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Recent changes pages

I'm involved with Project East Anglia, in that I am a member of it and contribute a lot to articles which are part of the area. The project is completely languishing, even with supposedly 36 members. I find my (browser bookmarked) 'Related changes' pages for Yorkshire and Lincolnshire incredibly useful in keeping a running eye on project articles, as I suspect many others do, and I believe it keeps everyone on the ball - it may be the major factor keeping people involved with these projects. Not knowing how to set up such a thing, can you advise how an East Anglian 'Related changes' page can be set up ? You can ping me here or on my user page. Many thanks. Acabashi (talk) 22:46, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

@Acabashi: - the list was generated by me on a regular basis, using a script I was supplied with, unfortunately there was some system change in January 2015 and the script decided to delete loads of entries rather than add new ones. I played around for a couple of months trying to get it going again but did not have any success. So the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire lists are rather out of date but even that is better than nothing. I wish I could get them working again, cannot even remember where they are probably on my old PC. I did ask a few questions but did not get much response to help so I just parked it. Keith D (talk) 23:16, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
A real shame as it's so useful ! Acabashi (talk) 23:23, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
@Acabashi: - I have tracked down the on-wiki copy of the script, which appears to have been modified in October 2009 by an IP (do not think that I knew about that change). Wikipedia:WikiProject Yorkshire/Articles/Source. I had a copy locally on PC that I ran with the appropriate projects, 1 script per project. Keith D (talk) 00:23, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Many thanks for that Keith. I tried setting up a page as 'Wikipedia:WikiProject East Anglia/Articles/Source' and adding the code but it didn't seem to work. This kind of source thing sails completely over my head. I think I've a lot to learn. Ho Hum :) Acabashi (talk) 00:56, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
@Acabashi: - just before I go on holiday thought I would update you on this one. I have reset-up on my current PC and the code gave syntax errors which I managed to fix in my copy. Try to run and it calls other modules that are no longer in the distribution so retrieved these from my old back-ups, only to get more syntax errors. Unsure how to fix these, may be will have another go after I get back. Keith D (talk) 16:33, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2018).

Administrator changes

added Sro23
readded KaisaLYmblanter

Guideline and policy news

  • After a discussion at Meta, a new user group called "interface administrators" (formerly "technical administrator") has been created. Come the end of August, interface admins will be the only users able to edit site-wide JavaScript and CSS pages like MediaWiki:Common.js and MediaWiki:Common.css, or edit other user's personal JavaScript and CSS. The intention is to improve security and privacy by reducing the number of accounts which could be used to compromise the site or another user's account through malicious code. The new user group can be assigned and revoked by bureaucrats. Discussion is ongoing to establish details for implementing the group on the English Wikipedia.
  • Following a request for comment, the WP:SISTER style guideline now states that in the mainspace, interwiki links to Wikinews should only be made as per the external links guideline. This generally means that within the body of an article, you should not link to Wikinews about a particular event that is only a part of the larger topic. Wikinews links in "external links" sections can be used where helpful, but not automatically if an equivalent article from a reliable news outlet could be linked in the same manner.

Technical news


Visual editor auto citation date formatting errors

Hi Keith, you seem to be fixing a lot of my citations, this is due to the way the visual editor handles automatic citations, which give incorrect date formatting, Do you know where this can be reported? Kind regards Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:27, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Hello, I am picking up new entries in category:CS1 errors: dates so any new errors should be sorted out and not add to the backlog.
If you think there is a problem with visual editor then try reporting at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. If they think that it is not a visual editor problem then they should point to where the report should go. Keith D (talk) 22:40, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Keith D, I am unsure whether this is the correct avenue to contact you on. I am unfamiliar with the talk page on Wikipedia. I am contacting you regarding my Grandfather's Wikipedia page. ..Cliff 'Ticker' Inglis. The information on this page is incorrect . He was born on the 27th May and died in Consort Care Home, Plymouth in 2001 after battling lung cancer. He has never lived in Manchester. There are no references online which state this. Is there anyway that my Mother can send you copies of his death and birth certificates, so that the information on his page may be correct? We are very proud of my Grandad and his achievements and would like his Wikipedia page to be corrected. Many thanks, Steph

