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Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography

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Please comment on Talk:Imran Awan

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Please comment on Talk:Glenn Greenwald

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Please comment on Talk:Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar

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Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film

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Please comment on Talk:Donald Trump

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Please comment on Talk:Eugene Gu

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Portals WikiProject update #011, 10 July 2018

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
We now have 97 participants. Be sure to welcome our newest members, BrantleyIzMe, Coffeeandcrumbs, and Nolan Perry, with warm regards. Work is proceeding apace. We have 2 major thrusts right now: converting the intro sections of portals, and building the components of the one-page automated model... Converting the intro sections We need everybody, except those building software components, to work on converting intros. If you have AWB, definitely use that. If not, then work on them manually. Even one a day, or as often as you can muster, will help a lot. There are only about 1,000 of them left to go, so if everyone chips in, it will go pretty quickly. Remember, there are 97 of us! The intros for most of the portals starting with A through F have already been converted to use the {{Transclude lead excerpt}} template. The standard wikicode for the automated intro that we want to put into place looks like this: {{/box-header|Introduction|noedit=yes|}} {{Transclude lead excerpt | {{PAGENAME}} | paragraphs=1-2 | files=1}} {{Box-footer|[[{{PAGENAME}}|Read more...]]}} That works for most portals, but not all. For some portals it requires some tweaking, and for others, we may have to use a different or more customized approach. Remember to visually inspect each portal you work on and make sure that it works before moving on to the next one. Be sure to skip user-maintained portals. They are listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Portals#Specific_portal_maintainers. AWB tips I've started an AWB tips page, for those of you feeling a bit overwhelmed by that power user tool. Feel free to add to it and/or improve it. Portal automation We have some very talented Lua programmers, who are pushing the limits of what we can do in gathering data from Wikipedia's various namespaces and presenting it in portals. Due to their efforts, Lua is powering the selective transclusion core of our emerging automated portal design, in the form of selected article sections that rotate content, and slideshows. To go beyond Lua's limits, to take full advantage of Mediawiki's API, we are in the midst of adding another programming language to the resources we shall be making use of: JavaScript. The ways that JavaScript can help us edit portals to boost the power of our Lua solutions, are being explored, which will likely make the two languages synergistic if not symbiotic. Research is under way on how we can use JavaScript to make some of the portal semi-automated features fully automatically self-updating, in ways that Lua cannot. Like gathering random members from a category and inserting them into a portal's templates as parameters. Once the parameters are in place, Lua does the rest. If you would like to get involved with design efforts, or just keep up on them, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design. When should we start building new portals? Well, not at the present time, because building portals is quite time consuming. The good news is that we are working on a design that will be fully automated, or as close to that as we can get. And the new design is being implemented in the portal department's main portal creation template. This means, that not only will portals update themselves, their creation will be highly automated as well. That's the nature of templates. You put them in place, and they just... work. What I'm getting at here, is that it would be better to wait to build lots of new portals until after the new design is completed. Because with it, instead of taking hours to create a new portal, it will likely take minutes. That does not mean we should be idle in the meantime. The main reason most of us are here is because it became apparent that portals were largely unmaintained and had grown out-of-date. This had become so apparent that a proposal was made to delete all the portals and the portal namespace to boot. That makes our main objective in the short term to improve all the existing portals so that the community will want to keep them—forever. Building lots of new portals comes later. Let's fix up the ones we have first. ;) And on that note, I bid you adieu. Until next newsletter, see ya 'round the WikiProject.    — The Transhumanist   12:31, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #012, 15 July 2018

collapsed
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
We have 97 participants. Getting faster Automation makes things go faster, even portal creation. One of the components Certes made was {{Transclude list item excerpt}}. I became curious about its possible applications. So I worked out a portal design using it, the initial prototypes being Portal:Kyoto (without a "Selected pictures" section), and Portal:Dubai (with a "Selected pictures" section). Then I used Portal:Dubai as the basis for further portals of this type... I was able to revamp Portal:Munich from start to finish in less than 22 minutes. Portal:Dresden took about 19 minutes. Portal:Athens took less than 17 minutes. Did Portal:Florence in about 13 minutes. Portal:Stockholm also in about 13. Portal:Palermo approx. 12 minutes. Why? To see, and to show, what may become feasible via automation. It now looks highly feasible that we could get portal construction time down to a few minutes, or maybe even down to a few seconds. The singularity is just around the corner. :) Slideshows When using the {{Random slideshow}} template to display pictures, be sure to use the plural tense in the section title: "Selected pictures". That's because slideshows don't show up on many mobile devices. Instead the whole set of pictures is shown, hence the section title "Selected pictures", as it fits both situations. In case you are curious, here is a list of the portals so far that have a slideshow: Algae Amphibians Anatomy Ancient Tamil civilization Athens Bangladesh. Berkshire Birds Buckinghamshire Cenozoic Dresden Dubai East Sussex Fish Florence Florida Genocide Gilgit-Baltistan H. P. Lovecraft Hampshire Human body Humanism Isle of Wight Kent London transport Mammals Milan Munich Oxfordshire Palermo Prague Reference works Reptiles Sacramento Saint Petersburg Salem Scottish Islands South East England Stockholm Surrey Sydney Tamil People Telephones (empty – please add some pictures) Turin Underwater diving Vienna West Sussex Progress on intro conversions The intros for most of the portals up through the letter "O" have been converted, using this wikicode: {{/box-header|Introduction|noedit=yes|}} {{Transclude lead excerpt | {{PAGENAME}} | paragraphs=1-2 | files=1}} {{Box-footer|[[{{PAGENAME}}|Read more...]]}} Where the pagename didn't match the article title for the subject, the title was typed in. Most of the portals that do not contain {{/intro}} or {{{{FULLPGENAME}}/Intro}} have not yet been processed. About a thousand portals use the method of selective transclusion for the intro section. That's about two-thirds. That means we have one-third of the way to go on the intro section conversions. Much more to come... So much has been happening with portals that I can't keep up with it. (That's good). Which means, more in the upcoming issue. Until then, see ya 'round the project. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   08:45, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Disappearance of Asha Degree

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Please comment on Talk:Donald Trump

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Please comment on Talk:Elon Musk

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Please comment on Talk:Cathy Newman

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Please comment on Talk:Donald Trump

