User talk:Charlesdrakew/Archives/2019/January

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Portals WikiProject update #022, 11 Nov 2018

Welcome AmericanAir88

Give a hearty welcome to AmericanAir88, who has adopted working on portals as one of his main purposes on Wikipedia. So far, he has created the following portals:

Way to go!

Where's Evad?

Evad disappeared from Wikipedia on October 18.

He has been, and will continue to be, sorely missed.

Hopefully, he is okay, on a Caribbean cruise or something.

The conversion continues

Portals of the old design, are slowly but surely being converted to the new single-page design.

One factor that has slowed things down is that for many sections, the section header call and section contents call are integrated into a template and buried in a lua module, locking them in on each portal. They have been that way for years.

This means that these sections can't be directly edited like the other sections on the same portal. So, search/replaces affect all the sections except those. So, upgrading headers on these portals, for example, misses the integrated sections and inadvertently results in 2 different header colors.

Before we can continue with the upgrade of these portals, the headers and section contents calls need to be restored to each portal, so that those can be edited in concert with the other sections on the portal, and worked on independently of each other.

This is underway, with a solution implemented on about 1/4 of the affected portals so far. Around 300 of them. The remaining 900 should be done within a couple weeks or so.

Going wide...

We now have banner-shaped pictures included in the introduction sections of 180 portals. The rarity of such pictures has made it difficult to find suitably narrow images for display across the tops of portals.

We have a solution for this, courtesy of FR30799386...

Most pictures are not banner-shaped. But, you can still use them as banners. Here's how:

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

Using both maxheight=120px and overflow=Hidden produces this:

Project's status

There are now 4,140 portals, with more being created almost daily. Prior to this project's reboot, portals were created at about the rate of 80 per year. Since April of this year, we've created about 2,600 new portals, or 32.5 years' worth at the old rate.

Of those new portals, about 3/4 of them need links leading to them. Almost all of them are linked to from the category system, but they still need links in article see also sections, at the bottom of navigation templates, and on the main portals list at Portal:Contents/Portals.

Of the 1500 portals created before the reboot, about 300 have been completely converted to the new design so far. About 1100 more have been partially converted, with intros, image slideshows, and associated wikimedia sections getting the most attention.

Discussion has resumed on the portal guidelines.

Until next issue...

See ya round the portal system! — The Transhumanist 11:40, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

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On my edition of Dawkins' page

Hi! I erased the parenthesis that said "which advocates the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design" because in the context of Richard Dawkins' opinions on abortion this point is not relevant, and it seems to me more like a way of poisoning the well. I agree that intelligent design is pseudoscience, but regardless of whether it is or not, writing it there and in that way all it does is take the objectivity out of the article. I'm sorry I didn't specify it when I did the editing, because I'm just beginning to find out how the editing works in this forum. Greetings. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.180.102.204 (talk) 18:16, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #023, 25 Nov 2018

There are now 4,180 portals.

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

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

( New portals are created with {{subst:Basic portal start page}} or {{subst:bpsp}} )

Happy Holidays

Hello everyone! Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice (if it's occurring in your area of the world), and thanks for your work in maintaining, improving, and expanding portals. Cheers, — The Transhumanist 06:51, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

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

Jingling along

The following portals have been created since the last issue:

Keep 'em coming!

By the way, the above list was generated using this Petscan query. It can be easily modified by changing the date. The data page (under the Output tab) also has options for receiving the data in CSV or tabbed format, which some operating systems automatically load into a spreadsheet program for ease of use, such as copying and pasting the desired column (like page names).

In closing

We'll keep it short this issue.

