oregon, on the border of Mount Hood National Forest. It has the largest uncut watershed in Oregon. (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Lightning-sparked wildfires are frequent occurrences during the dry summer season in Nevada. (from Wildfire)
• 
  A Russian firefighter extinguishing a wildfire (from Wildfire)

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

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

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

For example, in Portal:California, this code:

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

was replaced with this code:

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

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

Fun activity #3: upgrade "Selected article" sections

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

They can be upgraded with:

{{Transclude random excerpt}}

or

{{Transclude list item excerpt}}

or

{{Transclude linked excerpt}}

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

Where will this put us?

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

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

Portals WikiProject update #016, 15 Aug 2018

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   20:59, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #017, 22 Aug 2018

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/w/index.php?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   02:42, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #018, 04 Sept 2018

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   06:36, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #019, 22 Sept 2018

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   07:03, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #020, 12 Oct 2018

Whew, a lot has been happening.

A bit of defending of the portals has been needed. But, most activity recently has been directed upon maintenance and development of existing portals.

The majority of portals now use the new design, about 2400 of them, leaving around 1200 portals that still employ the old style.

Newest portals

• Aceh
• Aegean Sea
• Arthur Wellesley
• Azores
• Bashkortostan
• Birmingham
• Black Sea
• Canary Islands
• Carpathian Mountains
• Caucasus
• Columbia River
• Davao City
• Dnieper
• Easter Island
• Exploration
• Galápagos Islands
• Glasgow
• Great Wall of China
• Guangdong
• Kaliningrad Oblast
• Kanpur
• Kigali
• Kuril Islands
• Kuwait City
• Leeds
• Lhasa
• Loire Valley
• Lucknow
• Lviv
• Map projections
• Marseille
• Midwestern United States
• Missouri River
• Multan
• Mysore
• Niger River
• Northeast India
• Odessa
• Orchestras
• Panama Canal
• Peshawar
• Polynesia
• Poznań
• Pretoria
• Rat Pack
• Sammy Davis Jr.
• Shandong
• South China Sea
• Southern United States
• Suez Canal
• Svalbard
• Tatarstan
• Tigris River
• Visakhapatnam
• Volga River
• Western Ghats
• Western United States
• Yellowstone National Park
• Yosemite National Park

Please inspect these portals, and report problems or suggest improvements at WT:WPPORTD. Thank you.

MfDs

Since the last issue of this newsletter, Nineteen portals were nominated for deletion. All posted by the same person.

Two portals were deleted.

One resolved as "no consensus".

Sixteen resolved as "keep".

Links to the archived discussions are provided below:

1. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Air France
2. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Alexander Korda
3. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:August Derleth
4. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Average White Band
5. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Bee-eaters
6. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Ben E. King
7. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Benny Goodman
8. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Bill Bryson
9. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Billy Idol
10. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Billy Ocean
11. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Bob Hope
12. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Bobbie Rosenfeld Award
13. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Body piercing
14. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Canton, Michigan
15. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Compostela Group of Universities
16. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Diplo
17. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Diversity of fish
18. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Pebble Beach
19. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Peter, Paul and Mary

Many thanks to those who participated in the discussions.

To watch for future MfD's, keep in mind that the Portals WikiProject is supported by automatic alerts. You can see them at: Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Article alerts: portals for deletion at MfD

Creation criteria

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).

1. Link (portal button) from corresponding category pages.  Done
2. Link from See also section on corresponding root articles. Partially implemented
3. Link from bottom of corresponding templates. Partially implemented
4. Link for each portal on Portal:Contents/Portals. 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?

We have a wish department.

Post your wishes at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design#Discussions about possible cool new features, and they might come true. Many have already, and for many of those, this is where they were posted.

Cascade effect

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   04:16, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #021, 24 Oct 2018

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   07:25, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #022, 11 Nov 2018

Welcome AmericanAir88

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:

• Portal:Blueberries
• Portal:Olives
• Portal:Bananas
• Portal:Bone fractures
• Portal:Carbohydrates
• Portal:Cherries
• Portal:Coconuts
• Portal:Hartford Whalers
• Portal:Integumentary system
• Portal:Exercise
• Portal:Fatty acids

Way to go!

Where's Evad?

Evad disappeared from Wikipedia on October 18.

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:

{{Portal image banner|File:Blueberries .jpg |maxheight=120px |overflow=Hidden }}

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   11:39, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

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Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #023, 25 Nov 2018

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:

1. Advanced Micro Devices
2. Aqua Teen Hunger Force
3. Aquatic ecosystems
4. Blackberries
5. Blade
6. Blake and Mortimer
7. Climate
8. Democratic Party
9. Dua Lipa
10. Eels
11. Eggs
12. Emmy Awards
13. Fallout
14. Flutes and whistles
15. Geophysics
16. Ghost
17. Hartford Whalers
18. HBO
19. Hot sauces
20. International System of Units
21. Jawaharlal Nehru
22. Kendrick Lamar
23. KFC
24. Kingdom of England
25. M.I.A.
26. Marvel Comics
27. Marvel Entertainment
28. Minerals
29. Mixed martial arts
30. Money
31. MTV
32. Museums
33. National Hockey League
34. Natural resources
35. Nature
36. NBC
37. Nehru–Gandhi family
38. Orthoptera
39. PATH
40. Pears
41. Physiology
42. Ponds
43. Pope Francis
44. Potatoes
45. Presidents of the United States
46. Republican Party
47. Salad dressings
48. Santiago
49. Six Flags
50. Stan Lee
51. Starbucks
52. Stem cells
53. Systems of measurement
54. SZA
55. The West Wing
56. Tintin
57. Tomato sauces
58. Tove Lo
59. Viticulture
60. Waffles
61. Wendy's
62. White House
63. Will Smith
64. Winemaking

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   07:45, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #024, 26 Dec 2018

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).