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August 2018 at Women in Red

		An exciting new month for Women in Red! August 2018 worldwide online editathons: New: Indigenous women Women of marginalized populations Women writers Geofocus: Bottom 10 Continuing: #1day1woman Global Initiative Notable women, broadly-construed! For the first time, this month we are trying out our Monthly achievement initiative All creators of new biographies can keep track of their progress and earn virtual awards. It can be used in conjunction with the above editathons or for any women's biography created in August. Try it out when you create your first biography of the month.
		Latest headlines, news, and views on the Women in Red talkpage (Join the conversation!): Call for members for the Gender Diversity Visibility Community User Group (To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list) --Rosiestep (talk) 11:22, 23 July 2018 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Please comment on Talk:Rahul Easwar

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Please comment on Talk:Andrew Brunson

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Please comment on Talk:George Galloway

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Bad pending change accepted

I just reverted a pending change that you erroneously accepted. Previously discussed. Toddst1 (talk) 19:32, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

^^^The primary reason I quit PCRing DOYs for a bit was to wait for that to blow over. Its been established elsewhere that certain lists of bluelinks (read: aggregate lists like DOY that would under no circumstance be suspected of violating either the BLP or POV policies) that draw directly from Wikipedia no not need to jump through the V hoop again, and it is not in violation of using Wikipedia as a source. LISTV probably needs to be updated, I see it hasn't been edited meaningfully in some time. ^Thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 23:52, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

BTW, that edit doesn't even violate the letter of DOYSTYLE. ^Thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 23:54, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

• Or this ^Thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 02:07, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #014, 27 July 2018

Development of design continues, full speed ahead...