If you want to send information then you will need to create an account. You can then use the link under the tools menu "Email this user" when on this page. For privacy I will generally respond on this page rather than email you directly. Keith D (talk) 11:27, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
  • (talk page watcher) Keith, it appears that the false information (Manchester and birth date) was added, unsourced, in these edits in March 2018 by an IP editor who was given a short block in April 2018 for repeatedly adding unsourced information. It might be safer for the encyclopedia if those edits and indeed all that IP's unsourced edits were reverted. The IP is still editing, and creating unsourced drafts, and I have found no sign of them ever adding a source for anything (though haven't checked every edit). PamD 21:30, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
@Oshwah:, who blocked the IP last time. PamD 21:37, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
Thanks Pam, in the absence of any references I have removed the dubious information. Keith D (talk) 23:12, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

19:39, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Post town changes

The reason I continued to edit it as I thought this was supposed to be an Encyclopedia and continually having things changed to incorrect information is not what it is for, Guiseley does not have a Leeds post town. I am a Guiseley resident. 176.35.101.56 (talkcontribs) 13:26, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Hello 176.35.101.56. I think that your summary of the purpose of an encyclopaedia is correct. We should not be continually having things changed to incorrect information. But the Royal Mail gives these as the correct postal addresses:
Guiseley School, Fieldhead Road, Guiseley, LEEDS LS20 8DT
Guiseley Library, Otley Road, Guiseley, LEEDS LS20 8AH
Post Office, 46 Oxford Road, Guiseley, LEEDS LS20 8AB
... do we not accept them as an authority? After all, they run the Post Towns system; it's their thing - if we can't trust them on an address, whom do we trust??
Best wishes to all DBaK (talk) 00:04, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

17:53, 13 August 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:

Speaking of pictures, several hundred Selected image sections have been upgraded to include image slideshows.

Progress report: design

The push for automation continues, with new components under continuous testing in the field. As problems are spotted, they are reported to our programmers, who have done a fantastic job of keeping up with bug reports and fixing the relevant Lua modules fast. I am highly impressed.

Construction time on new portals is now down to as little as a minute or less. Though not in general. If you are lucky enough to spot portals that fit the profile of the new tools (their strengths), then a portal can be complete almost as soon as it is created, with the added time it takes to find and add a panorama. Source page titles are not generally standardized, and so it source pages in many cases must be entered manually. Where source page titles follow a standard naming convention, portal creation for those subjects goes quickly.

So, we still have some hurdles, but the outlook on portals is very good. New features, and many improvements to features are on the horizon. I'll be sure to report them when they become available.

What will the portal of the future look like? That is up to you!

See you on the project's talk pages.

Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   21:05, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

16:46, 20 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://wiki.riteme.site/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   02:43, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks

for this, I usually check the hidden cats afterward but got over-confident (lazy?) this time. ―Mandruss  00:32, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

16:16, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Yorkshire Newsletter - September 2018

Delivered September 2018 by MediaWiki message delivery.
If you do not wish to receive the newsletter, please add an N to the column against your username on the Project Mainpage.

09:24, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Please check all refs 175.33.211.40 (talk) 10:27, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Please check all refs thanks Keith hope you are well. T.175.33.211.40 (talk) 10:27, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2018).

Administrator changes

added None
removed AsterionCrisco 1492KFKudpungLizRandykittySpartaz
renamed Optimist on the runVoice of Clam

Interface administrator changes

added AmorymeltzerMr. StradivariusMusikAnimalMSGJTheDJXaosflux

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a "stop-gap" discussion, six users have temporarily been made interface administrators while discussion is ongoing for a more permanent process for assigning the permission. Interface administrators are now the only editors allowed to edit sitewide CSS and JavaScript pages, as well as CSS/JS pages in another user's userspace. Previously, all administrators had this ability. The right can be granted and revoked by bureaucrats.

Technical news

  • Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 12 September and 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour.
  • Some abuse filter variables have changed. They are now easier to understand for non-experts. The old variables will still work but filter editors are encouraged to replace them with the new ones. You can find the list of changed variables on mediawiki.org. They have a note which says Deprecated. Use ... instead. An example is article_text which is now page_title.
  • Abuse filters can now use how old a page is. The variable is page_age.

Arbitration

  • The Arbitration Committee has resolved to perform a round of Checkuser and Oversight appointments. The usernames of all applicants will be shared with the Functionaries team, and they will be requested to assist in the vetting process. The deadline to submit an application is 23:59 UTC, 12 September, and the candidates that move forward will be published on-wiki for community comments on 18 September.

