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FYI

Template talk:Fbu#Ambiguous links and redlinks. Narky Blert (talk) 07:00, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

"Portal:Prisons" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Portal:Prisons. Since you had some involvement with the Portal:Prisons redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:32, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

New message from Northamerica1000

Hello, Certes. You have new messages at Northamerica1000's talk page.
Message added 10:17, 7 August 2019 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

A bit more per your comment there. North America1000 10:17, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Moves by bot

Certes, I've forgotten the process for requesting bot help for moves, but could use some to fix the "List of Top 25..." articles to be consistly "List of top 25...". See list. Also some "List of Top 20 songs..." and "List of Top 100 songs..." There are over 100 with capped "Top" Can you help? And thanks much for your recent support at ANI. Dicklyon (talk) 14:49, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: I don't know whether there's a bot to do that but AWB can handle it. You could ask for help at WP:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks. Mention that it needs an admin: AWB doesn't let other editors do bulk page moves, even if they could move those pages by hand. They'll probably ask for a link to a discussion finding consensus for the moves. Certes (talk) 15:13, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Dab-needed tags in cite templates

Trappist the monk has form:

Yrs, Narky Blert (talk) 05:29, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, a contested change seems to have caused performance issues. Certes (talk) 09:45, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Portal Templates

Hi Certes, thanks for agreeing to have a look at my request for possible improvements to Portal templates/modules as I mentioned on Northamerica1000's talk page. Apologies for the delay in responding, but real life got in the way (as it tends to do), and also for the long post, but I want to explain it clearly. Thanks also for the enlightening link to ongoing discussions and collaborations between "Deletioneers" in the "Portal Deletion Squadron" (PDT - what's wrong with hurling back a pejorative term or two when they're launched at Portal defenders relentlessly and usually at random?). The PDT seems to consist of four primary operatives now, BHG, RMcL, NewsH and MarkS, all equally committed to the cause and zealously parroting the standard "party line", of rigorously quoting verbatim the POG sentences about broad topics, large numbers of readers and maintainers, and treating this like they are statements of imperatives: of absolute requirements, whilst conveniently ignoring the obvious ambiguity of the actual wording of "should be" and "likely to". I think I'll stop there or I'll get over-exasperated about the continual misrepresentations and false allegations by the squadron members. I'll probably post a separate set of observations about that issue in due course, or on some portal discussion, at the risk of being labelled a "Portalista", a fantasist, a mendacious dissembler, a purveyor of FUD, a defender of abandoned crud, a user lacking in comprehension skills, a user of Humpty Dumpty English, as only working on portal because they are fun, etc, etc, etc .... Grrr ....

I hope you're still open to having a look at the technical issue as I see it with the Portal Templates. If so, it might be informative to have a look at Portal: Scotland (P:SCO) as I've currently restructured it. Basically it always had a large number of Selected articles, Selected Pictures, Selected quotes etc which were developed or "maintained" over a number of years from approx 2007 - 2012. Then real life took over, as is the way, and upon returning to editing, I was horrified to find WP:ENDPORTALS was in full swing. Then TTH seemed to take up the largely dormant WP:PORT and came up with many interesting ideas, which seemed to have some merit. It was about that time that I first interacted with you ( and came to the observation that you are indeed a "template/Lua guru", despite your modesty). You were most helpful in resolving some of my technical queries. Anyway, long story short, TTH just went berserk with the automated tools and the rest is history. Mass MFD's and a subsequent drip feed of individual ones.

It seemed to me that several common themes, on technical issues, emerged from those discussions:

  • 2. The sheer number of sub-pages and long term maintenance implications;
  • 3. The frequent and numerous appearance of the dreaded "Lua script timeout" error, rendering the Portal in question virtually unusable;
  • 4. Inflexibility of the "purge" mechanism to refresh content. (a two step process every time);


At the time of completion of the two Mega-MFD's by BHG, it was obvious to me that P:SCO suffered from most (if not all) of the above problems. So I resolved to solve them, each in turn:

*1 was relatively easy to solve via use of the Portal Transclusion Templates;
*2. See Later, where the crux of my query lies ...
*3 At the time of starting to re-construct / re-vamp the Portal (approx Feb 2019, I think), I had approx 105 Selected articles, Over 80 Selected pictures, 95 Selected biographies ( I had added these in to ensure "broad" coverage of scope) and 107 Selected Quotes. There was also the addition of 23 panorama header images (rotating capability). for added scope. Needless to say it was a usability nightmare; Error Script central erupted and that was with me using a pretty fast PC with cache cleared between re-loads. Totally unusable for readers. The problem was solved by resorting to a tabbed layout and splitting content equally between tabs. Less than ideal, but workable enough.
*4 I decided to experiment with the random "slideshow mode" of presentation of individual sub-boxes (much the same as was developed for "random Slideshow"). This would obviate the need for a two stage "purge" process, which is very clunky and counter intuitive for new users, who Portals are supposed to cater for. The problem as I saw it was the need for flexibility (in a carefully considered, hand curated set of articles/ images etc). That seemed to be a major theme of the MFD's .The articles I was dealing with ranged from 1-2 line lede sections to pretty comprehensive discussions of the topic (eg Holyrood Palace and the Scottish Reformation and often, images that I felt could be improved upon. The usual method of invoking the template (with selected defined parameters), followed by a list of articles to apply those parameters to ensures that all articles in the list follow the selection of parameters. This results in a selection of unevenly sized article intro's and, often, less than optimal images.

I ended up using transcluded article content on many sub-pages (not ideal, but an improvement). The subpage transclusions specify the paragraph numbers and chosen image individually, to suit the selected article / biography. The wiki mark-up is much along the lines of: 

     {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow| paragraphs=| files=| more= 
        | Portal: Scotland/Selected articles/1  
        | Portal: Scotland/Selected articles/2   
        | Portal: Scotland/Selected articles/3
        ETC
        ETC
     }}

What would be useful in my view would be a situation where the relevant parameters can be applied individually to the articles in the list, rather than collectively. In other words picking up the parameters individually from the list of items e.g.: That way the transclusions are directly into the Portal thus eliminating the need for subpages, and each item in the portal-boxes can be equally balanced for size of content and image choice can be more appropriate, rather than a default article one. The wiki mark-up would be much along the lines of: 

     {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow| paragraphs=| files=| more= 
        | Scottish Reformation | paragraphs=1-2 | files= SomeNewImage.jpg| more=
        | Doune Castle | paragraphs=2-4 | files=1 |more=
        | Falkirk Wheel | paragraphs=1-3 | files= SomeOtherNewImage.jpg |more=
        ETC
        ETC
     }}