dear me: read this as well or put into a special archive or link on Portal talk:Cars to get good overview when time allows
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Excerpt slideshows are here! Can you say "paradigm shift"? Now, in addition to picture slideshows, we have slideshows that can display excerpts. Portals are not just for topic tasting anymore. Now they can be made useful for surveying Wikipedia's coverage of entire subjects. This gives a deeper meaning to their name. Hmmm. "Portals"... Doorways to knowledge. Portal:Lithuania was redesigned using excerpt slideshows. Check it out. For those of you who cannot wait to test out these new toys... We have not one, but three excerpt slideshow components to pick from: {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow}} For this one, you specify the page names where the excerpts are to be extracted from. {{Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow}} This one accepts source pages from where the page names are gathered from list items. Then an excerpt from one of those pages is displayed. The selection of what is included in the slide show can be limited to a specific number from the collection (of the page names gathered), and that selection is renewed from scratch each time the page is purged. For example, if you specify Template:World Heritage Sites in Spain as a source page, the slideshow will cycle through those sites. Now you don't have to type them in one-by-one. This greatly reduces portal creation time. {{Transclude linked excerpts as random slideshow}} Same as above, but gathers links instead of just linked list items. Panoramic banners {{Portal image banner}} displays a panoramic picture the width of the page, and adjusts its size, so it stays that way even if the user changes page view size. And it accepts multiple file names, so that the picture displayed randomizes between them each time the page is visited/purged. Give resizing the page a try: Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. You can now balance section boxes Before: Reptile types Corallus caninus Snakes are elongated, limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (/sɜːrˈpɛntiːz/). Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads (cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have independently evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs at least twenty-five times via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, although this rule is not universal (see Amphisbaenia, Dibamidae, and Pygopodidae). (Full article...) Clockwise from top left: veiled chameleon (Chamaeleo calyptratus), rock monitor (Varanus albigularis), common blue-tongued skink (Tiliqua scincoides), Italian wall lizard (Podarcis sicula), giant leaf-tailed gecko (Uroplatus fimbriatus), and legless lizard (Anelytropsis papillosus) Lizard is the common name used for all squamate reptiles other than snakes (and to a lesser extent amphisbaenians), encompassing over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The grouping is paraphyletic as some lizards are more closely related to snakes than they are to other lizards. Lizards range in size from chameleons and geckos a few centimeters long to the 3-meter-long Komodo dragon. (Full article...) Blanus cinereus, Spain Amphisbaenia /æmfɪsˈbiːniə/ (called amphisbaenians or worm lizards) is a group of typically legless lizards, comprising over 200 extant species. Amphisbaenians are characterized by their long bodies, the reduction or loss of the limbs, and rudimentary eyes. As many species have a pink body and scales arranged in rings, they have a superficial resemblance to earthworms. While the genus Bipes retains forelimbs, all other genera are limbless. Phylogenetic studies suggest that they are nested within Lacertoidea, closely related to the lizard family Lacertidae. Amphisbaenians are widely distributed, occurring in North America, Europe, Africa, South America, Western Asia and the Caribbean. Most species are less than 6 inches (15 cm) long. (Full article...) Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) Crocodiles (family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term crocodile is sometimes used even more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia, which includes the alligators and caimans (family Alligatoridae), the gharial and false gharial (family Gavialidae) among other extinct taxa. (Full article...) Yacare caiman, Caiman yacare A caiman (/ˈkeɪmən/ (also spelled cayman) from Taíno kaiman) is an alligatorid belonging to the subfamily Caimaninae, one of two primary lineages within the Alligatoridae family, the other being alligators. Caimans are native to Central and South America and inhabit marshes, swamps, lakes, and mangrove rivers. They have scaly skin and live a fairly nocturnal existence. They are relatively small-sized crocodilians with an average maximum weight of 6 to 40 kg (13 to 88 lb) depending on species, with the exception of the black caiman (Melanosuchus niger), which can grow more than 4 m (13 ft) in length and weigh in excess of 450 kg (1,000 Ib). The black caiman is the largest caiman species in the world and is found in the slow-moving rivers and lakes that surround the Amazon basin. The smallest species is the Cuvier's dwarf caiman (Paleosuchus palpebrosus), which grows to 1.2 to 1.5 m (3.9 to 4.9 ft) long. There are six different species of caiman found throughout the watery jungle habitats of Central and Southern America. The average length for most of the other caiman species is about 2 to 2.5 m (6.6 to 8.2 ft) long. (Full article...) Northern tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus punctatus) The tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) is a species of reptile endemic to New Zealand. Despite its close resemblance to lizards, it is part of a distinct lineage, the order Rhynchocephalia. The name tuatara is derived from the Māori language and means "peaks on the back". (Full article...) An American alligator (top) and a Chinese alligator An alligator, or colloquially gator, is a large reptile in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae of the order Crocodilia. The two extant species are the American alligator (A. mississippiensis) and the Chinese alligator (A. sinensis). Additionally, several extinct species of alligator are known from fossil remains. Alligators first appeared during the late Eocene epoch about 37 million years ago. (Full article...) Aldabra giant tortoise (Aldabrachelys gigantea) Tortoises (/ˈtɔːrtəs.ɪz/ TOR-təs-iz) are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin for "tortoise"). Like other turtles, tortoises have a shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, and like other members of the suborder Cryptodira, they retract their necks and heads directly backward into the shell to protect them. (Full article...) Common box turtle Turtles are reptiles of the order Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked turtles), which differ in the way the head retracts. There are 360 living and recently extinct species of turtles, including land-dwelling tortoises and freshwater terrapins. They are found on most continents, some islands and, in the case of sea turtles, much of the ocean. Like other amniotes (reptiles, birds, and mammals) they breathe air and do not lay eggs underwater, although many species live in or around water. (Full article...) Male gharial The gharial (Gavialis gangeticus), also known as gavial or fish-eating crocodile, is a crocodilian in the family Gavialidae and among the longest of all living crocodilians. Mature females are 2.6 to 4.5 m (8 ft 6 in to 14 ft 9 in) long, and males 3 to 6 m (9 ft 10 in to 19 ft 8 in). Adult males have a distinct boss at the end of the snout, which resembles an earthenware pot known as a ghara, hence the name "gharial". The gharial is well adapted to catching fish because of its long, narrow snout and 110 sharp, interlocking teeth. (Full article...) Amphibian types Oscaecilia ochrocephala (Caeciliidae) Caecilians (/sɪˈsɪliən/; New Latin for 'blind ones') are a group of limbless, vermiform (worm-shaped) or serpentine (snake-shaped) amphibians with small or sometimes nonexistent eyes. They mostly live hidden in soil or in streambeds, and this cryptic lifestyle renders caecilians among the least familiar amphibians. Modern caecilians live in the tropics of South and Central America, Africa, and southern Asia. Caecilians feed on small subterranean creatures such as earthworms. The body is cylindrical and often darkly coloured, and the skull is bullet-shaped and strongly built. Caecilian heads have several unique adaptations, including fused cranial and jaw bones, a two-part system of jaw muscles, and a chemosensory tentacle in front of the eye. The skin is slimy and bears ringlike markings or grooves and may contain scales. Modern caecilians are a clade, the order Gymnophiona /ˌdʒɪmnəˈfaɪənə/ (or Apoda /ˈæpədə/), one of the three living amphibian groups alongside Anura (frogs) and Urodela (salamanders). Gymnophiona is a crown group, encompassing all modern caecilians and all descendants of their last common ancestor. There are more than 220 living species of caecilian classified in 10 families. Gymnophionomorpha is a recently coined name for the corresponding total group which includes Gymnophiona as well as a few extinct stem-group caecilians (extinct amphibians whose closest living relatives are caecilians but are not descended from any caecilian). Some palaeontologists have used the name Gymnophiona for the total group and the old name Apoda for the crown group'. However, Apoda has other even older uses, including as the name of a genus of Butterfly making its use potentially confusing and best avoided. 