16:47, 3 September 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   06:53, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Carleton High School

Hi, thank you for trying to sort out the problems with edits to this article. I've left a question here to try to find out what the issue is. Right now, I don't understand at all, but presumably it is not very urgent. MPS1992 (talk) 19:48, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

@MPS1992: The problem is that the URL cannot be correct as it points to a page on articles for electrical PAT testing and nothing to do with the school. Keith D (talk) 20:35, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I see that. I've explained my confusion at the other page where I commented. Perhaps some explanation will be forthcoming, or perhaps not. MPS1992 (talk) 20:37, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

22:35, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Lee Freeman

Hi Keith, hope you had a nice break. Am trying to work my way through some of the articles requested, but Lee Freeman (CCof Humberside Police) looks rather spartan. I cannot find anything else; is it worth putting this out as an article. Draft is here User:The joy of all things/subpage 9 and is still unfinished. Regards. The joy of all things (talk) 08:13, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi and many thanks for the work you are putting in. I think it will do as a start for others to add to. I would have expected to find some date details for his birth but that appears to missing from the sources. Keith D (talk) 10:38, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
Okay, I'll move it to the main space today. Thanks, Keith. The joy of all things (talk) 10:53, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

lmao @ ur message

Hi I saw your message, I was wondering if you could message me if you have Telegram. My telegram is l33tazngu41 thank you! or Twit @ Jun0mix thank you. I have hacker information I want to share with you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Angogaru (talkcontribs) 07:48, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, but what message? If you want to share information then please post here unless it is sensitive for some reason in which case you can email it to me. I will probably reply here or your talk page. Keith D (talk)

21:58, 17 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.

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   07:07, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

15:22, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for reverting that edit I restored to the article. The modification was made by an LTA account that I reverted, and I didn't catch that this particular edit removed unreferenced content. I appreciate you for keeping the article accurate and for keeping me on my toes ;-). Cheers - ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 11:45, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Please look at citation number 18 - publisher is wrong. Thanks from T.

Please tweak if able thanks T. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.33.45.21 (talk) 13:54, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks - for your work - can you tweak the above page please if you have time? Thanks T. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.33.45.21 (talk) 06:44, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

17:34, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Yorkshire Newsletter - October 2018

Delivered October 2018 by MediaWiki message delivery.
If you do not wish to receive the newsletter, please add an N to the column against your username on the Project Mainpage.

20:52, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Date format

Date format error was unintentional and I included a fix for it in my following edit (but you'd already beaten me to it). Article is a work in progress but I think it with a little more work it can be at least be B class but I only have time to work on it sporadically. -- 109.79.173.175 (talk) 00:45, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2018).

Administrator changes

added JustlettersandnumbersL235
removed BgwhiteHorsePunchKidJ GrebKillerChihuahuaRami RWinhunter

Interface administrator changes

added Cyberpower678Deryck ChanOshwahPharosRagesossRitchie333

Oversight changes

removed Guerillero NativeForeigner SnowolfXeno

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • Partial blocks should be available for testing in October on the Test Wikipedia and the Beta-Cluster. This new feature allows admins to block users from editing specific pages and in the near-future, namespaces and uploading files. You can expect more updates and an invitation to help with testing once it is available.
  • The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team is currently looking for input on how to measure the effectiveness of blocks. This is in particular related to how they will measure the success of the aforementioned partial blocks.
  • Because of a data centre test, you will be able to read but not edit the Wikimedia projects for up to an hour on 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time.

Arbitration

  • The Arbitration Committee has, by motion, amended the procedure on functionary inactivity.
  • The community consultation for 2018 CheckUser and Oversight appointments has concluded. Appointments will be made by October 11.
  • Following a request for comment, the size of the Arbitration Committee will be decreased to 13 arbitrators, starting in 2019. Additionally, the minimum support percentage required to be appointed to a two-year term on ArbCom has been increased to 60%. ArbCom candidates who receive between 50% and 60% support will be appointed to one-year terms instead.
  • Nominations for the 2018 Arbitration Committee Electoral Commission are being accepted until 12 October. These are the editors who help run the ArbCom election smoothly. If you are interested in volunteering for this role, please consider nominating yourself.

There's been a recent edit in the article where cathedrals Anglican and Roman Catholic and kirks of all years have been added to the list - it's confusing to the casual reader as of course since 1888 any new cathedrals didn't apply to decisions involving a new city. There is a note in the table about the status applying only before that year, but ideally we should really have consensus on what is best for the table, list them all and highlight/italic pre-1888 ones, or simply remove all bar the ones that applied towards city status. Could you advise on what is best for the table and whether it should be discussed more widely on the article's talk page? Thanks for your input.