I'm not sure if any of this is possible, but it would be very flexible if it is. I hope that I've explained things clearly, but if not drop me a note and I'll try to clarify. Anything you can do would be greatly appreciated. --Cactus.man ✍ 00:04, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for all the hard work, Cactus.man. That's a very clear explanation of the remaining problems.
You've already found the best way to deal with both numerous subpages and vulnerable content forks. (Unfortunately, many portals fixed in that way were reverted on the grounds that they selected topics with the help of a template or category, and most such cases then sailed through MfD with the rationale that the ancient version the nominator just resurrected was junk.) We should avoid cases where someone has hand-crafted a summary that is better than the lead and is diligently maintaining it, but they are few in number and can probably go through the bold-revert-apologise process.
Lua timeouts occur on the Wikimedia server. Browsing on a better PC won't help. One solution involves creating a handful of subpages, as you've already done with Portal:Scotland/Tabs, etc. The subpages are normally generated along with the main page, giving no benefit. However, we can prepare a complex subpage in advance to contain only simply text which can be transcluded quickly. This development is in progress. See Wikipedia:Bot_requests/Archive_79#A_Bot_to_update_Portal's_In_the_news_section, which has applications beyond ITN.
You can add a one-click purge here (Appearance section; third item) but that's a per-user setting. {{Purge box}} appears to flash up a confirmation dialog which goes away without me clicking Yes (and presumably does the purge). If it does the same for you, rather than obeying some clever confirm=no option I set years ago and forgot about, then that could be a way forward.
And finally, on to the meat of your query. Originally we had just {{Transclude lead excerpt}} which displays one article and only needs one set of files=, paragraphs=, etc. Now that multi-article templates use the same module, I agree that one set of parameters may not fit all articles. It should be easy to implement in the module but the template syntax is tricky. I think the example above could be made to work but I don't know of an existing template which handles multiple parameters with identical names, distinguishing them by position, and that technique might well be frowned upon. We also need to distinguish between files= which should apply to all articles (current usage) and files= which should apply only to the last article. One answer is files1= etc. but that involves some counting if only the 37th article needs special treatment and is an accident waiting to happen when someone deletes article 13 without changing the numbers below. The best compromise I can think of is to use an escaped parameter separator within parameters:
     {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow | paragraphs=1-5 | files=1 <!-- defaults apply where not overridden below -->
        | Scottish Reformation{{!}}paragraphs=1-2
        | Doune Castle{{!}}paragraphs=2-4{{!}}files=1
        | Falkirk Wheel{{!}}more=go round again
        | Edinburgh
        | Glasgow
     }}
A less conventional alternative is a single character that can't appear in article titles: one of # < > [ ] | { }. "#" is in use for transcluding a section, angles appear in more=<br> etc., "|" delimits the real parameter and "[" introduces an external link, so reluctantly we're left with "]":
        | Doune Castle]paragraphs=2-4]files=1
That's more concise but totally unintuitive. Better suggestions welcome.
By the way, files= only accepts numbers. Accepting filenames would be a separate enhancement.
Hope that helps, Certes (talk) 10:25, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the detailed reply Certes.
As usual, very helpful and informative. I'll start experimenting with your suggestions and hopefully can get a suitable outcome to eliminate the sub-pages I've just got some further questions / comments:
  • I already have the "one-click purge" set in my preferences, but it has no effect. I still have to manually click the purge button on the rsultant screen. I'm using Firefox and I suspect there's some conflict with one of my extensions, Can't be bothered to troubleshoot to find which one is the culprit (it's normally one that I'm not prepared to do without anyway!).
  • The use of the | escape character looks promising, and I agree that it's preferable to using ]. A quick test suggests to me that the pipe character needs to be included or the template just bypasses the desired listed file. I also seem to be unable to get the articles to accept the alternative escaped parameter. See User:Cactus.man/Sandbox/P-Sco where the following wikitext produces the non-desired results:
          {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow| paragraphs=1-3| files=1| more=
              | Scottish Reformation|{{!}}paragraphs=1
              | Picts|{{!}}files=2
              | Edinburgh{{!}}paragraphs=1
              | Doune Castle
          }}
Scottish reformation still produces paragraphs 1-3, rather than just para 1.
Picts shows file1, rather than 2.
Edinburgh is bypassed completely due to the missing pipe character before the escape character.
Doune displays correctly per the default parameters set in line 1.
Am I making some horrendous schoolboy error, or have I misunderstood your suggestion?
  • Is it correct to assume that the template for file numbers traverses no further than the lede section?. If so, is it possible to search in further sections for images? As an aside, I've been having trouble to select any images at all. The parameter files=1should select the image in the infobox but doesn't. I seem to remember there was some discussion about this on the Wikiproject pages some time ago, but I can't recall the details or what the solution was. Any comments would be helpful.
All the best. --Cactus.man ✍ 19:14, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
@Cactus.man: The only mistake you're making is assuming that the Lua code already handles this new syntax, when at the moment it's just an incomplete proposal. Adding {{!}} now breaks things, because the module naively looks for an article called "Scottish Reformation|paragraphs=1", but it's the right syntax and should work later. I'm working on the changes in the sandbox but they're not ready to test yet.
Yes, the template for file numbers traverses no further than the lede section (or whatever section is specified with the Article#Section syntax). Originally the module only supported {{Transclude lead excerpt}}, which does exactly what it says. With some work we could look further for files. For the many pages that currently use a blanket |files=1 and often show no file, that would make new images appear, which may or may not be helpful. Certes (talk) 19:32, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for that, I suspected it would be some sort of cock up on my part. I'll leave you to work on it in peace. Cheers --Cactus.man ✍ 19:54, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
@Cactus.man: It's hard to test this change with the slideshow templates, because their /sandbox versions invoke the sandbox version of another module but the original version of the module I'm working on. If you want to look at what I've done so far, you can use the "Transclude ... excerpt/sandbox" templates, e.g.
	{{Transclude selected excerpt/sandbox| paragraphs=1-3| files=1| more=Click here| selected=2
	| 1=Scottish Reformation{{!}}paragraphs=1
	| 2=Picts{{!}}files=2
	| 3=Edinburgh{{!}}paragraphs=1{{!}}more=
	| 4=Doune Castle{{!}}more=Mair...
	}}
in which |selected=2 picks the Picts because it's the second article. The other articles will be ignored unless you change that number.
I've found one limitation of the syntax. |more= resets the "click here for more" text to the default of "Read more...". There's no way to make it disappear only for this article. We can probably live with that. Certes (talk) 20:08, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
The parameter overriding seems to work well - bravo! Hopefully, transferring it to the slideshow version template will be a straightforward exercise. The |more= limitation that you mention won't be an issue for me, I always have it set to the default "Read more" anyway. Keep up the good work :) --Cactus.man ✍ 22:03, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
@Cactus.man: I've released the changes. There's one more gotcha: I used |1= etc. in my example above, because I got no output with unnamed parameters. I realised what I was doing wrong: the = in the page option was making them into named parameters, e.g. a parameter called "Scottish Reformation|paragraphs" with value 1. Unnamed parameters do work but you'll need to escape the = signs:
	{{Transclude selected excerpt/sandbox| paragraphs=1-3| files=1| more=Click here| selected=2
	 | Scottish Reformation{{!}}paragraphs{{=}}1
	 | Picts{{!}}files{{=}}2
	 | Edinburgh{{!}}paragraphs{{=}}1{{!}}more{{=}}
	 | Doune Castle{{!}}more{{=}}Mair...
	}}
I've documented the changes in Template:Transclude lead excerpt/doc#Page options etc. but I haven't changed the slideshow documentation: that's another layer that other editors have added on top of the underlying code that I wrote. I hope that does at least some of what you need and will be useful for others. Certes (talk) 11:44, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
@Certes: Thanks so much for doing all this. I think I've got the gist of what needs to be done now - off to experiment. At least I'll be able to transclude articles/ biographies directly into the portal now, maintaining a balanced size of text excerpts and removing the need for sub-pages. I can live with the occasional less than ideal (IMHO) image, so I'll start converting the body of the portal shortly. Hopefully that's even less ammunition for the deletioneers to pounce upon.
As an aside, and not wishing to burden you further, if you have any ideas about how to pass in a named image parameter as opposed to a number, that would be superb. I wont even bother you with my half-baked ideas (all based on a primitive and cringeworthy, rudimentary understanding of programming). Thanks again for all your hard work on this. --Cactus.man ✍ 12:30, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
@Cactus.man: I've now added support for a named image parameter. Because a list would be difficult to parse (image names can contain commas, etc.) you can only have one named image file, but it's compatible with the previous enhancement so you can vary it per article with Article{{!}}files{{=}}Myimage.jpg. I'll add that to the documentation. Certes (talk) 13:31, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks Certes, impressively quick work :) Will give it a go. --Cactus.man ✍ 16:09, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
@Certes: A quick query: using a custom image works brilliantly, and it places it inside a thumbnail "box" as expected, but there's no caption. Is there any way to add a bespoke caption for custom images too? Thanks. --Cactus.man ✍ 19:19, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
@Cactus.man: Yes, though the coding gets a bit intricate. See this demo. Certes (talk) 19:48, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