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

Cheerio, — The Transhumanist 07:45, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

my edit for "Center Parcs UK"

ok so I edited the fact that the treehouses were opened in 2011, not 2010. the source provided literally states that they were opened in 2011, so when I edited it with the source still provided, it was removed and the false info came back? sorry if this isn't the right place to mention it - Gwh9Gaming

~~Fair enough~~. It would help if you explained it in the edit summary box as you always should. Then it would not look like casual vandalism.Charles (talk) 19:50, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Actually the source is dated August 2010 and it appears that they were ready in that year for use in 2011 although it is not entirely clear.Charles (talk) 20:04, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Revert on Banastre Tarleton

Thank you for your concern over the edit I made at Banastre Tarleton. It was an unintentional omission on my part to not include an explanation in its talk section. If you remember that far back, I had deleted a sentence or two based on a biography of Tarleton called "The Green Dragoon" which referred to epithets (the nickname "Bloody ban") which are not supported by evidence itself. Tarlton was not actually called Blooody Ban in his lifetime; the author of his biography simply made it up. I'm not sure its worth going back to the page and correcting it a second time. Howvere I will mention it in the Tarleton talk section and see what happens.Polkadreamer (talk) 17:26, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

You may be right and I am no expert on that subject. Do revert my edit if you think it is justified.Charles (talk) 11:04, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Re:County Town of Surrey?

Hi. I've seen the comment you left for me about the county town of Surrey, and just posted a response. Please check my talk page.188.176.129.120 (talk) 12:26, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Notable residents etc

Lists of notables are sometimes arranged alphabetically and sometimes by date. In the Lodsworth article they are done a>z so strictly the dates are superfluous. Is there some MoS reason to exclude them or could they be usefully retained?SovalValtos (talk) 10:58, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

I think having the dates there implies that the person lived there all that time, which rarely the case. We generally like to keep these lists simple, when the information is in the linked articles anyway.

Have a good holiday and new year.Charles (talk) 12:48, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

I tend to the view that the heading should be "notable people", so residency is not key. I prefer prose, rather than a list, too. But, more importantly, I wish you both good health and comfort for the coming season. Tony. Tony Holkham (Talk) 13:04, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

I see that the article should be kept simple and to point and agree with text. The etc in the heading was alluding to alumni and other lists where dates might be more appropriate. Best wishes reciprocated with the added hope that more editors come to understand the nature of an encyclopaedia!SovalValtos (talk) 18:01, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #024, 26 Dec 2018

Last issue, I mentioned there would be a flood, and so, here it is...

Portals status

We now have 4,620 portals.

And the race to pass 5,000 by year's end is on...

Can we make it?

The New Year, and the 5,001st portal, await.

( New portals are created with {{subst:Basic portal start page}} or {{subst:bpsp}} )

Evad is back!

After disappearing in mid-thread, Evad37 has returned from a longer than expected wikibreak.

Be sure to welcome him back.

Improved cropping is coming to Portal image banner

User:FR30799386 is working on making {{Portal image banner}} even better by enabling it to chop the top off an image as well as the bottom.

Many pictures aren't suitable for banners because they are too tall. Therefor, User:FR30799386 added cropping to this template, so that an editor could specify part of a picture to be used rather than the whole thing.

Upgrade of flagship portals is underway

Work has begun on upgrading Wikipedia's flagship portals (those listed at the top of the Main page).

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

Work continues on the other five. Feel free to join in on the fun.

Spotting missing portals that are redirects

In place of many missing portals, there is a redirect that leads to "the next best topic", such as a parent topic.

Most of these were created before we had the tools to easily create portals (they used to take 6 hours or more to create, because it was all done manually). Rather than leave a portal link red, some editors thought it was best that those titles led somewhere.

The subjects that have sufficient coverage should have their own portals rather than a redirect to some other subject.

Unfortunately, being blue like all other live links, redirects are harder to spot than redlinks.

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

What's new in portal space?

Here are the new portals since the last issue:

Keep 'em coming!

And I'll see you next issue.

Sincerely, — The Transhumanist 08:06, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #025, 30 Dec 2018

We can now crop the tops of pics to make banners

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

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

So, this:

Niagara falls, from the Canadian side

Becomes this:

Niagara falls, from the Canadian side

Here's the code for the above banner:

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

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

About that end of the year goal...