So far, Portal:Geography, Portal:History, and Portal:Technology have been revamped. Of course, you are welcome to improve them further.

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.

To spot redirects easily, you can make them all appear green.

Keep 'em coming!

And I'll see you next issue.

Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   08:01, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #025, 30 Dec 2018

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:

Niagara falls, from the Canadian side

Becomes this:

Niagara falls, from the Canadian side

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!

Ask123, thank you for your contributions to the Portals Project, and have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year.

Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   12:27, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #026, 20 Jan 2019

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

1. Academic publishing
2. Accounting
3. Adam and Eve
4. African Great Lakes
5. Al Green
6. Alternative views
7. America's Next Top Model
8. Andaman and Nicobar Islands
9. Angles
10. Applied mathematics
11. Arabic
12. Areas of mathematics
13. Atlanta metropolitan area
14. Atlantic Ocean
15. Big Bash League
16. Bijelo Dugme
17. Bill Cosby
18. Boats
19. Bombardier Aerospace
20. Bruce Willis
21. Canadian law
22. Cannons
23. Caribbean American
24. Chinese American
25. Chinese Canadians
26. Chinese gardens
27. Chris Brown
28. City
29. Common law
30. Criminal law
31. Czechoslovakia
32. Data
33. Data warehouses
34. DC Comics
35. Deities
36. DeKalb County
37. Destiny's Child
38. Differential equations
39. Discrete geometry
40. East Asia
41. Economy of China
42. Economy of India
43. Economy of Malaysia
44. Economy of the United Kingdom
45. Ellen DeGeneres
46. Email clients
47. E
48. Equations
49. European Americans
50. Filipino Americans
51. Football in Algeria
52. Fox Corporation
53. Fractions and ratios
54. Functional analysis
55. Game theory
56. Girlguiding
57. Gloucestershire
58. Grazhdanskaya Oborona
59. Greek diaspora
60. Habsburg Monarchy
61. Hilbert's problems
62. Hoodoo Gurus
63. Hyundai Motor Company
64. Iggy Azalea
65. Indian Ocean
66. Infinity
67. Information theory
68. Integrals
69. Irish diaspora
70. Irrational numbers
71. Italian diaspora
72. Japanese diaspora
73. J. Cole
74. Jennifer Lopez
75. Jessica Lange
76. John Fogerty
77. Kehlani
78. Kiev
79. K. Michelle
80. Knot theory
81. Kool & the Gang
82. Lakes in China
83. Lake Van
84. Leonardo DiCaprio
85. Limerick
86. Literary composition
87. Long Island Rail Road
88. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
89. Lukas Graham
90. Mathematical optimization
91. Matt Damon
92. Merchant ships
93. Metallic means
94. Metro-North Railroad
95. Microsoft Windows
96. Military of India
97. Miss America
98. Modulation
99. Moon landing
100. Mozilla
101. Music of Ireland
102. Narratives
103. Nashville
104. Nassau County
105. Norfolk
106. Nottinghamshire
107. One Life to Live
108. Overseas Chinese
109. Percentages
110. Probability distributions
111. Public Broadcasting Service
112. Quezon City
113. Raven-Symoné
114. R. Kelly
115. Rodeo
116. RuneScape
117. Sarah Silverman
118. Saturn rockets
119. Science and technology
120. Sesame Street
121. Seth MacFarlane
122. Ships
123. Shipwrecks
124. Shropshire
125. Spaceports
126. Space suits
127. Spanish diaspora
128. Steam locomotives
129. Suffolk
130. Suzuki
131. Tanks
132. Tensors
133. The CW
134. Thomas Aquinas
135. T.I.
136. TISM
137. Tom Cruise
138. Toni Braxton
139. Toyota
140. Transportation in the Philippines
141. True Blood
142. Violin
143. Virgin Group
144. Vladimir Putin
145. Volkswagen
146. Volume
147. Warner Bros.
148. Warships
149. Warwickshire
150. Washington D.C.
151. [[Portal:Watercraft|
152. Web syndication
153. Wikis
154. Witchcraft
155. Women's sports
156. World of Warcraft

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   09:19, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #027, 28 Jan 2019

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

• Accomack County
• Adair County
• Adair County
• Adams County
• Adidas
• Airbus
• Americas
• Bangladesh Armed Forces
• Bedfordshire
• Bicycles
• Boeing
• Chester County
• Conspiracy theories
• Corals
• County Durham
• Culture of the United States
• DC Universe
• Dragons
• Economy of Pakistan
• Electricity
• Ethnic groups
• European Union law
• Fatimid Caliphate
• Flanders
• Frederick County
• Fujian
• German language
• Global issues
• Greek mathematics
• Grisons
• Guangxi
• Hebei
• Henan
• Herefordshire
• History of North America
• Hollywood
• Hubei
• Hunan
• Hybrid
• Inner Mongolia
• Jet engines
• Jiangsu
• Johor
• Johor Bahru
• Julius Caesar
• Kuala Lumpur
• Lake Constance
• Lee Kuan Yew
• Lufthansa
• Lunar eclipses
• Magnetism
• Menstrual cycle
• Mustelids
• Mutations
• New York University
• Nord-du-Québec
• North Africa
• PepsiCo
• Pitcairn Islands
• Podcasting
• Quantum electrodynamics
• Quantum mechanics
• Rawalpindi
• Réunion
• Roads in Pakistan
• Rockefeller Center
• Sichuan
• St. Gallen
• State University of New York
• Temperature
• Tsunamis
• Veterinary medicine
• Vorarlberg
• Walgreens
• Walmart
• Weasels
• Xinjiang
• Yunnan

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 bots.

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   13:09, 28 January 2019 (UTC)