@Certes:, I've been working through the alternative markup you developed for customising the random slideshow templates for selecting paragraph numbers, custom images and image captions, and things appear to be working pretty well. The only issue I have found is in trying to incorporate internal wikilinks in the custom captions. I've been following the 'Two Banana' flavour for the coding using the caption text as the value of the fileargs parameter. The following code works fine: 

    {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow| paragraphs=1-3| files=1| more=
        | Dundee{{!}}files{{=}}The Dundee Law - geograph.org.uk - 63200 (lighter ground).jpg{{!}}fileargs{{=}}The Dundee Law
    }}

But, when I try introducing a wikilink for "Dundee Law" using square brackets, it breaks with an error : Lua error: Unmatched close-bracket at pattern character 22.

Per the code below: 

    {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow| paragraphs=1-3| files=1| more=
        | Dundee{{!}}files{{=}}The Dundee Law - geograph.org.uk - 63200 (lighter ground).jpg{{!}}fileargs{{=}}The [[Dundee Law]]
    }}

Do the square brackets for the link need to be escaped in some way, or is there a simple fix for this? Or have I made another embarrassing Schoolboy error? Any help in these troubled times would be appreciated. I hope you can devote some attention to this, I know it's disheartening when you get continually bad-mouthed as I see has happened again in your case at the recent Proposal_to_delete_Portal_space. Keep up the good work, some of us do appreciate it. --Cactus.man ✍ 12:01, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your support. To be honest I only really read the first insult from each editor; I think further attacks say more about them than about me.
[[article]] and [[article|text]] get interpreted before reaching the caption. Like the pipe, they need to be escaped twice: {{((}}!(({{))}}article{{((}}!)){{))}} and {{((}}!(({{))}}article{{((}}!{{))}}text{{((}}!)){{))}}. See {{!((}} for the templates involved. I wonder if we should produce simpler templates for these: something like {{escaped link|article|text}}. Example written out in full:

An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (Malus spp., among them the domestic or orchard apple; Malus domestica). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus Malus. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, is still found. Apples have been grown for thousands of years in Eurasia and were introduced to North America by European colonists. Apples have religious and mythological significance in many cultures, including Norse, Greek, and European Christian tradition. (Full article...)

@Certes: WOW! Great stuff, but yes, the coding is becoming very complex. Once I've got my head around the complexity and am comfortable using it, I'll start to introduce it.The only lurking problem I can foresee is that it's in danger of becoming a new rationale for deletion: (Delete overly complex code, likely to discourage possible maintainers from volunteering, leading to future maintenance problems and early abandonment. Yet further evidence that the Portalista's treat Portals as a personal play ground, likely to ultimately lead to another sea of abandoned, crud). God knows, it's likely to make it's way "magically" into WP:POG as a requirement that code should be simple vanilla wiki markup! So I think your suggestion of producing a simpler template is a sound idea. --Cactus.man ✍ 21:43, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
@Cactus.man: Good points. I've just knocked together {{Doubly escaped wikilink}}, which simplifies the above example to (edit to see source):

An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (Malus spp., among them the domestic or orchard apple; Malus domestica). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus Malus. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, is still found. Apples have been grown for thousands of years in Eurasia and were introduced to North America by European colonists. Apples have religious and mythological significance in many cultures, including Norse, Greek, and European Christian tradition. (Full article...)

– Certes (talk) 22:17, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

@Certes: Thanks for this, makes life a lot simpler I think.
Just FYI I amended the template to include a missing parameter 2 of "Yellow fruit" in the example given in Template:Doubly_escaped_wikilink/doc. I think I've understood correctly and the example should read:
{{Doubly escaped wikilink|Banana|Yellow fruit}} → {{!((}}Banana{{!}}Yellow fruit{{!))}} ([[Banana|Yellow fruit]])
Perhaps you should cast an eye over it to make sure It's correct. Thanks --Cactus.man ✍ 22:59, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

ImageMaps / use of html <map>

Hey Certes, do you have any experience with mw:Extension:ImageMap (or the technology behind it)? I want to create an image that takes up 100% available width (like this pic in my sandbox) and uses a coordinate map for links on areas of the image. The extension itself appears to only support fixed pixel values for dimensions.