'Gymnophiona' derives from the Greek words γυμνος / gymnos (Ancient Greek for 'naked') and οφις / ophis (Ancient Greek for 'snake'), as the caecilians were originally thought to be related to snakes and to lack scales. The study of caecilian evolution is complicated by their poor fossil record and specialized anatomy. Genetic evidence and some anatomical details (such as pedicellate teeth) support the idea that frogs, salamanders, and caecilians (collectively known as lissamphibians) are each others' closest relatives. Frogs and salamanders show many similarities to dissorophoids, a group of extinct amphibians in the order Temnospondyli. Caecilians are more controversial; many studies extend dissorophoid ancestry to caecilians. Some studies have instead argued that caecilians descend from extinct lepospondyl or stereospondyl amphibians, contradicting evidence for lissamphibian monophyly (common ancestry). Rare fossils of early gymnophionans such as Eocaecilia and Funcusvermis have helped to test the various conflicting hypotheses for the relationships between caecilians and other living and extinct amphibians. ('Full article...) Spotted salamander, Ambystoma maculatum Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All ten extant salamander families are grouped together under the order Urodela from the group Caudata. Urodela is a scientific Latin term based on the Ancient Greek οὐρά δήλη: ourà dēlē "conspicuous tail". Caudata is the Latin for "tailed ones", from cauda: "tail". Salamander diversity is highest in eastern North America, especially in the Appalachian Mountains; most species are found in the Holarctic realm, with some species present in the Neotropical realm. Salamanders never have more than four toes on their front legs and five on their rear legs, but some species have fewer digits and others lack hind limbs. Their permeable skin usually makes them reliant on habitats in or near water or other cool, damp places. Some salamander species are fully aquatic throughout their lives, some take to the water intermittently, and others are entirely terrestrial as adults. This group of amphibians is capable of regenerating lost limbs as well as other damaged parts of their bodies. Researchers hope to reverse engineer the regenerative processes for potential human medical applications, such as brain and spinal cord injury treatment or preventing harmful scarring during heart surgery recovery. The remarkable ability of salamanders to regenerate is not just limited to limbs but extends to vital organs such as the heart, jaw, and parts of the spinal cord, showing their uniqueness compared to different types of vertebrates. ⁤⁤This ability is most remarkable for occurring without any type of scarring. ⁤⁤This has made salamanders an invaluable model organism in scientific research aimed at understanding and achieving regenerative processes for medical advancements in human and animal biology. (Full article...) European fire-bellied toad (Bombina bombina), a member of the family Bombinatoridae Toad is a common name for certain frogs, especially of the family Bufonidae, that are characterized by dry, leathery skin, short legs, and large bumps covering the parotoid glands. In popular culture (folk taxonomy), toads are associated with drier, rougher skin and more terrestrial habitats. However, this distinction does not align precisely with scientific taxonomy. (Full article...) Various types of frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek ἀνούρα, literally 'without tail'). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" Triadobatrachus is known from the Early Triassic of Madagascar (250 million years ago), but molecular clock dating suggests their split from other amphibians may extend further back to the Permian, 265 million years ago. Frogs are widely distributed, ranging from the tropics to subarctic regions, but the greatest concentration of species diversity is in tropical rainforest. Frogs account for around 88% of extant amphibian species. They are also one of the five most diverse vertebrate orders. Warty frog species tend to be called toads, but the distinction between frogs and toads is informal, not from taxonomy or evolutionary history. An adult frog has a stout body, protruding eyes, anteriorly-attached tongue, limbs folded underneath, and no tail (the tail of tailed frogs is an extension of the male cloaca). Frogs have glandular skin, with secretions ranging from distasteful to toxic. Their skin varies in colour from well-camouflaged dappled brown, grey and green to vivid patterns of bright red or yellow and black to show toxicity and ward off predators. Adult frogs live in fresh water and on dry land; some species are adapted for living underground or in trees. Frogs typically lay their eggs in the water. The eggs hatch into aquatic larvae called tadpoles that have tails and internal gills. They have highly specialised rasping mouth parts suitable for herbivorous, omnivorous or planktivorous diets. The life cycle is completed when they metamorphose into adults. A few species deposit eggs on land or bypass the tadpole stage. Adult frogs generally have a carnivorous diet consisting of small invertebrates, but omnivorous species exist and a few feed on plant matter. Frog skin has a rich microbiome which is important to their health. Frogs are extremely efficient at converting what they eat into body mass. They are an important food source for predators and part of the food web dynamics of many of the world's ecosystems. The skin is semi-permeable, making them susceptible to dehydration, so they either live in moist places or have special adaptations to deal with dry habitats. Frogs produce a wide range of vocalisations, particularly in their breeding season, and exhibit many different kinds of complex behaviors to attract mates, to fend off predators and to generally survive. (Full article...) After: Reptile types Common box turtle Turtles are reptiles of the order Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked turtles), which differ in the way the head retracts. There are 360 living and recently extinct species of turtles, including land-dwelling tortoises and freshwater terrapins. They are found on most continents, some islands and, in the case of sea turtles, much of the ocean. Like other amniotes (reptiles, birds, and mammals) they breathe air and do not lay eggs underwater, although many species live in or around water. (Full article...) Clockwise from top left: veiled chameleon (Chamaeleo calyptratus), rock monitor (Varanus albigularis), common blue-tongued skink (Tiliqua scincoides), Italian wall lizard (Podarcis sicula), giant leaf-tailed gecko (Uroplatus fimbriatus), and legless lizard (Anelytropsis papillosus) Lizard is the common name used for all squamate reptiles other than snakes (and to a lesser extent amphisbaenians), encompassing over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The grouping is paraphyletic as some lizards are more closely related to snakes than they are to other lizards. Lizards range in size from chameleons and geckos a few centimeters long to the 3-meter-long Komodo dragon. (Full article...) Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) Crocodiles (family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term crocodile is sometimes used even more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia, which includes the alligators and caimans (family Alligatoridae), the gharial and false gharial (family Gavialidae) among other extinct taxa. (Full article...) Aldabra giant tortoise (Aldabrachelys gigantea) Tortoises (/ˈtɔːrtəs.ɪz/ TOR-təs-iz) are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin for "tortoise"). Like other turtles, tortoises have a shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, and like other members of the suborder Cryptodira, they retract their necks and heads directly backward into the shell to protect them. (Full article...) An American alligator (top) and a Chinese alligator An alligator, or colloquially gator, is a large reptile in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae of the order Crocodilia. The two extant species are the American alligator (A. mississippiensis) and the Chinese alligator (A. sinensis). Additionally, several extinct species of alligator are known from fossil remains. Alligators first appeared during the late Eocene epoch about 37 million years ago. (Full article...) Northern tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus punctatus) The tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) is a species of reptile endemic to New Zealand. Despite its close resemblance to lizards, it is part of a distinct lineage, the order Rhynchocephalia. The name tuatara is derived from the Māori language and means "peaks on the back". (Full article...) Corallus caninus Snakes are elongated, limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (/sɜːrˈpɛntiːz/). Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads (cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have independently evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs at least twenty-five times via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, although this rule is not universal (see Amphisbaenia, Dibamidae, and Pygopodidae). (Full article...) Male gharial The gharial (Gavialis gangeticus), also known as gavial or fish-eating crocodile, is a crocodilian in the family Gavialidae and among the longest of all living crocodilians. Mature females are 2.6 to 4.5 m (8 ft 6 in to 14 ft 9 in) long, and males 3 to 6 m (9 ft 10 in to 19 ft 8 in). Adult males have a distinct boss at the end of the snout, which resembles an earthenware pot known as a ghara, hence the name "gharial". The gharial is well adapted to catching fish because of its long, narrow snout and 110 sharp, interlocking teeth. (Full article...) Yacare caiman, Caiman yacare A caiman (/ˈkeɪmən/ (also spelled cayman) from Taíno kaiman) is an alligatorid belonging to the subfamily Caimaninae, one of two primary lineages within the Alligatoridae family, the other being alligators. Caimans are native to Central and South America and inhabit marshes, swamps, lakes, and mangrove rivers. They have scaly skin and live a fairly nocturnal existence. They are relatively small-sized crocodilians with an average maximum weight of 6 to 40 kg (13 to 88 lb) depending on species, with the exception of the black caiman (Melanosuchus niger), which can grow more than 4 m (13 ft) in length and weigh in excess of 450 kg (1,000 Ib). The black caiman is the largest caiman species in the world and is found in the slow-moving rivers and lakes that surround the Amazon basin. The smallest species is the Cuvier's dwarf caiman (Paleosuchus palpebrosus), which grows to 1.2 to 1.5 m (3.9 to 4.9 ft) long. There are six different species of caiman found throughout the watery jungle habitats of Central and Southern America. The average length for most of the other caiman species is about 2 to 2.5 m (6.6 to 8.2 ft) long. (Full article...) Blanus cinereus, Spain Amphisbaenia /æmfɪsˈbiːniə/ (called amphisbaenians or worm lizards) is a group of typically legless lizards, comprising over 200 extant species. Amphisbaenians are characterized by their long bodies, the reduction or loss of the limbs, and rudimentary eyes. As many species have a pink body and scales arranged in rings, they have a superficial resemblance to earthworms. While the genus Bipes retains forelimbs, all other genera are limbless. Phylogenetic studies suggest that they are nested within Lacertoidea, closely related to the lizard family Lacertidae. Amphisbaenians are widely distributed, occurring in North America, Europe, Africa, South America, Western Asia and the Caribbean. Most species are less than 6 inches (15 cm) long. (Full article...) Amphibian types European fire-bellied toad (Bombina bombina), a member of the family Bombinatoridae Toad is a common name for certain frogs, especially of the family Bufonidae, that are characterized by dry, leathery skin, short legs, and large bumps covering the parotoid glands. In popular culture (folk taxonomy), toads are associated with drier, rougher skin and more terrestrial habitats. However, this distinction does not align precisely with scientific taxonomy. (Full article...) Spotted salamander, Ambystoma maculatum Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All ten extant salamander families are grouped together under the order Urodela from the group Caudata. Urodela is a scientific Latin term based on the Ancient Greek οὐρά δήλη: ourà dēlē "conspicuous tail". Caudata is the Latin for "tailed ones", from cauda: "tail". Salamander diversity is highest in eastern North America, especially in the Appalachian Mountains; most species are found in the Holarctic realm, with some species present in the Neotropical realm. Salamanders never have more than four toes on their front legs and five on their rear legs, but some species have fewer digits and others lack hind limbs. Their permeable skin usually makes them reliant on habitats in or near water or other cool, damp places. Some salamander species are fully aquatic throughout their lives, some take to the water intermittently, and others are entirely terrestrial as adults. This group of amphibians is capable of regenerating lost limbs as well as other damaged parts of their bodies. Researchers hope to reverse engineer the regenerative processes for potential human medical applications, such as brain and spinal cord injury treatment or preventing harmful scarring during heart surgery recovery. The remarkable ability of salamanders to regenerate is not just limited to limbs but extends to vital organs such as the heart, jaw, and parts of the spinal cord, showing their uniqueness compared to different types of vertebrates. ⁤⁤This ability is most remarkable for occurring without any type of scarring. ⁤⁤This has made salamanders an invaluable model organism in scientific research aimed at understanding and achieving regenerative processes for medical advancements in human and animal biology. (Full article...) Various types of frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek ἀνούρα, literally 'without tail'). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" Triadobatrachus is known from the Early Triassic of Madagascar (250 million years ago), but molecular clock dating suggests their split from other amphibians may extend further back to the Permian, 265 million years ago. Frogs are widely distributed, ranging from the tropics to subarctic regions, but the greatest concentration of species diversity is in tropical rainforest. Frogs account for around 88% of extant amphibian species. They are also one of the five most diverse vertebrate orders. Warty frog species tend to be called toads, but the distinction between frogs and toads is informal, not from taxonomy or evolutionary history. An adult frog has a stout body, protruding eyes, anteriorly-attached tongue, limbs folded underneath, and no tail (the tail of tailed frogs is an extension of the male cloaca). Frogs have glandular skin, with secretions ranging from distasteful to toxic. Their skin varies in colour from well-camouflaged dappled brown, grey and green to vivid patterns of bright red or yellow and black to show toxicity and ward off predators. Adult frogs live in fresh water and on dry land; some species are adapted for living underground or in trees. Frogs typically lay their eggs in the water. The eggs hatch into aquatic larvae called tadpoles that have tails and internal gills. They have highly specialised rasping mouth parts suitable for herbivorous, omnivorous or planktivorous diets. The life cycle is completed when they metamorphose into adults. A few species deposit eggs on land or bypass the tadpole stage. Adult frogs generally have a carnivorous diet consisting of small invertebrates, but omnivorous species exist and a few feed on plant matter. Frog skin has a rich microbiome which is important to their health. Frogs are extremely efficient at converting what they eat into body mass. They are an important food source for predators and part of the food web dynamics of many of the world's ecosystems. The skin is semi-permeable, making them susceptible to dehydration, so they either live in moist places or have special adaptations to deal with dry habitats. Frogs produce a wide range of vocalisations, particularly in their breeding season, and exhibit many different kinds of complex behaviors to attract mates, to fend off predators and to generally survive. (Full article...) Oscaecilia ochrocephala (Caeciliidae) Caecilians (/sɪˈsɪliən/; New Latin for 'blind ones') are a group of limbless, vermiform (worm-shaped) or serpentine (snake-shaped) amphibians with small or sometimes nonexistent eyes. They mostly live hidden in soil or in streambeds, and this cryptic lifestyle renders caecilians among the least familiar amphibians. Modern caecilians live in the tropics of South and Central America, Africa, and southern Asia. Caecilians feed on small subterranean creatures such as earthworms. The body is cylindrical and often darkly coloured, and the skull is bullet-shaped and strongly built. Caecilian heads have several unique adaptations, including fused cranial and jaw bones, a two-part system of jaw muscles, and a chemosensory tentacle in front of the eye. The skin is slimy and bears ringlike markings or grooves and may contain scales. Modern caecilians are a clade, the order Gymnophiona /ˌdʒɪmnəˈfaɪənə/ (or Apoda /ˈæpədə/), one of the three living amphibian groups alongside Anura (frogs) and Urodela (salamanders). Gymnophiona is a crown group, encompassing all modern caecilians and all descendants of their last common ancestor. There are more than 220 living species of caecilian classified in 10 families. Gymnophionomorpha is a recently coined name for the corresponding total group which includes Gymnophiona as well as a few extinct stem-group caecilians (extinct amphibians whose closest living relatives are caecilians but are not descended from any caecilian). Some palaeontologists have used the name Gymnophiona for the total group and the old name Apoda for the crown group'. However, Apoda has other even older uses, including as the name of a genus of Butterfly making its use potentially confusing and best avoided. 'Gymnophiona' derives from the Greek words γυμνος / gymnos (Ancient Greek for 'naked') and οφις / ophis (Ancient Greek for 'snake'), as the caecilians were originally thought to be related to snakes and to lack scales. The study of caecilian evolution is complicated by their poor fossil record and specialized anatomy. Genetic evidence and some anatomical details (such as pedicellate teeth) support the idea that frogs, salamanders, and caecilians (collectively known as lissamphibians) are each others' closest relatives. Frogs and salamanders show many similarities to dissorophoids, a group of extinct amphibians in the order Temnospondyli. Caecilians are more controversial; many studies extend dissorophoid ancestry to caecilians. Some studies have instead argued that caecilians descend from extinct lepospondyl or stereospondyl amphibians, contradicting evidence for lissamphibian monophyly (common ancestry). Rare fossils of early gymnophionans such as Eocaecilia and Funcusvermis have helped to test the various conflicting hypotheses for the relationships between caecilians and other living and extinct amphibians. ('Full article...) Notice how the box bottoms line up. That readjusts even if you click the slideshow buttons. The template used for this is {{Flex columns}}. By the way, when you include more than one box in a column, any left over whitespace in that column is divided between them. Box-header colour You may have noticed the new {{Box-header colour}} template used above. It lets you pick the color locally (right on the same page). Before, this was handled on a subpage somewhere. Testing, testing Now that we have lots of toys to play with for making cool portals... Don't forget, that the majority of views of Wikipedia these days are from mobile devices. We need to make certain that portals display well on those. So, remember to check your work on portals in mobile view mode... To see a portal in mobile view mode, insert a ".m" into a portal's url, after "en", like this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Reptile If you discover problems in a portal you can't fix, report them on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design.