The Equalizer (talk) 23:08, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Probably needs a wider discussion. There has been a number of changes that have been reverted to this information so needs to be clarified what the column is for, an edit notice may be required.
I think I would favour the original 1888 cut-off for this information as that is what determines city status, later ones have no relevance to the subject and just cause confusion. Keith D (talk) 23:26, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for your advice. Changes now made to the article, with explanatory notes given and discussion had (albeit minimal) on its talk page. Regards --The Equalizer (talk) 17:56, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Spawn (film)

Thanks for adding the missing pipe. 2A00:23C5:2E01:FB01:D874:74C4:B819:D629 (talk) 00:38, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

23:38, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Keith, I see that there were edits provided to update the Donnatal wikipedia page based upon new/updated information. I was curious why these updates were removed back to the old entry. Thanks, RayRmp912 (talk) 19:02, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

They were reverted as they were promotional, the layout was incorrect, it removed wikilinks, there were referencing errors etc. It was basically a mess and the previous version was in much better encyclopedic shape. I was not the only one to think this way as it had previously been reverted by another user. Keith D (talk) 19:10, 11 October 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

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. check Partially implemented
  3. Link from bottom of corresponding templates. check Partially implemented
  4. Link for each portal on Portal:Contents/Portals. check 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   04:22, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

22:40, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

My apologies for the revert; it is now restored. I was trying to revert the edit before yours. Kerry (talk) 07:24, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Console Inc. article

The vandalism on that page is continuing. The person that is trying to ram through destoying half the page is now threatening me in the edit log with "being blocked" - despite outreach on talk. Would appreciate any assistance you could give as an admin, never really seen this before. Thanks. 2600:387:6:805:0:0:0:95 (talk) 01:18, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi, looks like another admin has blocked the other editor for 24 hours and has protected the page for a week so only admins can edit it. Keith D (talk) 10:33, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

23:11, 22 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

List of new portals

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)

Heslington Hoard Revisions

Hi Keith,

Just a quick note to say thanks for the PastScape template additions to Heslington Hoard - genuinely didn't know that template existed, so that's another handy thing to learn. Your rigorous attention to detail remains very welcome indeed. Much obliged. Zakhx150 (talk) 08:19, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I have been converting articles over to use the templates {{NHLE}}, {{PastScape}} & {{IoE}} since the restructure of English Heritage into Heritage England to get the new URL & publisher details as we are out of date on many articles. Will be a single point of change if they change things again. Keith D (talk) 10:41, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Infobox river

Since you took part in the discussion about {{infobox river}} and are an admin, I wanted to bring this to your attention. I have real concerns about this thread... Would appreciate if you could help keep an eye on it. Seems like an editor who is pretty frusturated and hoepfully is just venting... But also seems to be some veiled threats of promising to undermine the efforts. I pledge to be part of this effort in creating a superlative rivers information box, such that an eventual merge discussion will be moot. Any thoughts? --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 20:33, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

I will try and keep an eye on it but will be away from Thursday. The comment I'd just re-create the geobox and start a new RfC to stop further merges. is rather disturbing and someone trying to get their own way rather than having to abide by consensus. I think that unless this is done quickly then things will get stuck in wikilaying again like it did last time when we where in the process of creating the {{infobox river}} and another RFC was stared to halt the process. Keith D (talk) 20:47, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
Well seems to me that the decision has been made. Starting an RFC doesn't negate that. As I said, I'm hoping this is just a user venting their frustration, but the fact that the user is making a thinly veiled threat is really concerning. I also find it comical that this user with barely 10,000 edits feels so entitled. I tried really hard to respond in a diplomatic way and to encourage constructive conversation but I'm curious if this user follows through with their threat, are their administrative courses of action? --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 21:03, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
They could be reported to wp:AN and may get blocked for their actions. Keith D (talk) 21:19, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar

Thank you for the build ADDDROPPP (talk) 00:20, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

help request to move the sketch

help request to move the sketch 

https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Draft:Unick_Forex. I'm grateful novice ADDDROPPP (talk) 22:32, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Sorry but can you explain what you want done. Looking at the article it needs translating in to English as a first step. Keith D (talk) 00:37, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Admin's Barnstar
Congratulations on work. ADDDROPPP (talk) 00:34, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

20:08, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

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