From what I can see, the extension just creates a regular old image and an associated html map. The <map> tag is blocked in regular source editing though. Is the Template/Module space more lenient with the html tags you are allowed to use? The closest thing I found was Module:Chart#Basic, but sadly it seems to use <a> html links for its clickable bar charts, not a map. --Hecato (talk) 09:39, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

@Hecato: Sorry, I've never used imagemaps and you've already found all the help pages I know about. I would guess that templates and modules are at least as strict as article space, because otherwise they would be an obvious back door to doing what they're trying to prevent us from doing. Certes (talk) 10:09, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
Ah, what a pity. Thanks for your time though. --Hecato (talk) 10:12, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Two more possible entries for your list: Esplanade / Esplanade, Kolkata and Salt Lake City / Salt Lake City, Kolkata. Narky Blert (talk) 12:19, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

@Narky Blert: Thanks. I fixed those last year (Esplanade appeared mainly in bus timetables of doubtful relevance) but more will have appeared. I'll add them to a new section on places (Norfolk, Reading, etc.) and should probably cover other themes such as sports team nicknames (Ospreys, Wolves, etc.). Certes (talk) 12:29, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
Also Tigers / Tigers (sports teams), for one. Narky Blert (talk) 12:36, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Brilliant Idea Barnstar
For your diligent work on births and deaths by decade, and on year articles and templates in general. — JFG talk 13:37, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Temporary highways

I saw your name on WT:USRD so I thought I'd ask since no one ever seems to respond to my posts:

The article List of temporary Interstate Highways has been unsourced since creation in 2005 and hasn't gotten an iota of TLC. Some of these are so short-lived that they probably didn't even appear on any maps. What should be done with this list? Does anyone want to clean it up? Should it be deleted? Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 00:05, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Dance/Selected biography

I've reverted my request... basically there was a Draft article in there which hit G13 eligible, so it appeared on Category:G13 eligible AfC submissions... I though it was the whole page... nope, just one of the suggestions. Thanks for the comment anyway -- - RichT|C|E-Mail 15:07, 13 October 2019 (UTC) (Helps If I log in...)

Your Deleted Contributions, Portal Space (1 May 2019)

Hi Certes, just noticed your request on NA1k's Talkpage re the above. I don't know if you've managed to get the info you seek or not, but this may be of some use to you:

(change visibility) 19:08, 1 May 2019 (diff | deletion log | view) . . Portal:Brighton (Improve DYK/news items)
(change visibility) 19:04, 1 May 2019 (diff | deletion log | view) . . Portal:Anabaptism (More DYK and ITNs (in theory)
(change visibility) 18:19, 1 May 2019 (diff | deletion log | view) . . Portal:Astrology (I predict DYK rising, in conjunction with more ITN)
(change visibility) 17:12, 1 May 2019 (diff | deletion log | view) . . Portal:Channel Islands (More DYK and ITNs)
(change visibility) 17:02, 1 May 2019 (diff | deletion log | view) . . Portal:Java (programming language) (More DYK and ITNs)
(change visibility) 16:58, 1 May 2019 (diff | deletion log | view) . . Portal:Grenada (More DYK and ITNs)
(change visibility) 16:56, 1 May 2019 (diff | deletion log | view) . . Portal:Seventh-day Adventist Church (More DYK and ITNs)
(change visibility) 16:55, 1 May 2019 (diff | deletion log | view) . . Portal:Typography (More DYK and ITNs)
(change visibility) 16:18, 1 May 2019 (diff | deletion log | view) . . Portal:Culture (Improve DYK/news items)
(change visibility) 15:55, 1 May 2019 (diff | deletion log | view) . . Portal:Territories of the United States (More DYK and ITNs)
(change visibility) 15:34, 1 May 2019 (diff | deletion log | view) . . Portal:Austin (Refine DYK/news)
(change visibility) 15:27, 1 May 2019 (diff | deletion log | view) . . Portal:Baptists (More DYK and ITNs)
(change visibility) 15:21, 1 May 2019 (diff | deletion log | view) . . Portal:University of Cambridge (More DYK and ITNs)
(change visibility) 14:58, 1 May 2019 (diff | deletion log | view) . . Portal:Mars (Improve DYK/news items)
(change visibility) 14:51, 1 May 2019 (diff | deletion log | view) . . Portal:Cleveland (Improve DYK/news items)
(change visibility) 14:33, 1 May 2019 (diff | deletion log | view) . . Portal:Handball (More DYK and ITNs (avoiding the association football foul))
(change visibility) 14:31, 1 May 2019 (diff | deletion log | view) . . Portal:Ivory Coast (More DYK and ITNs)

All the best --Cactus.man ✍ 13:02, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, Cactus.man. My memory isn't failing me. In the MfDs for Typography, Culture, Austin and Cleveland, the proposer was kind enough to mention that the portal had recently been reverted to an old version. In one case an editor even reverted a portal to a version that was so bad they sent it to MfD the same day. It might be interesting to seek a consensus as to whether this is a good way to go about deleting portals. Certes (talk) 14:40, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

New message from Northamerica1000

Hello, Certes. You have new messages at Portal talk:Australia.
Message added 05:48, 17 October 2019 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Not sure if you like these TB templates or not, but a pressing question has been asked at this discussion regarding the possibility of modifying Template:Transclude random excerpt to address "black box" concerns about portals. So, hopefully you can provide some information at the discussion, which would be utmostly appreciated. North America1000 05:48, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Transclude all pages that could be randomly transcluded?

Hi Certes, recently Northamerica1000 added an automatic "Selected Cusine" section (using {{Transclude random excerpt}}) to Portal:Germany, which is pretty nice. However, being the control freak that I am, I would like to be able to see at a glance whether any of the transcluded pages causes any issues, so I created Portal:Germany/Selected cuisine. If you look at that page's source code, you'll see it is hopelessly inefficient, hand-written, and maintenance intensive. Do you think there could/should be an automated way of doing what I am trying to do there? Ideally I think a switch in {{Transclude random excerpt}} that could be turned on and off depending on whether the page is transcluded or not could make this super easy to use. Are you the right person to ask these questions? —Kusma (t·c) 11:58, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

@Kusma: I've mocked up a new |showall= parameter in Module:Excerpt/sandbox. You can see the effect on this test page. (There is also a test for an unrelated |list= parameter in there, which can be ignored.) If we implement that, the main page could transclude a subpage which uses the template with <noinclude>|showall=</noinclude>. That should show all articles on the subpage but only a selected one on the main page. Is that what you meant? Certes (talk) 09:12, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, that is the kind of thing I am looking for, thank you very much :) With too large images, there are some layout issues (see bottom of Portal:Germany/Selected cuisine), but I guess how to get the images to be a decent size is a different problem. Is there a way to give each transcluded article fragment its own (sub)section? —Kusma (t·c) 09:40, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
I've moved {{Clear}} to before {{Hr}}, which works better for reasons I don't understand. Perhaps that should become the default separator added by the module. Certes (talk) 10:34, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. Let me know when the change is ready to leave the sandbox. Thank you very much, —Kusma (t·c) 12:56, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Help with AWB

Any chance you can help at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks#Bulk/automated move pages? comrade waddie96 ★ (talk) 19:30, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

@Waddie96: Sorry, I think that only admins can bulk-move pages with AWB. Certes (talk) 19:33, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, mind pointing me to an admin you know who uses AWB and can assist? comrade waddie96 ★ (talk) 12:16, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
The best place to ask is WP:AWB/TA where multiple admins should see the request, but it seems from the reply there that the moves have already been done. Certes (talk) 12:39, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