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

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

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

Congratulations!

What's next?

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

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

The new portals need to be linked to from the encyclopedia.
On those portals about subjects that are not typically capitalized, the search parameters need to be refined/expanded, to maximize the chances of Did you know and In the news items being found and displayed.
A Recognized content section needs to be added to each portal that has a corresponding WikiProject.
Addition of a category on those portals that lack a subject category.
Implement the portal category system, adding the appropriate categories to each portal.
Upgrade, and complete (as per the tasks enumerated above), the old-style portals that are not regularly maintained, which have not been converted yet (about 1,100 of them).
Find and fix the remaining bugs in the underlying lua modules.
Build portal tools (scripts) to assist in the creation, development, and maintenance of portals.
Build a script to help build navbox footer templates, via the harvesting of categories, amongst other methods.
Update the portal building instructions.
Update the portal guideline.
Refine the programming of the portals to reduce their load time.
Design and develop the next generation of portals and portal components.

And whatever else you can dream up.

But most of all, have a...

Happy New Year!

Charlesdrakew/Archives/2019, thank you for your contributions to the Portals Project, and have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year.

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

Sturmer, Essex

Are you sure the edit you reverted needed to be reverted? The editor whose edit you reverted seems to have a record over several years of making edits which don't show any evidence of spamming, nor of bad faith. As far as I can see, they appear to have been trying to provide more detail, and included a reference most editors wouldn't only because they have previously had edits reverted for not including a source. Dolive21 (talk) 13:53, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

I am not questioning the good faith of the editor, or I would have warned them, but we do not need an embedded link to the company's own website or even the name of the business. A third party source might be acceptable. Wishing you a happy new year.Charles (talk) 13:58, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

I know I'm rather rusty, but how does including the name of a shop differ from including the name of a church, for example?Dolive21 (talk) 14:01, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Churches are usually old, often listed and usually have reliable third party sources for feferencing, making them notable. They are not (usually) commercial businesses. Shops are not normally notable and are not going to get free adverts here.Charles (talk) 14:06, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi, I am the editor of the Sturmer page. I appreciate that you have to make sure that the pages have to be reliable, but I am offended by your idea that I am spamming the page. Where did you get that idea from? I live in the area and have a passion for history and wish to make sure Sturmer is documented as such. I am an academic, so like to reference things correctly and also like to use plain English. However, your removal of the word "Tudor" seems almost agressive! On re-reading the text, I saw that the use of Tudor with the date "1571" seemed superfluous. You have now added it back and flagged it as spam. Why? Best wishes and Happy New Year. Racine 007 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Racine 007 (talk • contribs) 21:28, 31 December 2018 (UTC) You also might like to know, the new link you put in for the Sturmer Pippin lists Sturmer being in Suffolk, we are in Essex! Please check your references before removing existing correct ones. Kind regards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Racine 007 (talk • contribs) 21:35, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi and Happy New Year to you also. First may I point out that you do not own the page. You are an editor, not "the editor". I am happy with most of what you have done but I have been gently trying to make clear in edit summaries that we really should not have a link to a very commercial garden centre website. We try to avoid advertising where possible. But you keep putting it back. Why? I do not care whether the word "Tudor" is included.Charles (talk) 21:43, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

You know exactly what I meant by "I am the editor". I am referring to the person doing the updating, not the owner of the page. I am not advertising the nursery, rather referring to the Pippin apple. You have not yet made a comment about your poor reference, which is why I put the reference back. If you can make better edits then I would not need to correct you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Racine 007 (talk • contribs) 22:31, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

There appear to have been boundary changes in the area in the past. Is it possible that the nursery was in Suffolk at the time? In any case it is still a better quality source than a nursery website in spite of a minor error which does not prevent it acting as verification.Charles (talk) 23:12, 31 December 2018 (UTC)