Until next time...

Have fun.    — The Transhumanist   00:32, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

this as well ^Thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 02:14, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Political views of American academics

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NPR Newsletter No.12 30 July 2018

Chart of the New Pages Patrol backlog for the past 6 months. ()

Hello L3X1, thank you for your work reviewing New Pages!

June backlog drive

Overall the June backlog drive was a success, reducing the last 3,000 or so to below 500. However, as expected, 90% of the patrolling was done by less than 10% of reviewers.
Since the drive closed, the backlog has begun to rise sharply again and is back up to nearly 1,400 already. Please help reduce this total and keep it from raising further by reviewing some articles each day.

New technology, new rules

• New features are shortly going to be added to the Special:NewPagesFeed which include a list of drafts for review, OTRS flags for COPYVIO, and more granular filter preferences. More details can be found at this page.
• Probationary permissions: Now that PERM has been configured to allow expiry dates to all minor user rights, new NPR flag holders may sometimes be limited in the first instance to 6 months during which their work will be assessed for both quality and quantity of their reviews. This will allow admins to accord the right in borderline cases rather than make a flat out rejection.
• Current reviewers who have had the flag for longer than 6 months but have not used the permissions since they were granted will have the flag removed, but may still request to have it granted again in the future, subject to the same probationary period, if they wish to become an active reviewer.

Editathons

• Editathons will continue through August. Please be gentle with new pages that obviously come from good faith participants, especially articles from developing economies and ones about female subjects. Consider using the 'move to draft' tool rather than bluntly tagging articles that may have potential but which cannot yet reside in mainspace.

The Signpost

• The next issue of the monthly magazine will be out soon. The newspaper is an excellent way to stay up to date with news and new developments between our newsletters. If you have special messages to be published, or if you would like to submit an article (one about NPR perhaps?), don't hesitate to contact the editorial team here.

---

Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 00:00, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Albert Cashier

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Portals WikiProject update #015, 31 July 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fun activity #2: install "Selected images" sections

That is, image slideshows!

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

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

The toys we have to work with for this are:

{{Random slideshow}}

and

{{Transclude files as random slideshow}}

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

Selected images

• 
  A discus (Symphysodon discus) is guarding its eggs. As for most cichlids, brood care is highly developed with both the parents caring for the young. Additionally, adult discus produce a secretion through their skin, off which the larvae live during their first few days.
• 
  The red lionfish (Pterois volitans) is a venomous coral reef fish from the Indian and western Pacific Oceans. The red lionfish is also found off the east coast of the United States, and was likely first introduced off the Florida coast in the early to mid 1990s.
• 
  Salmon fry hatching (Salmo salar) - the larva has grown around the remains of the yolk - visible are the arteries spinning around the yolk and little oildrops, also the gut, the spine, the main caudal blood vessel, the bladder and the arcs of the gills.
• 
  Koi are ornamental domesticated varieties of the common carp Cyprinus carpio, originated from China and widely spread in Japan. They are very closely related to goldfish. The word "koi" comes from Japanese meaning "carp".

Selected images

• 
  2003 Canberra bushfires, visible from Parliament House (from Wildfire)
• 
  Elk Bath, an award-winning photograph of elk avoiding a wildfire in Montana (from Wildfire)
• 
  Forest fires visible from a distance in Dajti National Park, Tirana, Albania (from Wildfire)
• 
  A coniferous forest pictured in the coat of arms of the Kainuu region in Finland (from Conifer)
• 
  Avatar Grove near Port Renfrew, British Columbia: Giant Douglas firs (left) and red cedars (right) fill the grove. (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Antarctic beech old growth in Lamington National Park, Queensland, Australia (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Old-growth forest in the Opal Creek Wilderness, a wilderness area located in the Willamette National Forest in the U.S. state of Oregon, on the border of Mount Hood National Forest. It has the largest uncut watershed in Oregon. (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Pinaceae: needle-like leaves and vegetative buds of Coast Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii) (from Conifer)
• 
  Fungus Climacocystis borealis on a tree stump in the Białowieża Forest, one of the last largely intact primeval forests in Central Europe (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Fire Propagation Model (from Wildfire)
• 
  Ecological succession after a wildfire in a boreal pine forest next to Hara Bog, Lahemaa National Park, Estonia. The pictures were taken one and two years after the fire. (from Wildfire)
• 
  Downed wood replenishes topsoil as it decays. (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Wildfire smoke in atmosphere off the U.S. West Coast in 2020 (from Wildfire)
• 
  Phylogeny of the Pinophyta based on cladistic analysis of molecular data. (from Conifer)
• 
  Wildfire near Yosemite National Park, United States, in 2013. The Rim Fire burned more than 250,000 acres (1,000 km²) of forest. (from Wildfire)
• 
  The 2020 Córdoba wildfires imaged by NASA's FIRMS (from Wildfire)
• 
  Eucalyptus regnans forest in Tasmania, Australia (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Old-growth red cedar stump near Port Renfrew, British Columbia (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Pinaceae: unopened female cones of subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa) (from Conifer)
• 
  Virgin forest about 2,500 m (8,200 ft) above sea level in Shennongjia Forestry District, Hubei, China (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Charred landscape following a crown fire in the North Cascades, United States (from Wildfire)
• 
  First-growth or virgin forest near Mount Rainier, 1914 (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Tāne Mahuta, the biggest kauri (Agathis australis) tree alive, in the Waipoua Forest of the Northland Region of New Zealand. (from Conifer)
• 
  Redwood tree in northern California redwood forest: According to the National Park Service, "96 percent of the original old-growth coast redwoods have been logged." (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Smoke from the 2020 California wildfires settles over San Francisco (from Wildfire)
• 
  Wildfire burning in the Kaibab National Forest, Arizona, United States, in 2020. The Mangum Fire burned more than 70,000 acres (280 km²) of forest. (from Wildfire)
• 
  The narrow conical shape of northern conifers, and their downward-drooping limbs, help them shed snow. (from Conifer)
• 
  Araucariaceae: awl-like leaves of Cook pine (Araucaria columnaris) (from Conifer)
• 
  Old-growth European beech forest in Biogradska Gora National Park, Montenegro (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Cupressaceae: scale leaves of Lawson's cypress (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana); scale in mm (from Conifer)
• 
  In Abies grandis (grand fir), and many other species with spirally arranged leaves, leaf bases are twisted to flatten their arrangement and maximize light capture. (from Conifer)
• 
  Mist condensing over rainforest in Danum Valley Conservation Area, Malaysia (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Globosa, a cultivar of Pinus sylvestris, a northern European species, in the North American Red Butte Garden (from Conifer)
• 
  Lightning-sparked wildfires are frequent occurrences during the dry summer season in Nevada. (from Wildfire)
• 
  A Monterey pine forest in Sydney, Australia (from Conifer)
• 
  A prescribed burn in a Pinus nigra stand in Portugal (from Wildfire)
• 
  Dry Mountain Fire Lookout in the Ochoco National Forest, Oregon, US circa 1930 (from Wildfire)
• 
  Wildland firefighter working a brush fire in Hopkinton, New Hampshire, US (from Wildfire)
• 
  A Russian firefighter extinguishing a wildfire (from Wildfire)
• 
  A wildfire in Venezuela during a drought (from Wildfire)
• 
  Cool temperate rainforest in Tasmania, Australia (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  A dirt road acted as a fire barrier in South Africa. The effects of the barrier can clearly be seen on the unburnt (left) and burnt (right) sides of the road. (from Wildfire)
• 
  Aerial view of deliberate wildfires on the Khun Tan Range, Thailand. These fires are lit by local farmers every year to promote the growth of a certain mushroom. (from Wildfire)
• 
  A surface fire in the western desert of Utah, United States (from Wildfire)
• 
  The northern spotted owl primarily inhabits old-growth forests in the northern part of its range (Canada to southern Oregon) and landscapes with a mix of old and younger forest types in the southern part of its range (the Klamath region and California). (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Animation of diaphragmatic breathing with the diaphragm shown in green (from Wildfire)
• 
  Global fires during the year 2008 for the months of August (top image) and February (bottom image), as detected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite. (from Wildfire)
• 
  A thin transverse section showing the internal structure of conifer wood (from Conifer)
• 
  National map of groundwater and soil moisture in the United States. It shows the very low soil moisture associated with the 2011 fire season in Texas. (from Wildfire)
• 
  Charred shrubland in suburban Sydney (2019–20 Australian bushfires). (from Wildfire)
• 
  Sediment off the Yucatán Peninsula (from Wildfire)