New message from Northamerica1000

Hello, Certes. You have new messages at Portal talk:Australia.
Message added 20:39, 3 November 2019 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

North America1000 20:39, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Year templates

Hi Certes, I just saw WikiProject Years come up on my watch list and wanted to ask if the issues with year templates have been resolved or are there outstanding tasks that need done? Wug·a·po·des​ 22:45, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

@Wugapodes: As far as I know, everything is working fine. The last changes I made are described in WT:WikiProject Years#Births and deaths by year for decade, and I'm not aware of any outstanding problems. Certes (talk) 00:29, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

When will it end

Information icon There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. --Moxy 🍁 07:30, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Portal guideline workshop

Hi there. I'm taking it upon myself to try to moderate a discussion among Portal power users with the intention of creating a draft guideline for Portals, and I'd like to invite you to join this discussion. If you're interested, please join the discussion at User talk:Scottywong/Portal guideline workspace. Thanks. ‑Scottywong| [speak] || 02:49, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

@Scottywong: Thank you for starting the discussion and for the invitation. I think editors of all viewpoints can agree that the current situation is not acceptable and that changes are needed.
I hesitated before replying for a few reasons. Most of the portal namespace was deleted this year so, depending on one's opinion, either the clean-up is almost complete or the bulk of our material has been lost. I also question whether discussions are appropriate whilst MfDs are still being added daily, an ANI debate is in progress and an ArbCom case seems likely. Despite what you may have read elsewhere, I seek collaboration rather than conflict, and previous debates on similar topics have not always remained civil.
I have therefore decided not to join as a regular active participant. However, please feel free to ping me if there are specific aspects that I can help with, such as technical information about the existing templates and what features could easily be added to them. I applaud your initiative and wish you well with the discussion.
— Certes (talk) 16:26, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, I understand your reasoning, and appreciate the offer to help with technical template stuff. My belief is that a real portal guideline is needed regardless of what's going on at MFD, ANI, and Arbcom; and furthermore, a real guideline would go a long way towards preventing that kind of drama surrounding portals. If there were actual rules that everyone could agree on, these conflicts wouldn't be happening. I know it's a long shot, but hopefully we'll get there. ‑Scottywong| [confess] || 16:38, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom notice

You are involved in a recently filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Conduct in portal space and portal deletion discussions and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. As threaded discussion is not permitted on most arbitration pages, please ensure that you make all comments in your own section only. Additionally, the guide to arbitration and the Arbitration Committee's procedures may be of use.

Thanks, ToThAc (talk) 21:14, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom 2019 election voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

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

If you wish to participate in the 2019 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:10, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Google Code-In 2019 is coming - please mentor some documentation tasks!

Hello,

Google Code-In, Google-organized contest in which the Wikimedia Foundation participates, starts in a few weeks. This contest is about taking high school students into the world of opensource. I'm sending you this message because you recently edited a documentation page at the English Wikipedia.

I would like to ask you to take part in Google Code-In as a mentor. That would mean to prepare at least one task (it can be documentation related, or something else - the other categories are Code, Design, Quality Assurance and Outreach) for the participants, and help the student to complete it. Please sign up at the contest page and send us your Google account address to google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org, so we can invite you in!

From my own experience, Google Code-In can be fun, you can make several new friends, attract new people to your wiki and make them part of your community.

If you have any questions, please let us know at google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org.

Thank you!

--User:Martin Urbanec (talk) 21:58, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Arbitration Case Opened

You were recently listed as a party to a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Portals. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Portals/Evidence. Please add your evidence by December 20, 2019, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Portals/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, SQLQuery me! 20:27, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Barnstorming is one you may want to look at. Most incoming links are probably correct (the aviation usage) but I fixed two or three obvious ones that should have linked to barnstorm (sports). There are probably more if you want to go through them all. MB 16:55, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

@MB: Thanks for the tip. 20 more fixed. Certes (talk) 17:19, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Lua question

How easy would it be to create a module (or modify an existing module) to handle random selection of article links from a list of articles? For example, Template:Transclude random excerpt pulls excerpt text from a random article for use in portal content. My idea is to instead have a list like Portal:Speculative fiction/Selected articles where the module creates a random list of a certain number of links (determined in the template using something like | link_quantity=) from the list in the template instead of excerpts. So, | link_quantity=8 would generate a random selection of eight links from those listed in the template. Do we have something like that already? If not, would it be easy to make? I hope I explained that clearly, and thanks for your help. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 22:08, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

@Nihonjoe: Do you want a template like {{Random list|Apple|Banana|Cherry|Damson|like_quantity=2}} which produces output like "Damson Banana"? If so then that should be quite easy. I think it would be best to copy ideas from Module:Excerpt rather than modifying it to add yet another option. Most of the code in the module deals with manipulating the wikitext of an article to produce an excerpt, and that would not be needed here. Have I understood the question properly? Certes (talk) 23:00, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
Yes, you understood it correctly. Would there be a way to have it output to a specific format, such as this, where "Link #" is the full link to the page and "Link #a" is a short version of the link:

<ul style="position:absolute; right:-1em; top:50%; margin-top:-2.4em; width:38%; min-width:25em; font-size:95%;">
<li style="position:absolute; left:0; top:0;">[[Link 1|Link 1a]]</li>
<li style="position:absolute; left:0; top:1.6em;">[[Link 2|Link 2a]]</li>
<li style="position:absolute; left:0; top:3.2em;">[[Link 3|Link 3a]]</li>
<li style="position:absolute; left:33%; top:0;">[[Link 4|Link 4a]]</li>
<li style="position:absolute; left:33%; top:1.6em;">[[Link 5|Link 5a]]</li>
<li style="position:absolute; left:33%; top:3.2em;">[[Link 6|Link 6a]]</li>
<li style="position:absolute; left:66%; top:0;">[[Link 7|Link 7a]]</li>
<li style="position:absolute; left:66%; top:1.6em;">[[Link 8|Link 8a]]</li>
</ul>

And I agree that creating a new module would likely be best for this if the random list doesn't allow this kind of control. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 23:11, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
That sounds like a very specific format that requires exactly eight links. Module:Excerpt picks randomly from a list but it is literally one line of code out of 774 – pagenum = math.random(pagecount) – and only handles picking one item, not eight. For multiple links, you probably want a new module implementing the Fisher–Yates shuffle#The modern algorithm, stopping after position eight as we don't care about the order of links which are not shown. Certes (talk) 23:31, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
It could be any number of specified links (as indicated by a | link_quantity= parameter in the template that calls the Lua module. I guess I did throw in a "short name" for each with the "Link #a" part, though that could be handled by just using a piped link for the "Link #" parameter. The template would be similar to Template:Transclude random excerpt in that you specify any number of links using the same "1=", "2=", etc., format. The Lua module would then grab a random number of links based on the number given in the template, and then present them in a specified format (though that could be handled on the template level to a degree using substitution via the {{{1}}} (etc.) parameters). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 23:53, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
I see: it's like {{Column}} in that it presents any number of items in three columns (or perhaps in a selectable number of columns), but the items are chosen randomly. If there are a small number of fixed formats then one template per format would work, calling the same new module. If it needs to be more flexible then it might be best to do everything in the module and have a trivial template as a wrapper, in the same way that {{Transclude random excerpt}} delegates all the work to its module. Certes (talk) 00:05, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Exactly. I like the idea of being able to specify the number of columns, though it might be good to limit that to a maximum number of columns (maybe 5 or so), and have it "break" gracefully for mobile users. Have it default to a single column, and have 2, 3, 4, or 5 as other possibilities for the | columns= parameter.
What sparked this idea was thinking about a way to make portals more visible. The Main page has a list of eight portals at the top right. If we made a curated list of the best portals (starting with the portals that were previously featured portals), we could have it randomly list eight of those portals in that spot so that more possibilities are presented to site visitors. We could have a way to have new portals added to the list once they met certain criteria (possibly the same as the former featured portal criteria) so that only really good or excellent portals were shown there. It would take up the same space as is currently occupied, so wouldn't require any rearranging of the Main page formatting.
It could be used in other areas, too, I'm sure. That's why I was asking about flexibility in the quantity of links displayed. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:33, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Many former featured portals have been deleted this year, and anything that helps readers find portals might meet stiff opposition. However, it's an interesting idea. I wonder if there's any way it can be done with column templates or some other standard method, rather than reinventing the wheel by calculating how many items fit in each column and the width percentages. Then we could have a general purpose "choose any n of these bits of text" module, wrapped in a template which adds the column handling and pairs up its parameters into wikilinks. Certes (talk) 00:53, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Many portals have been deleted, mostly those that were automatically created by one person (mostly). Not too many featured portals were deleted (if any...there were so many of those discussions going that it was impossible to keep up with all of it, which might have been what the main driver behind that was going for, but I digress). Regardless of that, as long as it allows the number of random article links to be selected and the number of desired columns, that's main thing I wanted. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 01:03, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

@Nihonjoe: We could go about things this way:

  1. Seek consensus to display the list, explaining what would appear and where. If it gains support...
  2. Write a template to display any number of explicitly supplied links in the desired format, showing all links, not a random selection.
  3. Write a template to select a number of pages at random from a supplied list or category.

The output from 3. then goes into 2. as its current list of links. Rather than use an explicit list, we could use a category (though editors who enjoyed emptying Category:Featured portals might object). We would then need a version of {{Random page in category}} which returned more than one page. It seems impossible for a template or module to list all pages in a category, but we could use Special:RandomInCategory, repeatedly discarding duplicates (and taking care to avoid an infinite loop if the category is smaller than the desired list). Templates 2. and 3. may use modules if appropriate. Template 3. would not be specific to portals but could be of general use.

Hope that helps, Certes (talk) 11:24, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

I think the template/module could be used elsewhere. It would also be helpful to be able to demonstrate how it would work when trying to get people onboard for the change. Is it possible to create the module first so it can be used to demonstrate it? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 19:25, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
The output from the module, like you pasted above, should be enough for a demo. The conversation will probably suggest a few refinements that we should know about before attempting to write a module. Certes (talk) 19:45, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Grant to improve and spread excerpts

Hi! Thanks for your comment and warning about meta:Grants:Project/Rapid/Sophivorus/Excerpts. I was a bit bold and moved your comment from the talk page to the grant page, responded there and added a Support with a warning template because, overall, I interpreted your comment as support with a warning. If I was too bold, please feel free to remove the template or move your comment and my reply back to the talk page, and excuse my boldness. I hope to continue collaborating with you soon, with or without grant! Sophivorus (talk) 23:47, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

@Sophivorus: I see from the Languages section of the left sidebar that variants of the module are now used on several more wikipedias. I've had conversations about the Arabic (ar:وحدة:Excerpt) and Kurdish (ckb:مۆدیوول:Excerpt) versions, which use right-to-left script, and there may be other challenges for languages such as Chinese (zh:模块:Excerpt). Certes (talk) 00:17, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
For this grant I target only LTR languages, but I'll delve into the RTL versions and conversations you had to make sure I do the best possible job on the wikis I reach. Thanks again! Sophivorus (talk) 00:35, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi again! After a forced pause of three months, I'm reactivating the grant request. I made some changes to the proposal based on a recent discovery: basically, I realized it's possible to develop a user script that would enable me (or any user) to add hundreds if not thousands of useful excerpts to any wiki (details explained on the grant). As a consequence, I'm requesting some more time and money to develop the script in addition to the previous goals. I hope you'll agree that this only makes the proposal better, but I wanted to let you know in case you want to review the changes and your comment. Cheers! Sophivorus (talk) 02:23, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

@Sophivorus: Good luck with your request. The portal MfDs have now resumed, so I am reluctant to donate further time to a project aimed at destroying our work. Certes (talk) 11:26, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
What?? Sorry but I don't know what the portal MfDs is, but now I'm really interested, can you share a link?? Sophivorus (talk) 13:19, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
@Sophivorus: For some months, we have been gradually rolling out excerpt transclusions to enwiki portals. However, there is a timing conflict, in that portals such as Portal:Pop music risk being deleted before they reach the head of the queue for improvements. One possible response is to jump around and hastily improve whichever portals are at MfD this week. Another is to abandon the maintenance of Wikipedia to those who enjoy such fights, and move on to activities which will be better appreciated. However, the software you need is already in place and none of this need impact your plans on other wikis. Certes (talk) 13:41, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
I see. I'm really sorry to hear that some of your work is at risk, but another part will definitely live on through excerpts! Thanks for all your work! Sophivorus (talk) 14:29, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Cheers

Damon Runyon's short story "Dancing Dan's Christmas" is a fun read if you have the time. Right from the start it extols the virtues of the hot Tom and Jerry

This hot Tom and Jerry is an old-time drink that is once used by one and all in this country to celebrate Christmas with, and in fact it is once so popular that many people think Christmas is invented only to furnish an excuse for hot Tom and Jerry, although of course this is by no means true.

No matter what concoction is your favorite to imbibe during this festive season I would like to toast you with it and to thank you for all your work here at the 'pedia this past year. Best wishes for your 2020 as well C. MarnetteD|Talk 04:18, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Input into disambiguation page content dispute

Hi there,

As a recent contributor to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation, I felt that it might be useful to invite you to contribute- as a neutral third party- into the discussion at Talk:Holmes_and_Watson_(disambiguation)#Two_disambiguation_pages.