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

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

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

For example, in Portal:California, this code:

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

was replaced with this code:

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

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

Fun activity #3: upgrade "Selected article" sections

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

They can be upgraded with:

{{Transclude random excerpt}}

or

{{Transclude list item excerpt}}

or

{{Transclude linked excerpt}}

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

Where will this put us?

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

Keep up the great work.    — The Transhumanist   19:12, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Tham Luang cave rescue

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Please comment on Talk:Elon Musk

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Please comment on Talk:Philip II of Spain

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NPP Backlog Drive Appreciation

		Special Edition New Page Patroller's Barnstar
		For completing over 50 reviews during the 2018 June Backlog Drive, please accept this Special Edition Barnstar. Thank you for helping New Page Patrol and keep up the good work. Cheers! — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 19:03, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

^Thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 02:06, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

theHypn0toad 02:02, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Talk Page Stalker input appreciated on notability

of the Bowely Lock and Nauti-craft in regards as to whether they pass the GNG or not. I have had my eye on them for a few months now, and to me it looks like there is enough coverage, though I am a bit unsure about Nauti-craft. Thanks to all, ^Thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 17:03, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

dnau theHypn0toad 01:15, 20 July 2018 (UTC)Lord High Permanent Senior Undersecretary to L3X1 (addressed as His Worshipfulness Lordy Lord) 02:10, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

^Thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 21:47, 31 July 2018 (UTC) theHypn0toad 02:02, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #013, 18 July 2018

note to self, implement sideshow in Portal:cars
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I got overwhelmed IRL (in real life) during the production of issue #12. So, here is a catch-up issue, to help bring you (and me) up to speed on what is happening with portals... By the way, we still have 97 participants. (Tell all your friends about this WikiProject, and have them join!) Panoramas! One cool feature of some of the geographical portals is a panoramic picture at the top of the intro section. Check these out: Portal:Kyoto Portal:Miami Portal:Seattle Portal:Houston Portal:Tokyo Portal:New Orleans Portal:Brisbane Portal:Calgary Portal:Moscow The Portals WikiGnome squadron is busy adding panoramas to geographical portals that don't yet have one. Feel free to join in on the fun. See task details at Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Add a panorama or skyline to a geographic portal. Caveat: avoid super-huge pics, as they can cause portal scripts to time-out. Please try to keep picture size down below 2 megabytes. Thank you. Auto-populated slideshows Speaking of pictures... We now have two slideshow templates. You may be familiar with {{Random slideshow}}, in which the editor types in (or copies/pastes) a list of pictures he or she wants it to display. Well, now we have another template, courtesy of Evad37, which accepts one or more page names instead, and displays a random image off of the listed pages. So instead of listing dozens of files by hand, you can include a title or three to be scanned automatically. It even lets you specify particular sections. The new slideshow template is {{Transclude files as random slideshow}}. Here's a sample, that grabs images from a single page: Selected motorcycle or motorcycling pictures Brough Superior SS 100 1925 (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling) Ernesto 'Che' Guevara (left) holding the handlebars of his 500 cc single cylinder Norton motorcycle (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling) Logo of the British Motorcyclists Federation (BMF) (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling) FIM Motocross World Championship, taking place at Mallory Park, England (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling) A 1954 Triumph T110 (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling) Honda Super Cub, the archetypal underbone and the world's best-selling motor vehicle (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling) Honda CB750 inline four, the first to be called a 'superbike', and the archetypal Universal Japanese Motorcycle (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling) Lucius Copeland 1894 (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling) 2015 BMW R1200RT Sport Touring Motorcycle (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling) BMW's first motorcycle, the 1923-1925 R32 (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling) Joey Dunlop on his Honda RC30 ready for the Senior TT (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling) A 1969 Harley-Davidson chopper, a replica of the 'Captain America' bike from Easy Rider (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling) New Template:Box-header colour Speaking of new templates, here's another one! Also from Evad37, we have a new component for starting section boxes, that is color configurable, and that bypasses the need for box-header subpages altogether. It is {{Box-header colour}}. For color support, see Web colors. For the discussion in which this was inspired, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Tasks#Colour combinations for accessibility. (In case you didn't notice, the slideshow box above uses this new template). BTW, don't forget to close your box with {{Box-footer}}. Where are we on the redesign? The answer to this question is quite involved, and would fill this page to overflowing. Therefore, this subject, including a complete update on where we are at and where we are going with portal design, is covered at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design. Where are we on portal conversion? An AWB pass to convert intros on the portals has been completed. The pass couldn't convert them all (due to various formatting configurations, etc.). All but about 170 portals now have introductions selectively transcluded on the base page. Not counting manually maintained portals, that leaves about 70 portals that either need their intros converted, or they need an intro. Next, we'll be converting the categories sections! What's the plan, man? The course of action we have been taking goes something like this, with all steps being pursued simultaeneously... 1) Design a one-page automated portal model 2) Convert existing portals to that design (except those being manually maintained) 3) Remove subpages no longer needed 4) Develop further tools to empower editors working on portals Later, when the tools are up to the task, filling in the gaps in coverage (with new portals) will also become practical. Are we caught up yet? Probably not. Who knows what our programmers and editors have dreamed up while I was writing this. See ya again soon,    — The Transhumanist   11:07, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Lord High Permanent Senior Undersecretary to L3X1 (addressed as His Worshipfulness Lordy Lord) 02:11, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

^Thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 02:07, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

theHypn0toad 02:02, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Oscar Wilde Memorial Sculpture

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Not gonna do it ^Thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊08:56, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

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Administrators' newsletter – August 2018

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

Administrator changes

Sro23

KaisaL • Ymblanter

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

• The WMF Anti-Harassment Tools team is seeking input on the second set of wireframes for the Special:Block redesign that will introduce partial blocks. The new functionality will allow you to block a user from editing a specific set of pages, pages in a category, a namespace, and for specific actions such as moving pages and uploading files.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:31, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

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Help

(OLQuiroz (talk)) Hello, You marked my page for deletion. I've made many updates and would like to know if this will be approved. Can you please take a look at Michael A. Lytle bio page, please. Thank you for your time.

I just sorted the discussion and improved the article, btu I will get back to you. ^Thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 00:50, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

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Portals WikiProject update #016, 15 Aug 2018

Future portal tool

Discussions are underway on the design of a portal tool (user script) that will hopefully have features for modifying portals at the click of a menu item, to make editing them easier. It might do things like change the color for you, add to a selection, add a new section, move a section, and so on.

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

Progress report: upgrade of portals

As new portal components are built by our Lua gurus, those components are being used to upgrade portals. Each component automates a section of a portal in a particular way.

The sections that are mostly upgraded so far are the Intro, and the Associated Wikimedia section.

The sections currently undergoing upgrade are: Selected image, Categories, and the Intro.

The Intro? Isn't that done already?

Yes, and no.

The upgrade of the excerpt in intros is mostly complete (there are about 70 non-standard portals that still need it).

Now we are doing another upgrade of intros in the form of adding a panoramic picture at the top of the intro, on portals for which such a picture is available on Commons:. Dozens of panoramas have been added so far, and they are really starting to affect the look of portals — the portals that have them look really good.

Regions are the most likely subjects to have panoramas, but a surprising number of other subjects have banner-shaped pictures too. Some examples of non-geographic portals that they have been added to are:

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

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

Progress report: design

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

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

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

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

See you on the project's talk pages.

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

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Please comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music

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Mohammad bin Salman RfCs

Hi L3X1, thanks for commenting under the RfCs on Mohammad bin Salman. There haven’t been any further contributions since yours. Would you be happy a) to delete the 1st sentence, 2nd paragraph of the Military interventions section as per your comment, and b) also perhaps to remove or move the second paragraph of the Human rights section as per the survey? On the latter, while you did say you thought it was fine to remain for the time being, the only commenters (you included) have now agreed that it isn’t a controversy and it does seem an unnecessary sentence to have in that section. Let me know what you think and thanks again. Tarafa15 (talk) 12:31, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Mobile test

Return ^Thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 18:22, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Tyson Fury

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= Please comment on Talk:Dennis Prager ==d͡z

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Portals WikiProject update #017, 22 Aug 2018

This issue is about portal creation...

Creating new portals

Myself and others have been testing and experimenting with the new components in upgrading existing portals and in building new portals. They have now been applied in hundreds of portals.

The templates are ready for general use for portal creation.

They are still a bit buggy, but the only way we are going to work the rest of the bugs out is by using them and reporting the bugs as we come across them.

I look forward to seeing what new portals you create!

Be sure to report bugs at WT:WPPORTD.

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

Portal creation tips

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

1. Placing a panorama (banner picture) at the top of the intro section is a nice touch, and really makes a portal look good. {{box portal skeleton}} doesn't automatically insert panoramas. So, you will need to do that by hand. They can be found at Commons:. For some examples, check out Portal:Sharks, Portal:Cheese, and Portal:Florence
2. The search term provided in the Did you know? and In the news sections is very basic and rarely matches anything. It is best to replace that term with multiple search arguments, if possible (separate each argument with a pipe character). For example, in Portal:Capital punishment, see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Capital_punishment&diff=855255361&oldid=855137403 Searches in templates use Lua search notation.
3. Check the In the news and Did you know? sections for mismatches. That is, sometimes entries come up that shouldn't be displayed. If there are any, refine the search strings further, so they don't return such results.
4. Finish each portal you've created before creating a new one. We don't want unfinished portals sitting around.

Need a laugh?

Check out the Did you know? section on Portal:Determinism.    — The Transhumanist   02:44, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

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September 2018 at Women in Red

		September is an exciting new month for Women in Red's worldwide online editathons! New: Women currently in academics Women + Law Geofocus: Hispanic countries Continuing: #1day1woman Global Initiative Check it out: Monthly achievement initiative All creators of new biographies can keep track of their progress and earn virtual awards. It can be used in conjunction with the above editathons or for any women's biography created in September. Try it out when you create your first biography of the month.
		Latest headlines, news, and views on the Women in Red talkpage (Join the conversation!): Call for members for the Gender Diversity Visibility Community User Group Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red#The Endless Night of Wikipedia’s Notable Woman Problem (To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list) --Rosiestep (talk) 01:55, 26 August 2018 (UTC) via MassMessaging

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Please comment on Talk:John McCain

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Removing my comment

Why did you remove my comments as vandalism? --Tyw7 (🗣️ Talk) — If (reply) then (ping me) 22:51, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Tyw7/t Whoops, sorry! I was going through my watchlist when I saw that the OP had editred their original post and was now blocked as a vandalism-only account, when grabbing the diffs I neglected to properly restore it while keeping your response, my apologies. ^Thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 12:18, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

L3X1, ah right. No biggy. I just thought it was somehow could be considered vandalism --Tyw7 (🗣️ Talk) — If (reply) then (ping me) 13:25, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Peter Thiel

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Administrators' newsletter – September 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

Asterion • Crisco 1492 • KF • Kudpung • Liz • Randykitty • Spartaz

Optimist on the run → Voice of Clam

Interface administrator changes

Amorymeltzer • Mr. Stradivarius • MusikAnimal • MSGJ • TheDJ • Xaosflux

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.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:23, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

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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)