Thank you for your time and consideration. Ubcule (talk) 18:35, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Be well at Christmas

Have a WikiChristmas and a PediaNewYear

Be well. Keep well. Have a lovely Christmas. SilkTork (talk) 15:47, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Good luck

豊かな十年へようこそ/WELCOME TO THE D20s

Miraclepine wishes you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and a prosperous decade of change and fortune.
このミラPはCertesたちのメリークリスマスも新年も変革と幸運の豊かな十年をおめでとうございます！
フレフレ、みんなの未来！/GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR FUTURE!
ミラP 04:22, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

A Rumtopf for you!

Best wishes for 2020.

A Child's Christmas in Llaregyb - I hadn't listened to it in years. Narky Blert (talk) 12:06, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

                                                 Happy holidays

Happy New Year!
Certes,
Have a great 2020 and thanks for your continued contributions to Wikipedia.

   – 2020 is a leap year – news article.
   – Background color is Classic Blue (#0F4C81), Pantone's 2020 Color of the year

Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year 2020}} to user talk pages.

– North America1000 21:34, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Since you're online...

What do you think of the changes I made to P:ACW in the last two weeks? I'm not completely transcluded but sufficiently to ward off charges of content forking (which is actually significant argument when paired with lack of attribution...). This took me a bit over two hours and it will take minutes of work to properly maintenance periodically. I've drawn on the resource of a semi-active Wikiproject task force. When faced with improving a top-level topic area like Portal:War I've used level 4 vital articles to accumulate a "selected conflict" list. It doesn't matter the condition of such an article; they are vital pages and there are plenty of reasons to expect those will be improved. I think something like that could be used for any high level topic (like Portal:Culture, which will eventually return). BusterD (talk) 00:08, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

@BusterD: Thanks for putting in the effort to make those changes. You've done well to retain the general appearance of the portal whilst getting rid of the outdated content and ensuring that it will update automatically. This isn't a fast-moving area of study and it shouldn't take much ongoing effort to ensure that the improvements stay current. A few minor suggestions:
  • Should we let the reader see other featured articles/states/biographies more easily? One option is to move each {{Transclude random excerpt}} to a subpage with <noinclude>|showall=</noinclude> so the subpage shows all of the candidates but the main portal shows only one, then add a wikilink to the subpage. (Previous discussion above.)
  • File:Richmond Virginia damage2.jpg appears twice.
  • A few of the captions include "author unknown"; maybe that should read photographer or artist or just be omitted.
Please don't let those minor points cloud my main message that it's a big improvement - well done! Certes (talk) 00:40, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the fresh eyes. Good suggestions all. Will do. I was wondering why I couldn't get showall to work on the mainpage; thanks again, I want to accommodate that reasonable concern. After seeing the reversion you performed tonight on Portal:Arizona and seeing today's ip blankings on the ArbCom case, I'm spending some time tonight eyeing various portals. Thanks again. BusterD (talk) 00:59, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
I know it's not transcluded to the main page yet, but what am I missing in Portal:American Civil War/Featured article? I can't get the showall parameter to operate. Don't know the options and the documentation doesn't give ME sufficient guidance. BusterD (talk) 01:11, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
Disregard. First, you have to be smarter than the list... Still need to be able to not show all when transcluded to mainpage. BusterD (talk) 01:24, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
@BusterD: I think I've just done that by adding a noinclude tag. Maybe that trick should go in the documentation. I'm off to bed now! Certes (talk) 01:36, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Disambiguation

Hello! I've seen your disambiguation edits across Wikipedia, and I was wondering if you'd be able to change what links to Doctors (soap opera) to Doctors (2000 TV series)? The page was renamed a while back, but the links were never altered. Thank you! – DarkGlow (talk) 11:42, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

@DarkGlow: I'll take a look at that. I presume that Doctors (soap opera) would then become a {{R from incomplete disambiguation}} to Doctor#Series? Certes (talk) 13:23, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
@DarkGlow: I've fixed the incoming links. All seemed to be for the BBC series. Certes (talk) 16:08, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Lists in portals

Hi Certes: Check out Portal:Liquor for the layout I have used to provide article lists for various sections in portals. Hopefully the automated version of this will come into fruition someday! North America1000 15:51, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

@Northamerica1000: That looks good. Of course, it would be better if {{Transclude random excerpt}} did this for itself so the portal only needs to list the articles once. A similar idea was raised at Portal talk:Australia#Additional commentary and was implemented in a sandbox but was abandoned after that discussion went off at a tangent. We should be able to release the change without affecting existing portals if it's felt to be useful. Certes (talk) 16:02, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
I already checked-in at the Autralia portal talk page and then checked out the Module sandbox (prior to sending the above), but I didn't want to mess around with tinkering with the Module page, since this is not an area I specialize in. I was hoping something else may have arisen. It's all good though, I don't mind manually typing in new entries at all. I like the low-profile layout I used, simply using a collapse box with a reduced point size, so the list doesn't encumber portals with glaring text and a long, glaring list. (◠‿◠) North America1000 16:14, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
In mobile view the list are expanded Portal:Food -view_mobile.....ps lead images dont work either.--Moxy 🍁 16:43, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
Missing many elements in mobile view Portal:Liquor.--Moxy 🍁 16:58, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
@Northamerica1000: I've implemented |list= to match the format you used, and edited Portal:Liquor to use it so the lists don't need to be duplicated. Please can you have a look at the mobile issues Moxy raises? Certes (talk) 17:31, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
Very nice, and thanks very much for your work on Module:Excerpt, etc. I don't surf using mobile, so my ability to provide input about mobile views may be rather limited. North America1000 17:46, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the link. I just read it for the first time. (I've stayed out of the workshop as it seemed to have enough voices.) I only read on desktop so I'd not noticed the problems but it seems as if several templates such as {{Collapse top}} don't work on mobile. We may need to consult an expert on mobile Wikipedia, if there is such a person, to get some advice. This may be as simple as omitting parts of the portal such as the article list on mobile. Certes (talk) 00:08, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Meta pages

I like your collection :) Have you considered Talk, Talk Talk, Talk:Talk and Talk:Talk Talk? Or Project:Project? —Kusma (t·c) 17:33, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Added! Certes (talk) 17:53, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
this sounds awesome. I am definitely going to start hanging out here a lot more often! I can;t wait to see what you guys are talking about, above. you made my day. cheers!! --Sm8900 (talk) 14:29, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Transclude files as random slideshow template

The images slideshow using {{Transclude files as random slideshow}} is not working on portals such as Portal:Drink (see the General images section) and others that I have spot checked. The images load, but then instantly disappear. It does not appear to be a lua timeout. I wonder what the problem is; perhaps you can offer some insight on how to fix this. Cheers, North America1000 20:49, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

@Northamerica1000: Previous behaviour was that each image loads with a low resolution version (like an expanded thumbnail) then is immediately replaced by the real thing at full resolution. Now, that happens for about half of the images but, for the rest, when the low-res version disappears it is replaced by the filename. The list of pictures affected is consistent but I can't see a common factor: for example, it is not the case that images from Commons work whilst local ones don't. All I can think of is that a new version of MediaWiki was released yesterday with a few changes to image handling. However, those images seem to work ok in articles. Paging Evad37, who knows Module:Random slideshow better than I do. Certes (talk) 21:06, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
I do have one clue. Portrait images (height > width) fail to display. Landscape images (width > height) display correctly with two exceptions which are almost square: File:Mezcal.jpg and File:Shirley Temple & Cosmopolitan cocktails.jpg. Several slightly less square images, with a width:height ratio of 4:3, work correctly. Is it possible that the image is being displayed in a window with an aspect ratio of approximately 4:3, by scaling to make the width fit, and this process fails if the scaled image is too high for the window? Nothing appears to have changed at our end, so it looks likely that this effect results from a MediaWiki change. Certes (talk) 21:44, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
@Þjarkur: Could this change to Module:Portal image banner be the cause? It looks very relevant, but when I previewed a reverted version with Portal:Drink it didn't seem to fix the problem. Certes (talk) 21:57, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
It's not related as far as I can tell. The error is coming from requests like this one due to the last parameter not being an integer. Do you know which script handles this carousel thing? I can't find it. – Thjarkur (talk) 22:28, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Appears to be phab:T245553 and phab:T245098, slideshows don't work on 1.35.0. – Thjarkur (talk) 22:41, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, Þjarkur. It looks as if it's a problem with the new MediaWiki version (as I first suspected). Portrait images (and barely-landscape images) are being scaled in a way which makes iiurlheight fractional. Comments are being added quickly to phab:T245553 and it looks as if they are taking it seriously, so here's hoping the devs fix it soon. Do you know of any way that we can work around the bug in the meantime, perhaps by influencing iiurlheight in some way to make it an integer? Certes (talk) 23:09, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
I've submitted a code that fixes it there (I don't understand Gerrit...), but it is possible to add .mw-gallery-slideshow-img-container { max-width: 300px;} .mw-gallery-slideshow-buttons { padding: 10px 0!important; } on our end to force an integer value for all users whose window is taller than 400px. Comes at the cost of fairly small images I guess. – Thjarkur (talk) 23:47, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
@Certes and Þjarkur: Wow, looks like I came to the right place in search of answers, and thanks for the prompt replies. Seems like it will get worked out eventually. I wasn't even aware of Phabricator pages such as this, or, I may have saw them a while back and then forgot about them. Nice. North America1000 02:50, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
@Northamerica1000 and Þjarkur: MediaWiki 1.35/wmf.21 is now released, and the problem seems to be fixed, although the images might look nicer centred. However, we now have a similar issue with banners, as seen at the top of Portal:Food. (Purge and a dummy edit didn't help.) The problem only seems to occur with some variants of {{Portal image banner|mode=slideshow}} I don't know whether this problem is new, nor whether it is specific to certain portals. Other combinations of parameters such as in Portal:Chess work fine, as does the slideshow demo in Template:Portal image banner/doc. I've not yet explored Module:Portal image banner. Its author is active on meta but not enwiki. Certes (talk) 14:44, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
1.35/wmf.21 won't go into production until tomorrow, the Portal:Food thing is due to the same issue. I only applied my temporary CSS fix to {{Transclude files as random slideshow}}. – Thjarkur (talk) 15:08, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Well, something is better than nothing. In the slideshows, images were centered and significantly larger, but at least there is now something for readers to see. Regarding the Food portal banner, hopefully things will get worked-out as time goes along. North America1000 15:59, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, Thjarkur! Sorry for the confusion: I had the modules on my watchlist but not the CSS. Here's hoping things improve tomorrow. Certes (talk) 18:09, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

note re item

Hi. If you get a chance, could you please take a look at Portal: History, and make it more up-to-date, or maintained, etc? As a coordinator at WP:History, I would like to encourage someone knowledgeable like yourself to take a look at this portal from time to time, and to try to maintain it. I hope that's okay. I appreciate your help. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 17:55, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

@Sm8900: I've worked on several portals but I'm more of a gnome and toolmaker. That portal is linked from the Main Page and has a handcrafted history that reached featured status. I'm no historian, so I'd rather leave this one to a more experienced portal designer and creator. I see you've raised the issue at Portal talk: and it may be worth persisting there with a few more pings or starting a conversation at WT:WikiProject Portals/Tasks#Discussions about new portals or specific portals. Certes (talk) 19:55, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
hm, okay. those are good points. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 20:43, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Mail

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North America1000 05:55, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Your map - anti miscegenation

Dear Sir or Madam,

I love your map on anti miscegenation laws. I like to use as part of my phd research. Do you have a source for this map? Please let me know. d.a.foti@gmail.com

Thanks much,

David Foti — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:6000:1802:803C:8C2F:1E61:888D:53AD (talk) 21:06, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

I based this map on information provided by other editors in Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States. I have no sources other than those cited in that article. I wish you well with your research, but I'm not an expert on this subject and was simply presenting other people's work in graphical form in response to this Graphics Lab request. Certes (talk) 22:26, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

999 - Juice WRLD entry

Why did you see it fit to remove Juice WRLD from the 999 page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.183.233.196 (talk) 20:16, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

From WP:DABMENTION: If a topic does not have an article of its own, but is mentioned within another article, then a link to that article may be included if it would provide value to the reader. 999 is not mentioned in Juice Wrld, so listing that article in 999 provides no value to the reader. If you would like to discuss the matter further per WP:BRD, please start a discussion at Talk:999 so other editors can also offer advice. Certes (talk) 20:23, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

A question

Hi Certes: Since you're one of the go-to users regarding portal markup, a question:

{{Transclude files as random slideshow}} does not seem to be functioning properly as it used to. It is now only displaying a small fraction of the images, whereas before, many more would be displayed (in the scrollable format with the navigation arrows). As an example, check out Portal:Transport and Portal:Olympic Games, both of which should displaying many more images than they actually are in their General images sections. The template just doesn't seem to be working right.

Any and all advice regarding this matter would be greatly appreciated. North America1000 12:32, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

@Northamerica1000: Oops! Sophivorus and I changed the parameters to Module:Excerpt's cleanupText() function. I've edited Module:Random slideshow, which calls it, and all images should now appear rather than just those in the ledes. Informing Evad37. Certes (talk) 15:00, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
Sorry about that, I did perform a search to make sure this would not affect other modules but it looks like I missed that one. Thanks for the report! Sophivorus (talk) 16:17, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Template : Durham Coast Line RDT

Can you tidy up the template by moving the wording of Billingham-on-Tees (1st station) so it lines up with the other text matter, please.

Xenophon Philosopher (talk) 04:58, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

@Xenophon Philosopher: I've had a go, though this is not really my field and it you may get a better result faster by asking on the template's talk page. Certes (talk) 10:29, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your amendment. That now looks fine.

Xenophon Philosopher (talk) 15:18, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

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– North America1000 01:50, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
I hope you enjoyed my edit to Lua. Best wishes. BoldLuis (talk) 13:59, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
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